“A quarter of a century of struggle” of the Rola Weekly. “The great alliance” against the Jews.

In 1883, a new Polish weekly magazine, ‘Rola’, gathered around itself a group of journalists and writers who tried to overstep the liberal-conservative scheme of the political scene in the Kingdom of Poland. The founder of the periodical, Jan Jeleński and his colleagues did not hesitate to admit that their goal was to formulate a unified and convincing programme which would include social, economical, cultural and political elements. The journalists viewed these issues through their prejudice against Jews. This article focuses on the role of the weekly as a tool in the formation of the modern political antisemitic movement in the Kingdom of Poland. It shows which stereotypes were used by the authors of ‘Rola’, and particularly to what degree they were influenced by European anti-Jewish thought. This problem will be shown based on the analysis of the Polish self-image and the antisemitic image of the Jews.