Adam Dargiewicz is a PhD Candidate in modern history at the University of Münster, Germany (2023). He is a graduate of Utrecht University, History Department (2022). In his research, Adam focuses on the transnational role of concepts, metaphors, and discursive practices in shaping the nineteenth-century perception of the international peace and security, striving to relate central-eastern and western European perspectives.

Imagining “Bulwark of Europe” in the Nineteenth-Century International Relations: The Case of Duchy of Warsaw (1807-1813/15)

Abstract: The metaphors of “barriers”, “bulwarks” or “buffers” are not merely appealing illustrations describing a position of states in the international arena. During the nineteenth century, they signified the creation of strategic spaces on the “edges” of the European state-system. “Bulwark of Europe” was a prominent example of an imagined borderland which was designed to be the first line of defence against politically or culturally constructed “outsiders” or “rulebreakers.” There was no single “Bulwark of Europe.” Its message was negotiated and transmitted among individuals with competing imaginaries of the European space. As part of the project investigating the broader functionality of the “bulwark” metaphor in international politics, this paper examines the case of the Duchy of Warsaw which sought to provide the necessary “balance” and “security” to the eastern borders of the First French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. By looking into contributions of Polish politicians, intellectuals, travellers and geographers, it draws a connection between a belief about the need of protecting the rule-based European space, and its translation into the realm of a political strategy. This research combines perspectives deriving from international history and IR-studies in tracing the usage of immaterial boundaries (and their essentializing qualities) through which historical actors securitised their own national, regional or imperial aspirations. Such an analytical goal will be fulfilled by applying historical semantics towards “conceptual delimitations” with an intent to display the constructed nature of modern (geo)political vocabulary.