Europe has always been a continent where all kinds of wars were fought, from civil to religious to international. They have been waged by powers aiming for hegemony, but also by smaller countries seeking to assert their claims manu militari. This has been the case especially since the late Middle Ages, when the civilisational development allowed for the emergence of better organised states with greater potential, including in terms of population and technology, which could be harnessed to the ‘war effort’. Wars became increasingly bloody and destructive, the Thirty Years' War being a grim example. And it was then, from the turn of the Middle Ages to the modern era, that plans for perpetual peace began to emerge, usually framed as a European federation, as this was to be the answer to the conflicts plaguing the nations of Europe. These projects were formulated by rulers and their advisors, diplomats, philosophers, thinkers; but also by dreamers.

A young naturalist from the University of Warsaw, born in 1799, should definitely be counted among the latter; he promulgated his Constitution for Europe in 1831, during the November Insurrection. In order to appreciate the originality of his idea, it is advisable to take a brief look at some of the earlier projects. One must start with the union of Christian states (rulers) proposed in 1462-1463 by the Bohemian King George of Poděbrady. The original inspiration for the plan - to which a senior official at the king's court and his advisor, Grenoble-born A. Marini has contributed heavily - was the threat coming from the Ottoman Empire encroaching on Europe. The intended principles of the union included renunciation of war, amicable settlement of disputes, joint punishment of those who violate the peace, and joint repudiation of the external threat. The union, within which the participating rulers were to be equal, was to be equipped with legislative, judicial, and political bodies, i.e. those making important decisions, as well as an administrative apparatus with its own officials. Decisions were to be reached by majority vote. The union was to have its own budget and insignia. It was to be formed by having individual rulers (states) join a founding treaty. It is worth noting that the project progressed into the stage of diplomatic negotiations and, for example, Casimir Jagiellon's Poland signed a corresponding treaty as early as 1462. King George's plan was perceived as anti-papal and anti-imperial (it undoubtedly sought to weaken the importance of the German Emperor and the Catholic Pope, with King George being a Hussite), and therefore provoked resistance at various European courts, resulting in its eventual collapse.

One equally mature proposal was the Grand Plan (Grand Dessein) proposed at the turn of the 16th/17th century by Maximilien, Duke of Sully (of the eponymous Loire château), minister and adviser to King Henry IV of France. In this case, the impetus for the proposal can be attributed to religious wars that were beginning to leave their bloody imprint on Europe at the time, not solely in France. According to his plan, Europe was to take the form of a ‘Very Christian Republic’ in which religious peace would be founded on the coexistence of the three Christian religions of Catholicism, Lutheranism and Calvinism. Duke de Sully's project had also an important geopolitical dimension. Europe was to be divided into 15 states as equal as possible in terms of area and power. This was to ensure a relative balance on the continent, i.e. to prevent the growing dominance of the Habsburgs. The union or federation considered by the Duke de Sully and King Henry IV was to be governed by one general council with judicial and administrative competences and seven specialised councils, dealing mainly with peacekeeping and amicable settlement of disputes. In the general council, five or six major European states (including Poland) were expected to have a dominant position. ‘The European Republic’ of de Sully was to be equipped with an international armed force, with internal functions (maintaining order) and external ones, used for wars against non-European enemies. These forces were to serve the ‘collective security’ of Europe at the time. Although the plan did not progress beyond the realm of ideas, it had a strong influence on subsequent reflections on how to ensure unity and peace in Europe.

