The situation in the kingdom of Poland. The Kingdom of Poland as part of the Russian Empire: history, dates, events. How Poles lived in the Russian Empire

POLAND. HISTORY since 1772
Partitions of Poland. First section. At the height of the Russian-Turkish War of 1768-1774, Prussia, Russia and Austria carried out the first partition of Poland. It was produced in 1772 and ratified by the Sejm under pressure from the occupiers in 1773. Poland ceded to Austria part of Pomerania and Kuyavia (excluding Gdansk and Torun) to Prussia; Galicia, Western Podolia and part of Lesser Poland; eastern Belarus and all lands north of the Western Dvina and east of the Dnieper went to Russia. The victors established a new constitution for Poland, which retained the "liberum veto" and an elective monarchy, and created a State Council of 36 elected members of the Sejm. The division of the country awakened social movement for reforms and national revival. In 1773, the Jesuit Order was dissolved and a commission on public education was created, the purpose of which was to reorganize the system of schools and colleges. The four-year Sejm (1788-1792), led by enlightened patriots Stanislav Malachovsky, Ignacy Potocki and Hugo Kollontai, adopted a new constitution on May 3, 1791. Under this constitution, Poland became a hereditary monarchy with a ministerial executive system and a parliament elected every two years. The principle of "liberum veto" and other harmful practices were abolished; cities received administrative and judicial autonomy, as well as representation in parliament; peasants, the power of the gentry over whom remained, were considered as a class under state protection; measures were taken to prepare for the abolition of serfdom and the organization of a regular army. The normal work of parliament and reforms became possible only because Russia was involved in a protracted war with Sweden, and Turkey supported Poland. However, the magnates who formed the Targowitz Confederation opposed the constitution, at the call of which Russian and Prussian troops entered Poland.

