What role in the history of Poland. What role did the Union of Lublin play in the history of Poland? Elective Kings: The Decline of the Polish State

UNION OF LUBLIN

At the end of the 60s of the 16th century, the movement of the Polish lords for the creation of a single state with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania intensified. Now "independent" Belarusian historians claim that the creation of the Polish-Lithuanian state was the reaction of the peoples of these countries to the aggression of Ivan the Terrible. No doubt, the war with Moscow played a certain role in this. But the Moscow vector of the Union of Lublin was not decisive. The Poles started the war, not Ivan the Terrible. The Russo-Lithuanian war was conducted sluggishly for several years, and for four years before the union itself, it was not conducted at all.

The army of Ivan the Terrible in terms of field combat tactics and armament noticeably lagged behind the armies of Western states. During the Livonian War, Moscow had to act simultaneously against the Swedes in Estonia, the Crimean Tatars in the south, the Turks in Astrakhan, etc. Finally, the terror of the mentally ill tsar, including the destruction of dozens of the best Russian governors, seriously weakened the Russian army. So neither Russia nor the terrible Ivan threatened either Poland or Lithuania in 1568. By the way, we now know about Ivan's monstrous reprisals against his subjects. And the Polish and Lithuanian lords, a few years after the union, will wish to see Ivan the Terrible ... as their king.

Much closer to the truth is the same S.M. Solovyov: “The childlessness of Sigismund-August forced us to speed up the solution of the issue of the eternal union of Lithuania with Poland, because until now only the Jagiellonian dynasty served as a connection between them.”

In January 1569, the Polish king Sigismund II August convened the Polish-Lithuanian Sejm in the city of Lublin to adopt a new union. During the debate, the opponents of the merger with Poland, the Lithuanian Protestant Prince Krishtov Radziwill and the Orthodox Russian Prince Konstantin Ostrozhsky, with their supporters, left the Sejm. However, the Poles, supported by the petty Lithuanian gentry, threatened those who had left with the confiscation of their lands. In the end, the "dissidents" returned. On July 1, 1569, the Union of Lublin was signed.

According to the act of the Union of Lublin, the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were united into a single state - the Commonwealth (Republic) with an elected king at the head, a single Sejm and Senate. From now on, the conclusion of agreements with foreign states and diplomatic relations with them were carried out on behalf of the Commonwealth, a single monetary system was introduced throughout its territory, and customs borders between Poland and Lithuania were eliminated. The Polish gentry received the right to own estates in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Lithuanian - in the Kingdom of Poland. At the same time, Lithuania retained a certain autonomy: its own right and court, administration, army, treasury, and the official Russian language.

According to the 9th paragraph of the union, the king promised to provide positions in the annexed lands only to local natives who have their settlement there. “We promise not to reduce posts and orders in this Podlasie land, and if any of them become vacant, then we will provide and give to the gentry - local natives who have real estate here.”

The Kiev principality, at the request of the Poles, was "returned" to Poland, as if long before the reign of Jagiello belonged to the Polish crown. The Poles said: “Kyiv was and is the head and capital of the Russian land, and the whole Russian land, among other excellent members and parts, was annexed by the previous Polish kings to the Polish crown, partly by conquest, partly by voluntary concession and inheritance from some lazy princes." From Poland, "as from its own body," it was torn away and annexed to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by Vladislav Jagiello, who did this because he ruled both Poland and Lithuania at the same time.

In fact, the acts of the Lublin Seim of 1569 were the constitution of the new state - the Commonwealth. As V.A. Bednov: these acts, “on the one hand, confirm to all regions of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania all those laws, rights, liberties and estate privileges that previously determined their legal status, and on the other hand, equalized them with the crown regions in everything that these the former did not have in comparison with the latter before the Union of Lublin. The spirit of religious tolerance that prevailed in the epoch among the Polish-Lithuanian society, and then the political calculations to more firmly connect the rich and vast areas inhabited by Orthodox-Russian inhabitants with Poland, did not allow the Roman Catholic clergy to put any restrictions on the religious freedom of the Russian population; the government stood for religious freedom and showed its religious tolerance, but this religious tolerance was not so much voluntary as forced. It stemmed not so much from respect for the religious beliefs of the population, but from a simple calculation to preserve the inner peace and tranquility of the state, since with the diversity of religious beliefs that reigned under Sigismund Augustus in Poland and Lithuania, such a violation of this world of religious communities could lead to terrible disorders and embarrassment dangerous for the state”.

