SUMMARY:

This article studies the process of drafting the Polish constitution adopted in 1921 in respect to the management of ethnocultural diversity in a highly heterogeneous and politically divided postimperial polity. Central to the study are the processes of the diffusion of constitutional ideas and the accommodation of political pressure from outside the country by domestic legislation. This process involved not only the adaptation of foreign influences but also their manipulation in the interests of the prevailing political model of the Polish nation-state. Further problematizing the process of accommodating minorities was the task of integrating the three former Polish partitions, each bearing the legacy of its host imperial regime, into a single polity with universal legislation. What was seen as a possible solution in one part of the country was fraught with unintended and undesirable consequences if applied in other parts.