This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. (February 2024) |
Prometheism or Prometheanism (Polish: Prometeizm) was a political project initiated by Józef Piłsudski, a principal statesman of the Second Polish Republic from 1918 to 1935. Its aim was to weaken the Russian Empire and its successor states, including the Soviet Union, by supporting nationalist independence movements among the major non-Russian peoples that lived within the borders of Russia and the Soviet Union.[1]
According to the information collected by American intelligence, "Prometheus" was created in Turkey by "various Russian and Caucasian peoples, mostly from those countries which had enjoyed independence from 1917-1923". Prometheus had to leave Turkey after Russian-Turkish treaty in 1921 and thus moved to Warsaw. French review "Promethee", published between 1927 and 1940 by Georgian journalist Giorgi Gvazava and edited by Ukrainian politician prof. Oleksander Shulhyn and his son Rostyslav, was considered to be the "mouthpiece of the Prometheus organisation in Poland". Other important member of "Prometheus" included Azerbaijan politician Mahammad Amin Rasulzade, Kazakh politician Mirjaqyp Dulatuly (Mir Yakub) and Cafer Seydamet Qırımer (member of Crimean National Government) and professor of Ukrainian Free University– Roman Smal-Stocki. [2][3][4]
Between the World Wars, Prometheism and Piłsudski's other concept, that of an "Intermarium federation", constituted two complementary geopolitical strategies for him and for some of his political heirs.[5]