The Positivist period lasted until the turn of the 20th century and the advent of the modernist Young Poland movement.
In their polemics over forms of resistance, published between 1868 and 1873 in Przegląd tygodniowy (The Weekly Review) and Prawda (Truth), they – often reluctantly and only partially – discarded the literary stylistics of the earlier Polish Romantic period.
They believed that independence, if it was to be regained, must be won gradually, by "building from the foundations" (by creating a material infrastructure and educating the populace), and through "organic work" that would enable Polish society to function as a fully integrated "social organism" (a concept borrowed from a number of European thinkers, including Herbert Spencer).
[2] A leading Polish philosopher of the period, the journalist, short-story writer, and novelist Bolesław Prus (author of the novels The Outpost, The Doll, The New Woman, and Pharaoh, and of the prescient 1873 study, On Discoveries and Inventions), advised his compatriots that Poland's place in the world would be determined by the Polish people’s contributions to the world's scientific, technological, economic, and cultural advances.
[3] Societal concerns addressed by the Polish Positivists included the securing of equal rights for all members of society, including peasants and women; the assimilation of Poland's Jewish minority; the elimination of illiteracy resulting from closure of Polish schools by the partitioning powers; and defense of the Polish population in German-ruled Poland against Germany's Kulturkampf and displacing of Poles with German settlers.