Another proposal that deserves a mention at this point is the Project for Setting an Everlasting Peace in Europe, by Abbot Charles de Saint-Pierre. This plan arose from his experience of participating in the peace negotiations at Utrecht (1712-1713), which ended the devastating War of the Spanish Succession. A few years later, Abbé de Saint-Pierre presented his treatise, the core of which is the establishment of a permanent and perpetual association between European sovereigns, as he considered the conflicts between them, and not between nations, to be the cause of wars. The founding principle of the association would be the prohibition of the use of force between sovereigns. Whoever were to violate the prohibition would be declared an enemy and a war would be waged against him, the costs of which he would have to cover. All matters of the association would be discussed and agreed within a joint body called the senate or congress. In the absence of unanimity, decisions could be taken by a ¾ majority. Sanctions could be applied to sovereigns not adhering to the rules and the will of the association. There would also be a prohibition on interfering in the affairs of other states, except for the assistance that could be given to a sovereign fighting rebels on their own territory (principle of legitimacy). In addition to principles and institutions, in his proposal Abbé de Saint-Pierre placed great emphasis on the role of trade and cooperation in other practical fields, as it should foster peaceful relations between European states.

There were many more such schemes, some of them very famous (I. Kant's project is not cited here as it sought to establish peace on a global scale), but the three mentioned above already permit identification of common elements found in most of them, from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment. The structure ensuring perpetual peace in Europe was to be federative, common law was to be established, a quasi-parliament and a tribunal to adjudicate disputes between states (sovereigns) were to be established, executive bodies with sectoral competences could be set up. Sometimes this federation (or union) was to be equipped with a shared armed force, at other times the idea of disarmament was proposed. As a rule, the geopolitical context of individual projects was clear. All in all, they were more or less models of subsequent collective security systems.

Polish approaches to European peace and unity (which were not numerous) until the collapse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the end of the 18th century were aligned with the mainstream European reflection on the subject. This was particularly true of King Stanisław Leszczyński’s memorandum, drawn up after his abdication from the Polish throne, when, as the reigning prince of Lorraine, he was well remembered by the people of the region (after 1736). His project envisaged establishing an alliance of several ‘republican states’, including England, Sweden, the Netherlands and Poland, acting under the leadership of France, the most powerful state in Europe at the time. As one can easily guess, such a truncated formula had little chance of securing the ‘universal peace’ it advocated. A member of the Piarist Order, Kajetan Skrzetuski, a professor at the Collegium Nobilium, modelled his Project for the Establishment of an Uninterrupted Peace in Europe on the ideas of Duke de Sully and Abbé de Saint Pierre. His ‘general confederation’ (in both versions, from 1775 and 1791) was intended to help Poland maintain its independence in the face of pressure from three powers - Russia, Prussia and Austria.

And here, already in what one might call a new era, a post-Napoleonic era, at a time when Europe is ruled by a concert of powers, when Poland had been eradicated from the political map of Europe for several decades, a young man in Warsaw presents the Draft Constitution for Europe as a legal act that would prevent war. Its author, Wojciech B. Jastrzębowski, also calls it a Treatise on the Eternal Alliance between Civilised Nations. His draft was written - as he himself puts it - in the Polish soldier's leisure time between the bloody battle of Olszynka Grochowska (February 1831), in which Jastrzębowski participated as a gunner, and the anniversary of the Constitution of 3 May. The events take place during the November Insurrection, an independence uprising of the Poles trying to overthrow the oppression of the Eastern despotism - Russia. There are several versions of his Treatise, or Constitution, and they were all submitted to the Royal Varsovian Society of Friends of Science from late April to 3 May 1831.

It is probably due to the fervour of the uprising, but also to Wojciech Jastrzębowski's spiritual and intellectual formation, that the text of his Treatise-Constitution is not written in the language of law or diplomacy, but rather resembles Adam Mickiewicz's Great Improvisation. For even though the author of the Constitution adheres to the ideas of the Enlightenment and is an accomplished researcher of objects and natural phenomena (personally, I dub him the Polish Humboldt), he himself belongs to a new era, even if he is not aware of it. It is the Romanticism, which does not acknowledge cognitive, material or geopolitical limitations. Nota bene, Jastrzębowski's Constitution was written before the Great Improvisation, nor do we find any discernible inspiration or emulation from earlier projects in it. It is not a project that ushers in a new architecture of European politics or international relations. We will not find an elaborate institutional structure there, nor guidance for arranging European geopolitics.

