The author discusses the broad subject of research on Polish religious culture in the 19th and early 20th centuries. He draws attention to the need to take into account the pan-European context in the analysis of its changes and historical evolutions. It highlights a key topic necessary to understand the entire complexity of Polish religiosity - the period of national captivity, lasting nearly a century and a half (from the end of the 18th century to the First World War). It left a deep mark on Polish religiosity and gave it specific features that persist in Polish religious culture to this day. This 19th-century specificity of Polish religiosity crystallized in the context of specific political, cultural and social conditions, and was the result of long-term historical evolution.