Second and third sections. On January 23, 1793, Prussia and Russia carried out the second partition of Poland. Prussia captured Gdansk, Torun, Greater Poland and Mazovia, and Russia captured most of Lithuania and Belarus, almost all of Volyn and Podolia. The Poles fought but were defeated, the reforms of the Four Year Diet were repealed, and the rest of Poland became a puppet state. In 1794, Tadeusz Kościuszko led a massive popular uprising that ended in defeat. The third partition of Poland, in which Austria participated, was carried out on October 24, 1795; after that, Poland as an independent state disappeared from the map of Europe.
Foreign rule. Grand Duchy of Warsaw. Although the Polish state ceased to exist, the Poles did not give up hope of restoring their independence. Each new generation fought, either by joining the opponents of the powers that divided Poland, or by starting uprisings. As soon as Napoleon I began his military campaigns against monarchical Europe, Polish legions were formed in France. Having defeated Prussia, Napoleon created in 1807 the Grand Duchy of Warsaw (1807-1815) from the territories captured by Prussia during the second and third partitions. Two years later, the territories that became part of Austria after the third partition were added to it. Miniature Poland, politically dependent on France, had a territory of 160 thousand square meters. km and 4350 thousand inhabitants. The creation of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw was considered by the Poles as the beginning of their complete liberation.
Territory that was part of Russia. After Napoleon's defeat, the Congress of Vienna (1815) approved the divisions of Poland with the following changes: Krakow was declared a free city-republic under the auspices of the three powers that divided Poland (1815-1848); the western part of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw was transferred to Prussia and became known as the Grand Duchy of Poznan (1815-1846); its other part was declared a monarchy (the so-called Kingdom of Poland) and annexed to Russian Empire. In November 1830, the Poles rebelled against Russia, but were defeated. Emperor Nicholas I abolished the constitution of the Kingdom of Poland and began repression. In 1846 and 1848 the Poles tried to organize uprisings, but failed. In 1863, a second uprising broke out against Russia, and after two years of partisan warfare, the Poles were again defeated. With the development of capitalism in Russia, the Russification of Polish society intensified. The situation improved somewhat after the 1905 revolution in Russia. Polish deputies sat in all four Russian Dumas (1905-1917), seeking autonomy for Poland.
Territories controlled by Prussia. In the territory under Prussian rule, intensive Germanization of the former Polish regions was carried out, the farms of Polish peasants were expropriated, and Polish schools were closed. Russia helped Prussia suppress the Poznań uprising of 1848. In 1863, both powers concluded the Alvensleben Convention on mutual assistance in the fight against the Polish national movement. Despite all the efforts of the authorities, at the end of the 19th century. the Poles of Prussia still represented a strong, organized national community.
Polish lands within Austria. In the Austrian Polish lands the situation was somewhat better. After the Krakow Uprising of 1846, the regime was liberalized and Galicia received administrative local control; schools, institutions and courts used Polish; Jagiellonian (in Krakow) and Lviv universities became all-Polish cultural centers; by the beginning of the 20th century. Polish political parties emerged (National Democratic, Polish Socialist and Peasant). In all three parts of divided Poland, Polish society actively opposed assimilation. Preservation of the Polish language and Polish culture has become main task the struggle waged by the intelligentsia, primarily poets and writers, as well as the clergy of the Catholic Church.
First World War. New opportunities to achieve independence. The First World War divided the powers that liquidated Poland: Russia fought with Germany and Austria-Hungary. This situation opened up life-changing opportunities for the Poles, but also created new difficulties. First, the Poles had to fight in opposing armies; secondly, Poland became the arena of battles between the warring powers; thirdly, disagreements between Polish political groups intensified. Conservative national democrats led by Roman Dmowski (1864-1939) considered Germany the main enemy and wanted the Entente to win. Their goal was to unite all Polish lands under Russian control and obtain autonomy status. Radical elements led by the Polish Socialist Party (PPS), on the contrary, viewed the defeat of Russia as the most important condition for achieving Polish independence. They believed that the Poles should create their own armed forces. A few years before the outbreak of World War I, Józef Piłsudski (1867-1935), the radical leader of this group, began military training for Polish youth in Galicia. During the war he formed the Polish legions and fought on the side of Austria-Hungary.
Polish question. On August 14, 1914, Nicholas I, in an official declaration, promised after the war to unite the three parts of Poland into an autonomous state within the Russian Empire. However, in the fall of 1915, most of Russian Poland was occupied by Germany and Austria-Hungary, and on November 5, 1916, the monarchs of the two powers announced a manifesto on the creation of an independent Polish Kingdom in the Russian part of Poland. March 30, 1917, after February Revolution In Russia, the Provisional Government of Prince Lvov recognized Poland's right to self-determination. On July 22, 1917, Pilsudski, who fought on the side of the Central Powers, was interned, and his legions were disbanded for refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the emperors of Austria-Hungary and Germany. In France, with the support of the Entente powers, the Polish National Committee (PNC) was created in August 1917, led by Roman Dmowski and Ignacy Paderewski; The Polish army was also formed with commander-in-chief Józef Haller. On January 8, 1918, US President Wilson demanded the creation of an independent Polish state with access to the Baltic Sea. In June 1918, Poland was officially recognized as a country fighting on the side of the Entente. On October 6, during the period of disintegration and collapse of the Central Powers, the Council of Regency of Poland announced the creation of an independent Polish state, and on November 14 transferred full power to Pilsudski in the country. By this time, Germany had already capitulated, Austria-Hungary had collapsed, and there was a civil war in Russia.
Formation of the state. New country faced great difficulties. Cities and villages lay in ruins; there were no connections in the economy, which for a long time developed within the framework of three different states; Poland had neither its own currency nor government agencies; finally, its borders were not defined and agreed upon with its neighbors. Nevertheless, state building and economic recovery proceeded at a rapid pace. After the transition period, when the socialist cabinet was in power, on January 17, 1919, Paderewski was appointed prime minister, and Dmowski was appointed head of the Polish delegation at the Versailles Peace Conference. On January 26, 1919, elections to the Sejm were held, the new composition of which approved Pilsudski as head of state.
A question about boundaries. The western and northern borders of the country were determined at the Versailles Conference, by which Poland was given part of Pomerania and access to the Baltic Sea; Danzig (Gdansk) received the status of a "free city". At the conference of ambassadors on July 28, 1920, the southern border was agreed upon. The city of Cieszyn and its suburb Cesky Cieszyn were divided between Poland and Czechoslovakia. Fierce disputes between Poland and Lithuania over Vilno (Vilnius), an ethnically Polish but historically Lithuanian city, ended with its occupation by the Poles on October 9, 1920; annexation to Poland was approved on February 10, 1922 by a democratically elected regional assembly.
On April 21, 1920, Piłsudski entered into an alliance with the Ukrainian leader Petliura and launched an offensive to liberate Ukraine from the Bolsheviks. On May 7, the Poles took Kyiv, but on June 8, pressed by the Red Army, they began to retreat. At the end of July, the Bolsheviks were on the outskirts of Warsaw. However, the Poles managed to defend the capital and push back the enemy; this ended the war. The subsequent Treaty of Riga (March 18, 1921) represented a territorial compromise for both sides and was officially recognized by a conference of ambassadors on March 15, 1923.
Internal position. One of the first post-war events in the country was the adoption of a new constitution on March 17, 1921. She established a republican system in Poland, established a bicameral (Sejm and Senate) parliament, proclaimed freedom of speech and organization, and equality of citizens before the law. However, the internal situation of the new state was difficult. Poland was in a state of political, social and economic instability. The Sejm was politically fragmented due to the many parties and political groups represented in it. Constantly changing government coalitions were unstable, and the executive branch as a whole was weak. There were tensions with national minorities, who made up a third of the population. The Locarno Treaties of 1925 did not guarantee the security of Poland's western borders, and the Dawes Plan contributed to the restoration of German military-industrial potential. Under these conditions, on May 12, 1926, Pilsudski carried out a military coup and established a “sanitation” regime in the country; Until his death on May 12, 1935, he directly or indirectly controlled all power in the country. Communist Party was banned, and political trials with long prison sentences became commonplace. As German Nazism strengthened, restrictions were introduced on the grounds of anti-Semitism. On April 22, 1935, a new constitution was adopted, which significantly expanded the power of the president, limiting the rights political parties and the powers of parliament. The new constitution did not receive the approval of the opposition political parties, and the struggle between them and the Piłsudski regime continued until the outbreak of World War II.
Foreign policy. The leaders of the new Polish Republic tried to secure their state by pursuing a policy of non-alignment. Poland did not join the Little Entente, which included Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Romania. On January 25, 1932, a non-aggression pact was concluded with the USSR.
After Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in January 1933, Poland failed to establish allied relations with France, while Great Britain and France concluded a “pact of agreement and cooperation” with Germany and Italy. After this, on January 26, 1934, Poland and Germany concluded a non-aggression pact for a period of 10 years, and soon the validity of a similar agreement with the USSR was extended. In March 1936, after Germany's military occupation of the Rhineland, Poland again unsuccessfully tried to conclude an agreement with France and Belgium on Poland's support for them in the event of war with Germany. In October 1938, simultaneously with the annexation of the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany, Poland occupied the Czechoslovak part of the Cieszyn region. In March 1939, Hitler occupied Czechoslovakia and made territorial claims to Poland. On March 31, Great Britain and on April 13, France guaranteed the territorial integrity of Poland; In the summer of 1939, Franco-British-Soviet negotiations began in Moscow aimed at containing German expansion. Soviet Union in these negotiations, he demanded the right to occupy the eastern part of Poland and at the same time entered into secret negotiations with the Nazis. On August 23, 1939, a German-Soviet non-aggression pact was concluded, the secret protocols of which provided for the division of Poland between Germany and the USSR. Having ensured Soviet neutrality, Hitler freed his hands. On September 1, 1939, World War II began with an attack on Poland.
Government in exile. The Poles, who, despite promises of military assistance from France and Great Britain (both of them declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939), could not contain the unexpected invasion of powerful motorized German armies. The situation became hopeless after Soviet troops attacked Poland from the east on September 17. The Polish government and the remnants of the armed forces crossed the border into Romania, where they were interned. The Polish government in exile was headed by General Wladyslaw Sikorski. A new Polish army, navy and air force were formed in France total number 80 thousand people. The Poles fought on the side of France until its defeat in June 1940; then the Polish government moved to Great Britain, where it reorganized the army, which later fought in Norway, North Africa and Western Europe. In the Battle of Britain in 1940, Polish pilots destroyed more than 15% of all German aircraft shot down. In total, more than 300 thousand Poles served abroad in the Allied armed forces.
German occupation. The German occupation of Poland was particularly brutal. Hitler included part of Poland into the Third Reich, and transformed the remaining occupied territories into a General Government. All industrial and agricultural production in Poland was subordinated to the military needs of Germany. Polish higher educational establishments were closed and the intelligentsia were persecuted. Hundreds of thousands of people were forced into forced labor or imprisoned in concentration camps. Polish Jews were subjected to particular cruelty, who were initially concentrated in several large ghettos. When the leaders of the Reich made the “final solution” to the Jewish question in 1942, Polish Jews were deported to death camps. The largest and most notorious Nazi death camp in Poland was the camp near the city of Auschwitz, where more than 4 million people died.
The Polish people offered both civil disobedience and military resistance to the Nazi occupiers. The Polish Home Army became the strongest resistance movement in Nazi-occupied Europe. When the deportation of Warsaw Jews to death camps began in April 1943, the Warsaw ghetto (350 thousand Jews) rebelled. After a month of hopeless fighting without any outside help, the uprising was crushed. The Germans destroyed the ghetto, and the surviving Jewish population was deported to the Treblinka extermination camp.
Polish-Soviet Treaty of July 30, 1941. After the German attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the Polish emigration government, under British pressure, entered into an agreement with the Soviet Union. Under this agreement they restored diplomatic relations between Poland and the USSR; the Soviet-German pact regarding the division of Poland was annulled; all prisoners of war and deported Poles were subject to release; The Soviet Union provided its territory for the formation of the Polish army. However, the Soviet government did not fulfill the terms of the agreement. It refused to recognize the pre-war Polish-Soviet border and released only part of the Poles who were in Soviet camps.
On April 26, 1943, the Soviet Union broke off diplomatic relations with the Polish government in exile, protesting against the latter's appeal to the International Red Cross to investigate the brutal murder of 10 thousand Polish officers interned in 1939 in Katyn. Subsequently, the Soviet authorities formed the core of the future Polish communist government and army in the Soviet Union. In November-December 1943, at a conference of three powers in Tehran (Iran), between Soviet leader J.V. Stalin, American President F. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister W. Churchill, an agreement was reached that the eastern border of Poland should pass along the line Curzon (it approximately corresponded to the border drawn in accordance with the 1939 agreement between the German and Soviet governments).
Lublin government. In January 1944, the Red Army crossed the border of Poland, pursuing retreating German troops, and on July 22, the Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKNO) was created in Lublin with the support of the USSR. On August 1, 1944, the underground armed forces of the Home Army in Warsaw, under the leadership of General Tadeusz Komorowski, began an uprising against the Germans. The Red Army, which was at that moment on the outskirts of Warsaw on the opposite bank of the Vistula, suspended its offensive. After 62 days of desperate fighting, the uprising was crushed and Warsaw was almost completely destroyed. On January 5, 1945, the PKNO in Lublin was reorganized into the Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland.
At the Yalta Conference (February 4-11, 1945), Churchill and Roosevelt officially recognized the inclusion of eastern Poland into the USSR, agreeing with Stalin that Poland would receive compensation at the expense of German territories in the west. In addition, the allies anti-Hitler coalition agreed that non-communists would be included in the Lublin government, and then free elections would be held in Poland. Stanisław Mikolajczyk, who resigned as prime minister of the emigration government, and other members of his cabinet joined the Lublin government. On July 5, 1945, after the victory over Germany, it was recognized by Great Britain and the United States as the Provisional Government of National Unity of Poland. The government in exile, which at that time was headed by the leader of the Polish Socialist Party, Tomasz Arciszewski, was dissolved. In August 1945, at the Potsdam Conference, it was agreed that the southern part East Prussia and German territories east of the Oder and Neisse rivers are transferred to Polish control. The Soviet Union also provided Poland with 15% of the $10 billion in reparations that defeated Germany had to pay.