So let us first see what is there. The first Thought (or Article) of Wojciech Jastrzębowski's Constitution for Europe is that: ‘All men, and consequently all nations, are equal in the face of God and law’. The attributes of national and European laws ‘shall be humaneness and justice’ (Article 4). European laws will be made by a ‘Congress, consisting of plenipotentiaries elected by all nations’. Congress will also be ‘the guardian and executor of European laws’ (Articles 3 and 6). One of the key provisions of the Constitution is that ‘Existing hitherto geographical borders of countries (a main cause of bloodshed in Europe) will be abolished forever’ (Article 7). Further, Jastrzębowski states in his Constitution that ‘All nations belonging to the eternal alliance in Europe should be equally subject to the European laws’ (Article 12). The national parliament, Jastrzębowski postulates, should have the right to inform the European Congress of violations of national law by that nation's government (Article 21). In turn, the first duty of the Congress is to establish European laws ensuring that ‘Peace in Europe is stable and eternal’, ‘to prevent bloodshed’, and ‘put an end to barbarity’ (Article 32). And 'opposition of an autocratic authority against the nation’s accession to the eternal alliance entitles that nation to declare such an authority as unfriendly to it, illegal, and abiding by a barbarian, bloodthirsty system’ (Article 39). Any harm to the rights of one nation, ‘will be regarded as a harm to laws of the whole Europe’ (Article 42). According to Jastrzębowski's proposal, ‘every citizen of Europe’ may be called upon by Congress to ‘defence of laws of Europe and of its security’ (Article 48). The following articles explain how Europe should organise its security internally and in its external relations. In another version of the Constitution, Jastrzębowski states that ‘any weapons of war’ found on European soil would become the property of an allied Europe and would be deposited in places ‘designated by the European Congress for use when necessary to defend the rights and security of Europe’.

Since it is the nations that would be the participants in the alliance for everlasting peace, ‘the existence, independence and property of each nation will be subject to the particular care of European laws’ (Article 70). At the same time, ‘Each nation being a member of the alliance has the right to submit – through the medium of its plenipotentiaries – to the Congress drafts for an amendment of old [...] European law’ (Article 73). Jastrzębowski's Constitution also hinted to the European nations that whereas in the past wars had been the main source of glory of nations, from now on (from the conclusion of the alliance) only ‘sciences, perfection of laws, good government and industry’ would be the sole objects of glory among the European nations (Article 75). One could say that even today, almost 200 years after Jastrzębowski's Constitution, not all European nations have fully embraced this thought. In its last article, Jastrzębowski’s Constitution abolishes the death penalty: ‘no offence shall be punishable by death’, although criminals are to be imprisoned for up to fifty years (Article 77). What is unique about Jastrzębowski's proposal is that it does not have a national undertone. Although written by an ardent Polish patriot, it is impossible to guess the nationality of the author when reading – the author could have been a Frenchman, a German, an Italian, but also a Czech or a Pole. The author feels, thinks and writes as a European.

As we know, the text of Jastrzębowski's ‘great European improvisation’ remained almost completely unknown until modern times. It was studied by a handful of people, usually researchers of the thought of that era. In the post-insurrection Russian partition, newspaper or pamphlet editions of ‘The leisure time of a Polish soldier or thoughts on eternal alliance among civilized nations’ were immediately confiscated. Besides, the tsarist censors or police could not have liked a text signed by ‘the secretary of a gang of the most insane Polish rebels’, as Jastrzębowski signed his proclamation to his contemporaries, the Poles, but also to the Russians in power in that part of Poland. After the brief patriotic and romantic upheaval that was the November Insurrection, and which in the case of Wojciech Jastrzębowski resulted in the Constitution for Europe, its author returned to his first vocation. After some problems arising from his participation in the Insurrection, after a while Jastrzębowski managed to secure a job as a professor of nature (botany, zoology, physics, mineralogy) at the Agricultural and Forestry Institute in the then-suburb of Marymont, near Warsaw. By the way, for his work in this field, Jastrzębowski should be considered the patron of Polish environmentalists. Devoting himself entirely to his naturalist passions, he never returned to his thoughts on the freedom of people and nations, and on the foundations of peace in Europe.

