ABSTRACT
Feliks Koneczny was a Polish conservative historian and philosopher of the history of the first half of the 20th century, who developed an original theory of civilizations. His writings are based on a local, Central European historical experience and Polish intellectual tradition but with a claim to universality. He offered a diagnosis of a crisis of European culture and proposed a program of cultural revival. The beginning of the 20th century was rich in attempts to conceptualize the relationships between different cultures. The development of social sciences brought an end to the unilinear evolutionary approaches. The cultural differences turned out to be stronger and more enduring. Koneczny's theory was a significant contribution to Polish conservative thought. He helped to modernize conservatism and to transform it into a modern ideology, not limited to certain social classes. His thought has little influence on liberals and the left, because of the explicit anti-Semitism, nationalism, and anti-modernism.