The Polish state ceased to exist in 1795, when it was divided between Austria, Prussia and Russia. Lithuania, Western Belarus, Western Volyn and the Duchy of Courland, which was a vassal state of Poland, went to Russia.

In 1807, after France’s victory over Prussia, on the part of Polish territory that belonged to it, Napoleon formed a new state - the Principality of Warsaw, to which in 1809 part of the Polish lands that were part of Austria was annexed. The Duchy of Warsaw was a constitutional monarchy. The Prince of Warsaw, on the basis of a union with the Kingdom of Saxony, was a Saxon king dependent on France. The Duchy of Warsaw took part in the war of 1812-1814. on the side of Napoleonic France.

At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Alexander I, who believed that Russia, as a victorious country, should receive new lands and secure its western borders, achieved the inclusion of most of the territory of the Principality of Warsaw into the Russian Empire. Austria. Prussia and Russia came to an agreement that the Principality of Warsaw would be transformed into the Kingdom of Poland and would receive a new constitution, according to which the Russian Emperor would become the Tsar of Poland, the head of the executive branch of the Polish state. Thus, the new Polish state was part of the Russian Empire on the basis of a union.

According to the Constitution of the Kingdom of Poland, the Russian emperor appointed his governor to it. The position of Secretary of State for Affairs of the Kingdom of Poland was established. The legislative body was the Sejm, elected by direct elections by all classes on the basis of property qualifications.

All participants in the war with Russia on the side of Napoleon received an amnesty and had the right to enter service in the state apparatus and in the army of the Kingdom of Poland. The commander of the Polish army was appointed by the Russian emperor as the Tsar of Poland. Many subjects of the Russian emperor were dissatisfied with the fact that the defeated Poles who participated in the war on the side of Napoleon received more rights than the victors.

Having become part of the Russian Empire, maintaining the validity of its laws, administration, and having a legislative body, Poland simultaneously gained access to the Russian, and through Russia, to the Asian market for its goods. In order to reduce anti-Russian sentiments among the Polish nobility and bourgeoisie, customs benefits were established for Polish goods. Many products of Polish industry were subject to a customs duty of 3%, while Russian ones were subject to 15%, despite the fact that “Russian manufacturers screamed against such a procedure.” Kornilov A.A. Russian course XIX history century. M., 1993. P. 171

The economic development of Poland and the growing influence of the national bourgeoisie strengthened the desire for complete political independence and the restoration of the Polish sovereign state within the borders that existed before its first partition in 1772. In 1830, an uprising began in Poland, the main force of which was the army of the Kingdom of Poland. The Polish Sejm announced the deprivation of the Russian emperor of the Polish crown, thereby breaking the union between Poland and the Russian Empire.

After the suppression of the uprising by Russian troops, Emperor Nicholas I issued the “Organic Status” in 1832, which abolished the Constitution of the Kingdom of Poland of 1815 and liquidated the Sejm, the Polish army. The Kingdom of Poland - this “internal abroad”, as it was called in the Russian Empire, was liquidated. Instead, the Warsaw General Government was formed. Field Marshal I. F. Paskevich, who received the title of Prince of Warsaw, was demonstratively appointed as viceroy of the new General Government.

Of the state institutions provided for by the Constitution of the Kingdom of Poland of 1815, only the Polish State Council continued to operate, which became a kind of information and advisory institution under the State Council of the Russian Empire. But in 1841, during the preparation of the new “Regulations on the State Council of the Russian Empire,” it was abolished. Since 1857, the Warsaw governorate began to be divided administratively not into voivodships, as before, but into provinces. Certain privileges for the local nobility and tax breaks for industry were preserved, which contributed to the further socio-economic development of the former Kingdom of Poland, incorporated into the Russian Empire.

So, in the first half of the 19th century. The territory of the Russian Empire increased by almost 20%. This was due not so much to economic goals as. for example, in the case of the British Empire, but military-political tasks, the desire to ensure the security of their borders. The policy of the Russian administration in the annexed territories was based on their military-strategic significance and was aimed at their socio-economic development, and not at using the resources of the new territories for the development of the central provinces of Russia. See: Ananyin B., Pravilova E. The imperial factor in the Russian economy // Russian Empire in comparative perspective. M., 2004. S. 236-237.

In the conditions of the destruction of the Ottoman and Persian empires, some of the peoples they conquered voluntarily became part of the Russian Empire.

Management of annexed, conquered peoples, their legal status the empire was built taking them into account socio-economic, legal, religious and other features and was diverse, although it tended towards unification and the extension of the principles of administrative management and laws of the Russian Empire to them.

In 1772, the first partition of Poland took place between Austria, Prussia and Russia. May 3, 1791 so-called The four-year Sejm (1788-1792) adopted the Constitution of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

In 1793 - the second partition, ratified by the Grodno Sejm, the last Sejm of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; Belarus and Right-Bank Ukraine went to Russia, Gdansk and Torun went to Prussia. The election of Polish kings was abolished.

In 1795, after the third partition, the Polish state ceased to exist. Western Ukraine (without Lvov) and Western Belarus, Lithuania, Courland went to Russia, Warsaw went to Prussia, Krakow and Lublin went to Austria.

After the Congress of Vienna, Poland was again divided. Russia received the Kingdom of Poland with Warsaw, Prussia received the Grand Duchy of Poznan, and Krakow became a separate republic. The Krakow Republic ("the free, independent and strictly neutral city of Krakow and its district") was annexed by Austria in 1846.

In 1815, Poland received a Constitutional Charter. On February 26, 1832, the Organic Statute was approved. The Russian emperor was crowned Tsar of Poland.

At the end of 1815, with the adoption of the Constitutional Charter of the Kingdom of Poland, Polish flags were approved:

• Naval standard of the Tsar of Poland (that is, the Russian Emperor);

A yellow cloth with an image of a black double-headed eagle under three crowns, holding four sea charts in its paws and beaks. On the eagle's chest is a crowned ermine mantle with the small coat of arms of Poland - a silver crowned eagle on a scarlet field.

• Palace standard of the Tsar of Poland;

A white cloth with the image of a black double-headed eagle under three crowns, holding a scepter and orb in its paws. On the eagle's chest is a crowned ermine mantle with the small coat of arms of Poland - a silver crowned eagle on a scarlet field.

• Flag of the military courts of the Kingdom of Poland.