It is good that in recent years communities and people have emerged who chose to recall a somewhat forgotten prophet of a free, peaceful and united Europe. These include, in particular, the W.B. Jastrzębowski Foundation ‘We, Citizens of the EU’, founded by the eminent actor Olgierd Łukaszewicz, the Warsaw Museum of Independence and the Central Archives of Historical Records. Olgierd Łukaszewicz himself, by the way, was the author of the magnificent staging of Jastrzębowski's Constitution, performed in open air on the escarpment of Warsaw's Powiśle (at the foot of the Ujazdowski Castle), in July 2016. Which, incidentally, confirms that Jastrzębowski's text is a kind of romantic grand improvisation rather than a philosopher's or diplomat's dry treatise. It would also be worthwhile for Jastrzębowski and his Constitution for Europe to be the ‘calling card’ of Poland's EU Presidency in the first half of 2025. After all, more elements of the contemporary European Community come directly from the work of this utopian dreamer than from outlines of treaties written from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment by experienced diplomats, lawyers, or royal ministers and advisors. In his dream of Europe, Jastrzębowski proved to be a greater realist than them. In his supposed utopia, as his Constitution was regarded, he was free of geopolitical considerations, evident in many of these earlier projects or even in Duke Adam Czartoryski's plan announced in Paris in 1830. Geopolitical developments quickly stripped such plans of their realism. Jastrzębowski paid little attention to institutional details. Hence, he was able to focus on what was important for people and nations in the perspective of peace. Both were to owe their freedom and peace to being thralls only of the collectively enacted laws, and not of a brutal despot, from whichever direction, even one whose troops the Poles had fought in the November Insurrection.

At least eight of the ideas contained in his draft are worth pointing out, as they have been materialised in the construction of today's European Union, in its treaty principles and in its everyday practice. First, that the peoples of Europe (their representatives) would jointly enact European law, which everyone would be equally subject to. Second, this makes the people of our continent European citizens (the concept of European citizenship). Third, a common institution - the Congress - would be established, bringing together representatives of all the ‘civilised nations’, i.e. the members of this anti-war alliance. Fourth, the nations of the alliance would renounce war, whereby they would become civilised nations. Fifth, borders between the nations of Europe were to be abolished. Sixth, disarmament under common control was to be effected, and weapons were to be deposited in several locations, for the purpose of defending Europe against external enemies (somewhat reminiscent of the Schuman Plan, the aim of which was to take the war-related industries under control). Seventh, sanctions would be imposed for non-compliance with European law. Eighth, outlawing the death penalty. And ninth, if a nation felt that its rights were being violated by a national authority, it could complain to Congress. United in this way, Europe was to be a promoter of peace through, among other things, European peace education.

Thus, on one hand, Jastrzębowski's Constitution for Europe is fantastically utopian and unrealistic, as it completely ignored the geopolitical realities of a Europe of the concert of powers. On the other hand, however, it is remarkably prophetic as, by ‘leapfrogging’ several eras of modern Europe, it painted a vision closely resembling what the European Union has become in the lives of the people and nations of the old continent. It took a lot of bloodshed and devastating dramas in the decades following World War II for the builders of a united Europe to get the chance to realise the visions described earlier, including that of Wojciech Jastrzębowski. Admittedly, due to the Cold War, Poland and the Poles were long denied the opportunity to participate in this process, but history waited for them. We can contribute to the construction of a peaceful and united Europe, dreamt of by great Poles during the Partitions. Let us not waste this opportunity.