Perhaps, for some, the words of an Orthodox priest and professor of theology at Warsaw University about religious tolerance in the Commonwealth in the second half of the 16th century will seem strange, if not harsher. In fact, he is right. Here are two fairly typical examples from the life of the Commonwealth of that time. Konstantin Konstantinovich Ostrozhsky was not only one of the richest magnates, but also one of the secular ideologists of Orthodoxy in the Commonwealth. However, he was married to a Catholic Sophia Tarnowska, daughter of a Krakow castellan. His son Janusz also became a Catholic. But one daughter married the Calvinist Krishtof Radziwill, and the other married Jan Kisha, a supporter of the Socialists.

I'll try to sum up, finally, the results. To begin with, what did the union give to the Russian population? It was Russian, since by 1569 there were no Belarusians and Ukrainians in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. There was one language, one culture, one religion, one metropolitan, one customs, etc. So for the Russian population there was nothing bad in the texts of the Union of Lublin. On the contrary, it confirmed their former rights. And it is difficult to say in what direction the history of Eastern Europe would have gone if the Polish kings had strictly complied with all the paragraphs of the Lublin Acts of 1569. But the Polish lords were distinguished by the fact that they liked to pass good laws, but organically did not want to fulfill either good or bad laws.

As a result, the Union of Lublin, contrary to all its acts, became the beginning of the Catholic aggression against the Russian lands, which were previously part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Alas, the Russian people could not foresee this even in a nightmare, therefore the princes, the gentry, and the clergy reacted passively to the adoption of the union.

The attack on the Orthodox and Protestants Catholics began even before the adoption of the union. But so far the offensive has been in the field of ideology and enlightenment. An attempt to impose Catholicism by force would certainly lead to bloody civil strife and the death of the Commonwealth.

Bishop Valerian Protashevich of Vilna, one of the ideologists of the fight against dissidents, sought advice from Cardinal Goziusz, bishop of Warmia in Prussia, the famous chairman of the Council of Trent, who was considered one of the main pillars of Catholicism throughout Europe. Goziusz, advising all Polish bishops to introduce Jesuits into their dioceses, advised the same to Protaszewicz. He followed the advice, and in 1568 a Jesuit collegium was founded in Vilna under the leadership of Stanislav Varshevitsky.

Soon dozens of Jesuit schools sprang up in Poland and Lithuania. The younger generation was subjected to severe indoctrination. In response, the Orthodox hierarchs were unable to create a school attractive to the children of the nobility, not to mention the magnates. From the end of the 16th century, mass Catholicization and Polonization of Russian noble youth began. Often, Orthodox parents did not see anything wrong with this: reading Italian and French books, Western fashion, Western dances - why not? The terrible consequences of the Polonization of the western and southern Russian lands will begin to affect only after 100 years.

Although formally Lithuania and Poland became a single state, but the accession of the Kyiv land to Poland created the conditions for its more rapid Polonization. Moreover, if in White Rus' the majority of landowners were descendants of Russian princes and boyars, then hundreds of Polish pans rushed to the Kyiv lands, who began the enslavement of previously free peasants. All this led to the emergence of linguistic and cultural differences, which later gave rise to nationalists to talk about two peoples - Belarusian (aka Litvinian, etc.) and Ukrainian (that is, Ukrainians, etc.).