A white flag with a blue St. Andrew's cross and a red canton, which depicts the coat of arms of Poland - a silver crowned eagle on a scarlet field.

In Polish flag literature, the latter flag is called “the flag of Polish Black Sea trading companies of the 18th century.” However, this statement raises very serious doubts. Most likely in in this case we are dealing with falsification. The fact is that the St. Andrew's flag with the eagle was used by Polish emigrants as a national flag. Due to the very difficult relations between Russia and Poland, it was extremely unpleasant for Polish nationalists to realize that the national flag of the Poles was essentially the occupation Russian flag. As a result, the myth about “Polish trading companies” was born.

Other official flags of Poland from the time it was in the Russian Empire are not known.

The Kingdom of Poland (Polish: Królestwo Polskie) is a territory in Europe that was in union with the Russian Empire from 1815 to 1915.



The part of Poland included in the Russian Empire did not have a single name. Until the 1860s, the name “Kingdom of Poland” was more often used in legislation, and “Poland” was rarely used. In the 1860s, these names began to be replaced by the phrases “provinces of the Kingdom of Poland” and “provinces of the Privislensky”. On March 5, 1870, by order of Alexander II, it was intended to call Russian Poland “provinces of the Kingdom of Poland,” but in a number of articles of the Code of Laws of the Russian Empire the name “Kingdom of Poland” was retained. Since 1887, the most used phrases have been “provinces of the Vistula region”, “Privislinsky provinces” and “Privislinsky region”, and in January 1897 Nicholas II issued an order by which the use of the names “Kingdom of Poland” and “provinces of the Kingdom of Poland” was limited cases emergency, although these names were never removed from the Code of Laws.
The Poles ironically called the Kingdom of Poland “Kongresówka” (Polish: Kongresówka, from Królestwo Kongresowe).
The Kingdom of Poland occupied the central part of Poland: Warsaw, Lodz, Kalisz, Czestochowa, Lublin, Suwalki. Area 127 thousand km².

Reign of Alexander I

Pursuing Napoleon's retreating troops, the Russian army occupied almost the entire Grand Duchy of Warsaw at the end of February 1813. Krakow, Thorn, Czestochowa, Zamosc and Modlin surrendered a little later. Thus, the state created by Napoleon actually found itself in the hands of Russia, but its fate still depended on the relationship between the powers. This state was going through difficult times. Requisitions for the needs of the occupying army of 380,000 people exhausted it. Emperor Alexander I established a temporary supreme council to manage the affairs of the duchy, headed by Governor-General V. S. Lansky. Command of the army was entrusted to Field Marshal Barclay de Tolly. Polish affairs were concentrated in the hands of Count Arakcheev, which sufficiently determines general character management.
Despite the promised amnesty and contrary to the wishes of the Governor-General, citizens were arrested and deported only on the basis of denunciations. At the beginning of 1814, Polish society was revived by the hope that its lot would improve. The emperor eased the billets, cut taxes, and allowed the formation of a corps of Polish soldiers under the command of General Dombrowski. The organization of the army was led by Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich. Later, the emperor formed a civil committee that proposed replacing the Napoleonic Code with a new Polish code, giving the peasants land and improving finances.
Meanwhile, at the Congress of Vienna, which was reworking the map of Europe in a new way, the duchy gave rise to strife that almost turned into a new war. Alexander I wanted to annex the entire Duchy of Warsaw and even other lands that were once part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to his empire. Austria saw this as a danger to itself. On January 3, 1815, a secret alliance was concluded between Austria, England and France to counteract Russia and Prussia, which had become closer to each other. The Russian emperor compromised: he abandoned Krakow in favor of Austria, and Thorn and Poznan in favor of Prussia. Most of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw was annexed “for eternity” to the Russian Empire under the name of the Kingdom of Poland (May 3, 1815), which received a constitutional structure. The Polish constitution was promulgated on June 20. At the same time, the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Poland were sworn to allegiance to the Russian sovereign.
The Constitution came into force in 1816. The emperor appointed General Zayonchek, who was very helpful to Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich, as governor. Count Novosiltsev became the Imperial Commissar.
In 1816, the University of Warsaw was founded, higher schools: military, polytechnic, forestry, mining, institute of public teachers, the number of secondary and primary schools has been increased. Two centers located outside the Kingdom of Poland had a strong influence on intellectual life: Vilna University and the Kremenets Lyceum. The greatest poet of Poland, Adam Mickiewicz, studied at Vilna University, and the historian Lelewel also taught there. Enlightenment developed despite obstacles.

Minister of Education Stanislaw Potocki, who ridiculed obscurantism in the allegorical story “Journey to Darkness” (Podróż do Ciemnogrodu), was forced to resign. Strict supervision was established over educational institutions, books and periodicals were subject to severe censorship.
In 1817 state peasants freed from many medieval duties. In 1820, corvee began to be replaced by quitrent.
At first there was complete harmony between the emperor and the Kingdom of Poland he created thanks to the liberal sentiments of the sovereign. With the strengthening of reactionary currents, the above-mentioned harmony was upset. In the country itself, some were ready to come to terms with what they had, while others dreamed of restoring the Polish state within its former boundaries. On March 5 (17), 1818, the Emperor opened the Sejm in Warsaw with a significant speech:
“The previous organization of the country enabled me to introduce that which I bestowed upon you, bringing into operation the liberal institutions. These latter have always been the subject of my concerns, and I hope to spread, with God's help, their beneficial influence to all the countries that providence has been given to me to govern. »
The Sejm adopted all government bills except the abolition of civil marriage, introduced in Poland by the Napoleonic Code. The Emperor was pleased, as he expressed in his final speech, arousing hopes among the Poles for the fulfillment of their patriotic dreams:
“Poles, I remain with my previous intentions; they are familiar to you. »
The Emperor hinted at his desire to extend the constitution of the Kingdom of Poland to the Russian-Lithuanian regions.

When, according to the constitution, the second Diet was convened in 1820, the emperor opened it again, but his speech already contained warnings about the dangers of liberalism. Under the influence of the opposition, the Sejm rejected the government bill on the grounds that it abolished the publicity of legal proceedings, abolished jury trials and violated the principle “no one will be arrested without a court decision.”
The opposition angered Alexander, which he expressed in his final speech, noting that the Poles themselves were hindering the restoration of their homeland. The emperor even wanted to abolish the constitution, but limited himself to threats. Contrary to the constitution, which established the convening of Sejms every two years, the third Sejm was convened only in 1825. Previously, an additional article to the constitution was published, abolishing the publicity of Sejm meetings, and the leader of the opposition, Vikenty Nemojovsky, was arrested. To control the activities of the Sejm, special officials were appointed who were required to attend meetings. The projects proposed by the government were accepted by the Seimas. The Emperor expressed his satisfaction.
Simultaneously with the legal opposition, there was also a secret, revolutionary one. A secret organization “National Patriotic Partnership” arose. In May 1822, the main leaders of the Partnership were arrested and subjected to severe punishment. Nevertheless, the Partnership continued its activities and even entered into relations with the Decembrists. The latter's attempt to carry out a revolution in Russia also revealed the activities of Polish revolutionaries. According to the constitution, they were tried by the Sejm Court, which limited itself to mild punishments. Emperor Nicholas I expressed his displeasure at the verdict.

