Partition of Poland (1772-1795) and public opinion in post-reform Russia

The paper analyses the discourse on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth division in the domestic socio-political thought of the post-reform Russian Empire. The research is based on the analysis of the 19th century periodicals, as well as the contemporaries’ memoirs. It is noted that Russian thinkers and publicists of post-reform Russia constantly turned to the origins of the Russian-Polish conflict, trying to find those responsible for its aggravation. At the same time, criticism of Poland partition was often divorced from historical realities and determined by a priori hostility to the government policy. In the second half of the 1860s - 1870s, Russian conservative and liberal journalists often pinned their hopes onto the integration of the Kingdom of Poland into the Russian Empire, similar to the unification of Scotland with England. By the early 1880s, even some conservatives beg an to look at the Kingdom of Poland as a “cut slice”. While journalists, especially of the Slavophile persuasion, were unstoppable in denouncing partition as allegedly a result of a “German conspiracy” which brought the insoluble “Polish question” to Russia, Ru ssian diplomatic circles expressed a completely different view: Catherine II, who achieved “natural borders” for Russia, was opposed to Alexander I, who annexed “ethnographic”, Catholic Poland to Russia, inaccessible for sustainable integration into the Russian E mpire. The author comes to the conclusion that Russian pre-revolutionary journalism was sensitive to the three partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The slogan of restoring “historical Poland”, put forward by almost all fractions of the Polish n ational movement, has become tragic for the inhabitants of this country. Maximalist calls for the return of Year 1772 borders precluded any compromise with any influential Russian political movement, even those sincerely sympathetic to the fraternal Slav ic nation. Of course, political romanticism can be admired for its heroism and sacrifice, but setting itself deliberate ly impossible goals, it can become a suicidal choice. This is exactly what happened with the Polish nationalists of the 19th century.

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