SUMMARY:

Relationship between international relations and religion still awaits proper historical investigation among other themes of modern history.
Martin Schulze Wessel has taken the hypothesis of interconnection between the two in his analysis of Chancellor Bismarck’s “Kulturkampf”, which ensued after the formation of the German Reich. Traditionally, historians viewed “Kulturkampf” as a result of internal situation in a new state. In his article Schulze-Wessel suggests that the policy of Kulturkampf should be approached in terms of its continuity with the policy of Prussia (Germany) toward Russia and Poland. The author focuses his study on the period between the end of the seventeenth century and the last quarter of the nineteenth century in which complex relations between the states of Germany, Poland and Russia developed. The article examines the annexation of Polish territory by Prussia and the Russian empire, the bilateral relations between Prussia and Russia, and the ethno-confessional conflict that was underpinned by the political and cultural processes on the territory of borderland.