National Tradition or Western Pattern?

Book excerpt: In the history of the development of Polish law and administration, the short period of the constitutional Duchy of Warsaw, and next of the Kingdom of Poland, was a special time. This is because it was the only moment in the 19th century when the Polish elites gained an opportunity to concentrate their efforts on the organization of the modern state machinery. This book presents the process of restructuring the administrative structures following the collapse of the Napoleonic Duchy of Warsaw and before the establishment of the Kingdom of Poland in 1815. The author focuses on the approach of the Polish elites to the nascent modern state, increasing importance of administration within it and to the young Polish bureaucrats.