ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to draw attention to Workers’ Defence Committee (KOR) as one of the most original cases of humanist outliers in Europe – one which deserves at least as much attention as the French Encyclopedists. It explores some questions which have been less central to existing analyses; questions which have to do with the study of morphology and efficacy of the “community of conscience”. The friendship between Jacek Kuron and Adam Michnik – the two intellectual virtuosos of KOR – was built less on a harmony of souls than on endless arguments about ideas, books and strategies of action. KOR’s “republic of friendship” was a bohemian community sharing things, money and food. The dream of deliverance came true, though in crooked ways. Michnik’ pithy diagnosis – Solidarity was “KOR’s child, albeit an illegitimate one” – is revealing.
