Solidarism vs Marxism: “Legal Views of Slaves and Roman Proletarians” by Borys Łapicki Revisited

Abstract

In the history of Polish Romanist studies in the period of the Polish People’s Republic, Borys Łapicki attracts considerable attention due to his controversial monograph Legal Views of Slaves and Roman Proletarians from 1955. It seems that the work is not quite rightly treated as a breach in the career of the Romanist from Lodz. Reasons for this uniqueness are usually sought in a complicated biography of the author which is treated as a kind of a “sign of the times”. Meanwhile, reviews of the work published right after it had been issued unequivocally showed that the dogmatic Marxism was in a way assessed as an adaptation by Łapicki, trying to reconcile it with the ideas of solidarism he had long accepted and belief in ethical values of the Roman law. Loyalty to these ideas made this amalgam of barely reconcilable concepts (class struggle in the light of harmony based on freedom and brotherhood) impossible to be accepted. It seems that this eclectic formula was never imposed by anyone on Łapicki – it was not a manifestation of the author’s conformism or opportunism. Despite very severe criticism, he did not abandon it even in the times when historical materialism left the dogmatic phase of its development. This article is a case study – a contribution to the studies on a broader problem of identity and attitude of Polish Romanists in the period of Stalinism.