Economically and culturally, the Kingdom of Poland developed noticeably in 1815-1830. The exhaustion of strength disappeared thanks to a long peace and a number of remarkable figures - the ministers of finance Matuszewicz and Prince Drutsky-Lubecki and the famous writer Staszic, who was in charge of industrial affairs. Progress was noted in all areas of economic life: agriculture, industry and trade. The energetic Minister of Finance Lyubetsky, through a series of measures, sometimes drastic, sometimes repressive, put finances in order. The deficit disappeared, a reserve of several tens of millions of zlotys accumulated in the treasury, officials and troops began to receive their salaries on time. The country's population has increased to 4.5 million.
At the same time, members of secret societies spread democratic ideas. In literature, voices were loudly heard against serfdom, which was harmful to both the economy and public morality.

The reign of Nicholas I and the Polish uprising of 1830-31.

In 1829, Nicholas I was solemnly crowned King of Poland in Warsaw and swore an oath to fulfill the constitution, but left the petition submitted to cancel the additional article to the constitution unanswered. The Sejm was convened only in 1830. The project to abolish civil marriage was again rejected almost unanimously, despite the clear will of the emperor. The opposition submitted a number of petitions to the government: to ease censorship restrictions, to abolish the additional article, and to release the leader of the opposition from arrest. This course of action by the Sejm greatly angered the sovereign.
Kingdom of Poland in 1831
In 1830-1831 there was an uprising that brought about profound changes. A significant number of politically active Poles were expelled from the Kingdom of Poland and settled in the provinces of the Russian Empire. Extensive power, along with the title of Prince of Warsaw and the post of governor, was awarded to Count Paskevich. To help him, a provisional government was established, consisting of four departments: justice, finance, internal affairs and police, education and confessions. The powers of the provisional government ceased with the promulgation of the Organic Statute (February 26, 1832), which abolished the coronation of emperors by Polish kings, the special Polish army and the Sejm and declared the Kingdom of Poland an organic part of the Russian Empire. The preserved administrative council presented candidates for spiritual and civil positions to the sovereign. The State Council drew up the budget and considered disputes that arose between administrative and judicial authorities, and held officials accountable for malfeasance. Three commissions were established - for the management: 1) internal affairs and matters of education; 2) by court; 3) finances. Instead of the Sejm, it was planned to establish an assembly of provincial officials with an advisory voice. Legislative power belonged undividedly to the Emperor.

The organic statute was not enforced. The meeting of provincial officials, as well as the gentry and commune meetings, remained only in the draft. The State Council was abolished (1841). Voivodships were transformed into provinces (1837). The Russian language was introduced into the office work of the administrative council and the office of the governor, with permission to use French for those who did not speak Russian. The confiscated estates were granted to the Russians; The highest government positions in the region were filled by Russians. In 1832, the Polish currency zloty was replaced by the Russian ruble, and the Russian imperial system of measures was introduced to replace the metric one. Also this year, the Alexander Citadel in Warsaw was founded. The Emperor came to inspect these fortresses, but visited Warsaw only in 1835. He did not allow the delegation from ordinary people to express loyal feelings, noting that he wanted to protect them from lies:
“I need actions, not words. If you persist in your dreams of national isolation, the independence of Poland and similar fantasies, you will bring upon yourself the greatest misfortune. I have built a citadel here. I tell you that at the slightest disturbance I will order the city to be shot, I will turn Warsaw into ruins and, of course, I will not rebuild it. »

Varshavskoe scientific society was abolished, its library and museums were transferred to St. Petersburg. Warsaw and Vilna universities and the Kremenets Lyceum were closed. Instead of a university, it was allowed to open additional courses in pedagogy and jurisprudence at the gymnasium (1840), but they were soon closed. Teaching in secondary schools was conducted in Russian. The government also paid attention to the education of young women, as future mothers, on whom the upbringing of subsequent generations depends. For this purpose, the Alexandria Institute was established in Warsaw. Tuition fees in gymnasiums were increased and the admission of children of non-noble or non-official origin was prohibited.

In 1833, the Warsaw Orthodox Bishopric was established, which in 1840 was transformed into an archbishopric. The Catholic clergy was subject to strict supervision: they were prohibited from holding local synods, organizing jubilee celebrations, and founding temperance societies. In 1839, the property of the Polish Catholic Church was secularized, the local Greek Catholic Church, after a congress in Polotsk, dissolved itself and officially became subordinate to the Moscow Orthodox Patriarchate. Following the abolition of the University of Warsaw, a Roman Catholic Theological Academy was established in Warsaw, which was under the control of the Internal Affairs Commission, which generally monitored the activities of the Catholic clergy. The government wanted to subordinate the spiritual affairs of the Catholic population in the Kingdom of Poland to the St. Petersburg Roman Catholic Collegium, which was in charge of the spiritual affairs of Catholics in the rest of the empire, but due to resistance from Rome it abandoned this. The mental life of the country was in stagnation, sometimes disrupted only by revolutionary propaganda, the centers of which were concentrated among the Polish emigration, mainly in France.
In 1833, the French, German and Italian Carbonari decided to create revolutionary movements in their countries. Many Polish emigrants joined Carbonari societies. It was decided to undertake a partisan raid into the Kingdom of Poland in order to raise an uprising here. The commander of the raid was Jozef Zalivsky. The partisans barely penetrated the Kingdom of Poland to call upon the common people to revolt, but the common people were indifferent to them. Pursued by the Cossacks, Zalivsky fled to Austria, was arrested there and imprisoned for 20 years in a fortress. Other partisans fell into the hands of Russian soldiers. Some were hanged, others were shot or sent to hard labor. The failure of Zalivski's raid led Polish democrats to the conviction that revolutionary propaganda was necessary.
The new “Society of the Polish People” tried to cover all the lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with its activities, sending envoys to Lithuania, Volyn, Ukraine and the Kingdom of Poland. In May 1838, the main emissary Konarsky was arrested near Vilna, which led to other arrests. Even several high school students were sent to hard labor. These harsh measures did not dampen the enthusiasm of the Polish revolutionaries. They were led by the “Democratic Society”, which professed not only democratic ideas, but also socialist ones. Under his influence, Father Szegenny organized a secret society among peasants in the south of the Kingdom of Poland with the goal of founding a Polish peasant republic; betrayed by one of his own, he was arrested and sentenced to hang, but was pardoned and sent to hard labor. Many peasants who participated in the conspiracy had to follow him to Siberia (1844).
In 1846, the board decided that the country was ready for an uprising. The movement that began in Galicia ended in the most deplorable way. Ukrainian peasants not only did not join the movement, but, encouraged by Austrian officials, carried out a terrible massacre among the Polish nobles. In the Kingdom of Poland, the nobleman Pantaleon Potocki with a small detachment captured the city of Sedlec (in February 1846), but was soon captured and hanged. The rebels were sent to Siberia.

