In the article the author muses upon differences between concepts of progressiveness and conservatism, about how 19th century publicists understood them. Narrowing the field of considerations, he focuses on so called “peasants’ issue”, social changes in the province after the abolition of serfdom, attitudes towards them as the representatives of classes commonly seen as conservative, aristocratic and land gentry. The confrontation of their views with the ideas shared by positivists, in this case of Stefania Ulanowska, Aleksander Świętochowski and Julian Ochorowicz, leads to the conclusion that classification into progressive or conservative is problematic and artificial, which was already observed in second half of the 19th century.