The story of Vladislav Grabensky about the spread of the Russian language in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania is curious: “The laws established at the Diet before Sigismund-August were published in Latin and were called statutes; after that they began to appear in Polish, under the name of constitutions. On behalf of the Radom Diet under King Alexander, Chancellor Jan Laski collected all the crown laws in chronological order, starting from the Statute of Wislice, and printed them in 1506. After the statute of Lasky, they tried to codify the laws: Tashitsky under Sigismund I, Pshilusky and Herburt under Sigismund-August, Sarnitsky, Yanushovsky and Shcherbych under Sigismund III. However, these attempts did not receive the approval of the estates. A complete collection of statutes and constitutions in chronological order (for 1347-1780) was published (thanks to the efforts of PR) in eight volumes under the title "Volumina Legim". Some parts of the Commonwealth had separate laws. In Lithuania, the Statute of 1528 was binding, approved by Sigismund I in 1530, amended and expanded in 1566 and 1588. It was compiled in Russian, the third edition, thanks to the great Lithuanian chancellor Lev Sapieha, was translated into Polish. In addition to the Lithuanian province, he had power for part of Lesser Poland, Ukraine and Volhynia.

So, the “Lithuanian statute” until 1588 (!) was in Russian. It is clear that where he acted, including part of the "part of Lesser Poland", legal proceedings were conducted in Russian.

For the Muscovite state, the conclusion of the Union of Lublin meant the transfer of all Lithuanian claims to Poland. I note that the official direct contacts of Poland with the Grand Duke of Vladimir, and then with Moscow, were interrupted in 1239. And later, if the Polish kings negotiated with Moscow, then formally they represented only the Grand Duke of Lithuania. As the historian and diplomat William Pokhlebkin wrote: "...becoming neighbors again after 330 years, Poland and Rus' found that they represent completely alien, hostile states with diametrically opposed state interests in relation to each other."

On July 7, 1572, Sigismund II August died, whom Polish historians call the last of the Jagiellons, although he was a descendant of Jagiello only through the female line.

Immediately after the death of King Sigismund, the Polish and Lithuanian pans developed a frantic activity in search of a new king. The contenders for the throne were the Swedish king John, the governor of Semigrad Stefan Batory, prince Ernst (son of the German emperor Maximilian II), etc. Unexpectedly, among the contenders for the Polish throne was Tsarevich Fedor, the son of Ivan the Terrible. The prince was then 15 years old, and his elder brother Ivan was listed as the heir to the throne (he would be killed only in 1581).

The movement in favor of the Moscow prince arose both from above and from below, independently of each other. A number of sources say that the Orthodox population of Little and White Rus' desired this. The argument of the pans - supporters of Fedor - was the similarity of the Polish and Russian languages \u200b\u200band customs. Let me remind you that at that time the languages differed very little.

Another argument was the presence of common enemies of Poland and Moscow - Germans, Swedes, Crimean Tatars and Turks. Supporters of Fedor constantly cited the example of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Jagiello, who, having been elected king, from an enemy of Poland and a pagan, became a friend and a Christian. The example of the same Jagiello made us hope that the new king would live more in Poland than in Moscow, since the northern inhabitants always strive for the southern countries. The desire to expand and preserve his possessions in the southwest, towards Turkey or the German Empire, will also force the king to live in Poland. Jagiello at one time swore under an oath not to violate the laws of the Polish gentry, the Moscow prince could do the same.

Pan Catholics hoped that Fedor would accept Catholicism, and Pan Protestants generally preferred an Orthodox king to a Catholic king.

The main argument in favor of the prince was, of course, money. The greed of the pans both then and during the Time of Troubles was pathological. Fantastic rumors circulated about the wealth of the Moscow Grand Dukes in Poland, and throughout Europe.

Having let Tsar Ivan know through the messenger Voropay about the death of Sigismund II Augustus, the Polish and Lithuanian Rada immediately announced to him their desire to see Tsarevich Fedor as the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania. Ivan answered Voropay with a long speech, in which he proposed ... himself as king.