Russia, Prussia and Austria took action against the Poles. With the consent of Russia and Prussia, Austria occupied the Free City of Krakow with its troops. In addition, the Russian and Austrian governments paid attention to the situation of the peasants who were under the rule of the Polish nobles. In June 1846, it was forbidden to arbitrarily remove peasants from the land, reduce their allotments, and annex the wastelands left behind by the peasants to the estates. In November 1846, many duties that fell on the peasants were abolished. At the same time, the government took measures aimed at closer inclusion of the Kingdom of Poland into the empire. In 1847, a new set of punishments was published for him, which was an almost literal translation of the Russian Code of Punishments of 1845.
The revolution of 1848 greatly agitated the Poles: they raised uprisings in the Duchy of Poznań and Galicia. Mickiewicz formed a Polish legion, which took part in the Italian revolutionary movement; Polish generals, officers and ordinary volunteers fought for the independence of Hungary. The secret society in the Kingdom of Poland abandoned its intentions after learning about the suppression of the revolution in Poznan. The conspiracy was discovered (1850), the conspirators were subjected to corporal punishment and exile to hard labor. The government of Louis Napoleon expelled the leaders of the Polish Democratic Society from Paris. They were forced to retire to London, and their influence on Poland almost completely ceased.
The Crimean War again revived the hopes of patriots. Calls for an uprising in Poland were unsuccessful. It was decided to form Polish legions in the theater of operations to fight Russia. This plan was also supported by the conservative Polish emigration led by Prince Adam Czartoryski. By the way, Mickiewicz went to Constantinople. The efforts of the Polish patriots ended in almost nothing. The Polish writer Mikhail Tchaikovsky, who converted to Mohammedanism (Sadyk Pasha), recruited, however, a detachment of the so-called Sultan's Cossacks, but it consisted of Armenians, Bulgarians, Gypsies and Turks, and besides, he did not take part in hostilities, because the war was over . A handful of Poles acted in the Caucasus against Russian troops, helping the Circassians. Meanwhile, Emperor Nicholas I died, and about a year later, so did the governor of the Kingdom of Poland, Prince Paskevich.

Reign of Alexander II and subsequent reigns

In May 1856, Emperor Alexander II arrived in Warsaw and was greeted with great enthusiasm. In a speech delivered to the deputation of ordinary people, the sovereign warned the Poles against daydreaming:
“Away with fantasies, gentlemen! (Point de reveries, messieurs!) Everything my father did was well done. My reign will be a further continuation of his reign. »
Soon, however, the former harsh regime was somewhat eased. The Emperor allowed some of Mickiewicz's works to be printed. Censorship stopped persecuting the works of Słowacki, Krasiński and Lelewel. Many political prisoners were released. Some emigrants have returned. In June 1857, it was authorized to open the Medical-Surgical Academy in Warsaw, and in November, to establish the Agricultural Society, which became important centers of intellectual life.
The political mood of the Poles was strongly influenced by the unification of Italy and liberal reforms in Austria. Young people who read Herzen and Bakunin believed that Russia was on the eve of revolution. Both moderates and radicals hoped for help from Napoleon III, who wanted to see the idea of ​​nationality as a guiding international principle. The radicals began to organize demonstrations on every glorious occasion from Polish history.
A grandiose demonstration took place on November 29, 1860, on the anniversary of the November Uprising of 1830. On February 27, 1861, troops fired into the crowd and killed 5 people. The governor, Prince Gorchakov, agreed to satisfy the complaints, promised to remove Chief of Police Trepov, and allowed the establishment of a committee to govern Warsaw.
Kingdom of Poland in 1861
The government agreed to a number of reforms in the spirit of autonomy. By decree of March 26, 1861, the State Council was restored, provincial, district and city councils were formed, it was decided to open higher educational institutions and transform secondary schools. Marquis Alexander Wielopolsky, appointed assistant to the governor, irritated the gentry by closing the Agricultural Society, which caused a grandiose demonstration (April 8, 1861), which resulted in about 200 killed. The revolutionary mood grew, and Wielopolsky began to energetically implement reforms: he destroyed serfdom, replaced corvee with quitrent, equalized the rights of Jews, increased the number of schools, improved the teaching system and established a university in Warsaw.
On May 30, 1861, the governor, Prince Gorchakov, died; his successors did not sympathize with the activities of the marquis. On the anniversary of the death of Tadeusz Kosciuszko (November 15), the churches were filled with worshipers singing patriotic hymns. Governor General Gershtenzweig declared a state of siege and moved troops into the temples. Blood was spilled. The clergy considered this sacrilege and closed the churches.
Wielopolsky resigned. The Emperor accepted her, ordering him to remain a member of the State Council. The Emperor appointed his brother, Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, as viceroy, giving him Wielopolsky as an assistant in civil affairs and Baron Ramsay in military affairs. The Kingdom of Poland was granted complete autonomy.
The radicals, or “reds,” did not stop their activities, however, and moved from demonstrations to terror. Attempts were made on the life of the Grand Duke. The moderates, or “whites,” did not sympathize with the “reds,” but they also disagreed with Wielopolsky. He wanted to restore the constitution of 1815, while the “moderates” thought about uniting all the lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth into one whole with a constitutional structure. The whites set out to compile an address for highest name, but Wielopolsky opposed. White leader Zamoyski was ordered to emigrate. This finally recoiled the “whites” from Wielopolsky. A revolutionary explosion was approaching, which Wielopolsky decided to prevent with a recruitment drive. The calculation turned out to be bad.
The uprising broke out in January 1863, lasting until the late autumn of 1864 and ending with the execution of the most active participants and mass expulsions of the rebels. In March 1863, Count Berg was appointed commander-in-chief, who, after the departure of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich on September 8, 1863 and the resignation of Wielopolsky, became governor. The management of the police was entrusted to the former police chief, General Trepov. At the beginning of January 1864, a committee for the affairs of the Kingdom of Poland was established in St. Petersburg, chaired by the sovereign himself.
By decree of February 19 (March 2), 1864, Polish peasants received ownership of the arable land that they cultivated. The landowners received compensation from the treasury with so-called liquidation papers according to the assessment of the alienated lands. At the same time, an all-class gmina was established.
Management of the affairs of the Catholic clergy was given to the Internal Affairs Commission, of which Prince Cherkassky was appointed director. All church property was confiscated and almost all monasteries were closed. According to the charter of 1865, the Catholic Church in the Kingdom of Poland was divided into seven dioceses - Plock, Lublin, Sandomierz, Kieleck, Augustow, Kuyavian-Kalisz and Podlaskie; in 1867 the Podlaskie diocese was united with the Lublin diocese. The clergy began to receive salaries from the treasury. Since 1871 it has been subordinated to the Department of Foreign Religions of the Ministry of the Interior. In 1875, the union in the Kingdom of Poland was abolished and a new (Kholm) Orthodox diocese was founded.
Kingdom of Poland in 1896
At the same time, changes were made in the civil administration. In 1866, a charter was issued on provincial and district administration: ten provinces (instead of five) and 84 districts. In 1867, the State Council was abolished; in 1868, the administrative council and government commissions (confessions and education, finance and internal affairs) were abolished. The cases were transferred to the relevant imperial institutions in St. Petersburg. In the spirit of the complete merger of the Kingdom of Poland with the Russian Empire, transformations were also carried out in the field of education. In 1872, the imperial charter on gymnasiums of 1871 was extended to the Kingdom of Poland. An imperial judicial organization was also introduced, with an important exception: the region did not receive a jury trial. Since 1871, the publication of the “Diary of Laws of Ts. Polish” was suspended, because the general imperial rules for the promulgation of legislative decrees began to apply to the country. Mandatory use of the Russian language has been introduced in administration, legal proceedings and teaching. Attempts are being made to translate Polish into Cyrillic. After the death of Count Berg in 1874, Count Kotzebue received the post of head of the region and commander-in-chief of the troops of the Warsaw Military District, with the title of Governor General; then the region was ruled by generals Albedinsky (1880-83), Gurko (1883-94), Count Shuvalov (1894-96), Prince Imeretinsky (1896-1900) and M.I. Chertkov (1900-05).

