The rise of the “middle class”: The implied reader of the Opiekun Domowy under the editorship of Adam Mieczyński (1865–1868)

Abstract

This article attempts to reconstruct the implied reader and the social program that underpins the texts in the first four years' volumes of Opiekun Domowy [The Home Guardian] (1865–1868). First, the article presents the magazine's origins and the profile of its first editor‑in‑chief Adam Mieczyński, who committed himself to the task of, as he put it, 'the enlightenment of the middle class, radicalised during the January Uprising'. The article then examines the idea of responsible care ('opieka'), i.e. a form of social engagement, advocated by members of the moderate intelligentsia who supported the magazine. In Mieczyński's correspondence, programmatic texts and personal columns it is concretized as a blend of progressive goals and paternalistic rhetoric. In effect, the article concludes, while the nature of the care, suggested by the magazine's title, is inextricably patriarchal, its scope is by no means narrow. It comprises education, improvement of the material and moral condition of the new 'middle class', and a religiously‑sanctioned work ethic, which involves a quasi‑paternal responsibility as well as respect for tradi- tional forms of patronage and the status quo.