His work begins with this exhortation: 'Forgive the author's poor style, as he is a Frenchman only by sentiment, but read on to the end, and seek, in these disparate and unorganised thoughts, the enigma of our misfortunes.

[17] It was underscored by a form of absolutism, born probably out of his deep commitment to Catholicism, combined with a deliberate nod to the absolutist authorities in Saint Petersburg.

It is not yet known whether it influenced, however indirectly, the architects of the post-war European Common Market, people like Robert Schuman from Metz or Jean Monnet, seventy years after he wrote down his economic design for a unified Europe.

As commented by his recent editor, Prof. Żurawski vel Grajewski in the postface, Szymanowski's contribution was part of a wider 19th c. European concern about an ailing Europe that felt threatened by social unrest and the Mahdi.

[18] From his remote exile, as Korwin Szymanowski states throughout his writings, he corresponded with unnamed influential political figures in Paris[20] – he had possibly met them at school – and with mandarins in the ministry of finance in St Petersburg, in an attempt to bring them round to his macro-economic pragmatism.

[21] Through church and family connections, he was able to make a rare visit to France and attend the 1890 Paris Antislavery Conference convened by Cardinal Lavigerie.

[23] [24] The Polish historian Radosław Żurawski vel Grajewski makes a case for Korwin Szymanowski benefiting greatly from the presence and contacts in Paris of his wife's uncle, the émigré activist and musician, Théodore Jełowicki (1828–1905).

They are allegorical works in marked contrast to his economic and political polemics, drawing on his religious preoccupations yet informed by his personal dilemmas and those of his nation deprived of statehood for over a century.

[25] The second work tells the heroic story of a Ruthenian princess, Sophia Olelkovich Radziwill, who was declared a saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church in 1983.

His subtext seemed to be that Christian denominations, especially Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox should cooperate in the face of perceived common threats.