End of the Kingdom of Poland

In 1912, the Kholmsk province, where a significant number of Ukrainians lived, was separated from the provinces of the Kingdom of Poland.
On August 14, 1914, Nicholas II promised, after victory in the war, to unite the Kingdom of Poland with the Polish lands that would be taken from Germany and Austria-Hungary into an autonomous state within the Russian Empire.
The war created a situation in which Poles, Russian subjects, fought against Poles serving in the Austro-Hungarian and German armies. The pro-Russian National Democratic Party of Poland, led by Roman Dmowski, considered Germany the main enemy of Poland; its supporters considered it necessary to unite all Polish lands under Russian control with the status of autonomy within the Russian Empire. Anti-Russian supporters of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) believed that the path to Polish independence lay through Russia’s defeat in the war. Several years before the outbreak of World War I, PPS leader Józef Pilsudski began military training of Polish youth in Austro-Hungarian Galicia. After the outbreak of war, he formed the Polish legions as part of the Austro-Hungarian army.
During the offensive of the German and Austro-Hungarian armies in the spring and summer of 1915, the Kingdom of Poland found itself under German-Austrian occupation and, being divided between the German Empire and Austria-Hungary, ceased to exist.

Who can stand in an unequal dispute:
Puffy Pole, or faithful Ross?
Will Slavic streams merge into the Russian sea?
Will it run out? Here's the question.

A.S. Pushkin,
(Russian poet)

Once one of the largest states in Europe, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, dominated by Poland, throughout the 18th century continuously went towards its decline, which its stronger neighbors took advantage of - Russia, Prussia and the Austrian monarchy. The fate of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was decided during the reign of Catherine II, when most of the Ukrainian, Belarusian and Polish-Lithuanian lands piecemeal became part of Russia in the second half of the 18th century, after three sections of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Kingdom of Poland under the liberal Alexander I

The Polish issue was finally resolved in 1815 at the Congress of Vienna, which decided to transfer the lands of the Duchy of Warsaw to Russia. The Polish lands with a population of 3.2 million people that ceded to the Russian Empire formed the so-called Kingdom of Poland (Western outskirts of the Russian Empire). On June 27, 1815, while in Warsaw, Alexander I signed a special constitution, according to which the Kingdom of Poland was proclaimed an autonomous state with its own parliament, army (where they served for 10 years, instead of 25, as in Russia), but connected with Russia by dynastic ties, since the Russian emperor was simultaneously proclaimed the Polish king, and he had full executive power in this state.

The Polish king (Russian tsar) had the right to change the country's budget and postpone indefinitely the convening of the Polish Sejm (parliament). Legislative power was exercised jointly by the king and the bicameral Sejm. The bicameral Sejm had legislative power, was appointed by the king, convened every two years and was obliged to approve the budget. True, the king (aka the Russian Tsar), in turn, could change the budget at his own discretion (E.P. Fedosova). During his absence in Poland, the king (tsar) appointed a viceroy - an ethnic Pole.

The highest government body was the State Council, which developed bills approved by the Sejm. It consisted of the Administrative Council and the General Assembly. The competence of the State Council included reviewing annual reports of ministries and exercising control over any violations of the constitution. The Chairman of the Administrative Council was the governor, and its members were 5 ministers and senior officials appointed by the king.

All paperwork was conducted in Polish, all positions, both civilian and military, were presented only to Poles. Unlike Russia, ministers in Poland were subject to the Sejm courts and were held accountable for violating the constitution and laws. The independence and irremovability of judges was guaranteed by the Polish constitution. There was nothing like this in Russia, and Russian liberals could only dream of Finnish and Polish freedoms.

The Polish constitution of 1815 was considered one of the most liberal in Europe at that time. The Constitution proclaimed freedom of the press and religion, and personal inviolability. Only Polish was recognized as the official state language. Persons over 30 years of age who paid 100 zloty tax per year had passive suffrage, and active suffrage was granted to noble landowners (from 21 years of age), priests, teachers, artisans, merchants, tenants, etc. (E.P. Fedosova).

The fact that the autocratic Tsar Alexander swore to fulfill his duties towards his Polish subjects and to be the guarantor of the constitution was an unprecedented phenomenon in the history of Russia. This event was received ambiguously in Russia itself.

The inclusion of Poland into Russia, as in the case of Finland, had a beneficial effect on the economic development of the region. Poland retained its financial independence from the empire and its monetary unit - the zloty, and at the same time received the virtual abolition of customs barriers with Russia and admission to its gigantic market. Progress was noted in all areas, both in economic and cultural-educational areas. The University of Warsaw was immediately established, which became a hotbed of Polish freethinking, and other Polish higher schools and gymnasiums also appeared. The population of the Kingdom of Poland also grew rapidly: by 1830 it reached 4.5 million people.

A. Kappeler explains such generous motives for the autocracy’s condescension: firstly, the lack of legitimacy of the spread of Russian rule over Polish territory and the need to reckon with both the European powers and the Polish gentry, and secondly, Alexander’s intention to use the Kingdom of Poland as a democratic model for the planned reform of Russia. “The organization that already existed in your country allowed me to immediately provide you with an organization that will implement the principles of these liberal institutions... and whose healing influence I hope, with God’s help, to extend to all the regions entrusted to me by Providence” (from the speech of Alexander I before the first diet in 1818).

Thus, in the Polish example we observe characteristic feature Russian autocracy: use the western outskirts as a prototype for the introduction of Western institutions and norms throughout the country for its successful modernization. However, the foreignness of Poland within Russia was too striking, and raised questions among the Russian nobles and officials: why “they can do everything, but we can’t”? And the obvious Polish identity, coupled with Catholicism, and plus the Polonized elites of Poland, Lithuania, Western Belarus and Western Ukraine were too great an obstacle to the unification and Russification of the former territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for the imperial authorities.

A particularly numerous corporation was the Polish nobility, which in different Polish regions amounted to from 5 to 10% of the population, which far exceeded Russian figures (Western outskirts of the Russian Empire). Nevertheless, the autocracy and the Polish outskirts decided to work according to an already well-tested scheme. As in the case of the Baltic Sea, in exchange for loyalty to the dynasty, the autocracy left intact all the land and class rights of the Polish nobles over the peasants, including those from among non-Poles (Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Belarusians), and also freely included them in the empire-wide Russian nobility.

It must be said that the Poles appreciated the royal generosity. According to Polish researcher Anna Kovalchikova, the Poles sang Alexander: a caring monarch, a kind “resurrector of Poland.” In the famous song, published in 1816 by the famous poet Aloysius Felinski, Alexander was presented as a benefactor of the Polish people and the “Angel of Peace”, and in the chorus addressed to God, the words were repeated: “We offer a prayer to Your throne // Save us our King , God".

Such praise of the Russian autocrat was not accidental. The Polish nobility had even greater hopes for Alexander I, namely: the expansion of the territory of the Kingdom of Poland by including Lithuanian and part of the Belarusian and Ukrainian lands.

In other words, we were talking about the revival of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth within the borders of 1772, but already as part of the Kingdom of Poland and under the Russian crown. It must be said that these plans were not groundless. Alexander repeatedly, in conversations with Polish dignitaries, spoke about the possibility of annexing the territories annexed by Russia from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the three partitions to the Kingdom of Poland. These plans, as historian A. Miller testifies, remained with Alexander until the fall of 1819.

The implementation of these plans was prevented by a conversation in October 1819 between N. Karamzin and the Tsar, after which Karamzin, developing his thoughts, presented Alexander I with a note entitled “Opinion of a Russian Citizen.” In it Karamzin, recognizing the injustice of those produced in the 18th century. divisions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with the participation of Russia, at the same time he strictly warned the tsar that an attempt to annex Lithuanian, Ukrainian and Belarusian lands to the Kingdom of Poland would be extremely undesirable among the mass of the Russian nobility, already dissatisfied with the Polish constitution.

Karamzin in particular referred to the fact that “according to the old fortresses, Belarus, Volyn, Podolia, together with Galicia, were once the indigenous heritage of Russia.” In addition, he wrote about the naivety of hopes for the loyalty of the Poles and assured him that, having received what was promised, tomorrow they would “demand Kyiv, Chernigov, and Smolensk” (Western outskirts of the Russian Empire).

By 1820, even at the very top of the emperor, the liberal flirtation of the authorities themselves was over. One way or another, the issues of Poland’s territorial expansion within the Russian Empire were put to rest. Soon other cracks in the model of relations were revealed: the privileged western outskirts - the imperial center. In Poland, the tsarist censorship intensified its work. Persecution of free-thinking teachers and students began. But the greatest discontent accumulated in the Polish army. The Polish army was limited in number (up to 30 thousand people), which did not allow the numerous nobility to realize themselves in military service.

Until the mid-20s, the situation in Poland remained calm for the Russian authorities. Only the governor, Konstantin Pavlovich, the tsar’s brother, caused dissatisfaction among the freedom-loving Poles. He was also the commander-in-chief of the Polish army. Konstantin, despite the fact that he wanted to please the Poles, was distinguished by his despotism and rare rudeness towards his foreign subordinates. As a result, in the first four years of the existence of the Polish army alone, 49 officers committed suicide. It is no coincidence that it was among the army officers that the first anti-government underground circles arose. Initially, the Russian authorities treated them kindly, but after the suppression of the Decembrist uprising in St. Petersburg in December 1825, the conspirators began to be harshly persecuted in Poland.

Polish uprising and Nicholas I

The new Russian monarch, Nicholas I, although he treated all constitutions with extreme irritation, initially recognized the special status of Poland and was even solemnly crowned with the Polish crown. But this did not reassure the Polish nobility; rather, on the contrary, in the wake of the enthusiasm for pan-European romantic nationalism among the Polish youth elite, the conviction of the need to create a Polish independent national state grew.

The St. Petersburg authorities, unwittingly, generously rewarding the Polish province with constitutional status, pushed it towards national liberation and the creation of an independent state. The Polish gentry, being the main bearer of national identity, soon became the main engine of the Polish national movement. Already by 1828, a “Military Union” was formed in Poland, consisting mainly of the gentry, which began direct preparations for the uprising. The July Revolution of 1830 in France was the trigger for Polish nationalists.

The explosion of Polish nationalism became the first in a chain of national movements and nationalisms in the Russian Empire. The conflict between the Polish gentry elite, which put forward more exaggerated demands on the imperial authorities than they could be satisfied in the Romanov empire, and the Russian autocracy turned out to be inevitable.

In many ways, the success of the uprising was provoked by the inaction of Konstantin Pavlovich, who, although he was rude to Polish officers, at the same time knew about conspiratorial organizations in Poland. But he was in no hurry to take appropriate measures. He feared not so much the Polish conspirators as his even tougher brother, Tsar Nicholas I, who did not hide his dislike for the Poles. I was afraid of his unpredictable actions. And it almost cost him his life. On the very first day of the uprising, November 29, 1830, the conspirators burst into his residence shouting “Death to the tyrant!” (Yuri Borisenok). The Grand Duke managed to escape, and the rebels soon captured the entire city.

It is characteristic that the Polish uprising of 1830–1831. took place under the slogan of restoring the independent “historical Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth” within the borders of 1772, that is, when it included Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian lands. The Sejm deposed Nicholas I as the King of Poland and initially created a regime of military dictatorship, which was soon replaced by a national government in led by tycoon Adam Czartoryski. It is also curious that the rebel Poles counted on solidarity and assistance from Russian revolutionaries. Thus, during the Polish uprising, the famous slogan was born: “For your and our freedom!” It is also significant that the Russian civilian population in Poland was not attacked by the Poles.

A hastily assembled 80,000-strong Polish army entered into confrontation with the Nicholas Empire, which at that time was the most powerful state in the world. Nevertheless, the Poles fought bravely against the Russian army. But already on May 26, 1831 Russian army Field Marshal I. Diebitsch defeated the army of Polish rebels in the battle of Ostroleka, opening the way to Warsaw. But only on September 7, 1831, after a fierce assault, Warsaw was captured by Russian troops.

The uprising was brutally suppressed with all the might of the Nicholas Russian Empire. A large part of the Polish political, military and spiritual elite left for a European foreign land and there, in exile, continued to fight Romanov Russia, creating a negative anti-Russian public background in Europe.

The “ungratefulness of the Poles” made it possible for Nicholas to free himself from the obligation to observe the “ungodly” constitution, which was brought to Moscow as a military trophy along with the banners of the defeated Polish army. The Sejm and the former State Council were abolished, ministries were replaced by commissions, Polish voivodeships were renamed into provinces. Polish financial autonomy was curtailed. The “hotbed of Polish freethinking” – the University of Warsaw – was closed. The national Polish army was also liquidated, and several tens of thousands of soldiers and officers were exiled to Siberia and the Caucasus. From now on, Polish soldiers and officers were obliged to serve only in the Russian army.

Poland after the uprising

In 1831 The Committee for the Affairs of the Kingdom of Poland was formed. It included the largest dignitaries of Nikolaev Russia: A.N. Golitsyn, I.V. Vasilchikov, D.N. Bludov, M.A. Korf, K.V. Nesselrode, A.I. Chernyshov, E.V. Kankrin and others. The purpose of the work of this committee was the desire of the authorities to eliminate the consequences of the uprising, as well as to prepare a new form of government for Poland. The most important document prepared by the committee was a special Charter called “Organic Statute” (1832) (National Policy of Russia: History and Modernity).

The main task is the gradual but steady merger of rebellious and isolated Poland with the Russian Empire. The new royal governor I.F. played a large personal role in this. Paskevich-Erivansky, who held this post until 1856. A course was taken to unify the administration of Poland with the empire and fill positions in the administration with Russian officials.

In 1839, the Warsaw educational district was created, subordinate to the Ministry of Public Education; the Polish Railways Department (in 1846) is reassigned central government. In 1841, Russian money was introduced in the Kingdom of Poland, in 1848 - Russian standards and weights, and in 1850, customs borders were eliminated and a customs tariff was established (National outskirts of the Russian Empire...).

In St. Petersburg they knew that the revolutionary Polish nationalists who emigrated to France had not calmed down and were waiting in the wings to begin a new round of the struggle for independence. Moreover, with the help of emigrants and local radicals, a new all-Polish uprising was being prepared for the unification of all Polish territories divided between Russia, Prussia and Austria into an independent single state in 1844. However, all attempts to rouse Polish peasants to fight foreigners and make the uprising truly “popular”, first in 1844, then in 1846, failed. The class barriers within Polish society turned out to be too strong.

In an effort to reduce Polish nationalism and dilute it with religious traditionalism, the Russian authorities sought to curtail the secular principle and condoned conservatism and clericalism. Civil marriage was abolished and replaced by church marriage. Much attention was paid to the policy of Russification. Russian history has been introduced as a compulsory subject in all schools. And the teaching of history, geography and statistics had to be conducted in Russian (Western outskirts of the Russian Empire).

However, Nikolaev Russification as a whole was very superficial, and the complete integration of the Kingdom of Poland into Russia did not occur during this period. The isolation and foreignness of Poland within Russia was felt by all Russian travelers or officials stationed there on duty. But most importantly, the undisguised hostility of the Polish intelligentsia and gentry towards Russia, coupled with the ineradicable desire to create an independent national state, was an insurmountable obstacle to the assimilation and integration of Poland.