Many problems immediately arose, for example, how to divide Livonia. The Poles did not want to have the Terrible Tsar as king, but preferred the teenager Fedor. Information about the dementia of the prince leaked to Poland and Lithuania, etc. The main reason for the disruption of the election campaign of Fyodor Ivanovich was, of course, money. The glad gentlemen demanded huge sums from Ivan IV, without giving any guarantees. The tsar and the clerks offered under such conditions an amount several times smaller. In short, they did not agree on the price.

Then the happy pans decided to elect Henry of Anjou, brother of the French king Charles IX and son of Catherine de Medici, to the Polish throne. Quite quickly, a French party was formed, headed by Jan Zamoyski, the headman of Belya. When counting the votes at the Diet, the majority was for Heinrich.

Arriving in Krakow, the new king declared: “I, Henry, by the grace of God, have been elected king of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Rus', Prussia, Mazovia, etc. ... by all the ranks of the state of both peoples, both Poland and Lithuania and other regions , elected by common consent and freely, I promise and sacredly swear by the almighty God, before this St. gospel of Jesus Christ, in that all rights, liberties, immunities, public and private privileges, not contrary to the common law and liberties of both peoples, ecclesiastical and secular, churches, princes, lords, gentry, philistines, villagers and all persons in general, which whatever their ranks and fortunes, my glorious predecessors, kings and all princes ... I will keep and keep peace and tranquility between those who disagree in religion, and in no way will I allow that from our jurisdiction or from the authority of our courts and any ranks someone suffered and was oppressed because of religion, and I personally will not oppress or grieve.

At the same time, the king renounced hereditary power, promised not to resolve any issues without the consent of a standing commission of sixteen senators, not to declare war and not to make peace without a senate, not to break up the "Common Commonwealth" into parts, to convene a diet every two years for no more than six weeks . In case of non-fulfillment of any of these obligations, the gentry was released from obedience to the king. So the armed uprising of the gentry against the king, the so-called rokosh, was legalized.

The new twenty-three-year-old king completed the proper formalities and went on a spree. No, I'm quite serious. He did not have to deal with any state affairs in France, he did not know either Polish or even Latin. The new king spent nights on end in drunken feasts and playing cards with the French from his retinue.

Suddenly, a messenger arrived from Paris, informing the king of the death of his brother Charles IX on May 31, 1574, and of the demand of his mother (Maria de Medici) to urgently return to France. The Poles learned about the incident in a timely manner and suggested that Heinrich appeal to the Sejm to give consent to leave. Heinrich already had some idea of what the Polish Sejm was, and considered it best to escape secretly from Krakow at night.

Everyone has long been accustomed to the mess in the Commonwealth, but for the king to wash off the throne - this has never happened before. The happy gentlemen scratched their fat heads: should we declare kinglessness or not? They decided not to declare kinglessness, but to let Henry know that if he does not return to Poland in nine months, then the Sejm will begin to elect a new king. In the end, in December 1575, Prince Stefan Batory of Semigrad was elected king.

After the death of Bathory in 1586, the "competition" for the title of king of the Commonwealth began again. Again, the candidacy of Fyodor Ivanovich was considered, now not a prince, but a tsar. The happy gentlemen officially demanded a bribe of 200 thousand rubles from the Russian ambassadors. The ambassadors offered 60,000. Finally, after a long skirmish, the Duma nobleman Elizar Rzhevsky named the last figure - 100 thousand, and not a penny more. The indignant lords refused Fedor's candidacy.

Tsar Fedor's competitors were Archduke Maximilian of Austria and Crown Prince Sigismund, son of the Swedish King John III. Both candidates hurried to enter Poland with a "limited contingent" of their troops. Maximilian with the Austrians laid siege to Krakow, but the assault was repulsed. Meanwhile, Sigismund was already marching from the north with the Swedish army. The population of the capital chose to open the gates to the Swedes. Sigismund peacefully occupied Krakow and was immediately crowned there (December 27, 1587).

I note that, when taking the oath, Sigismund III repeated all the obligations of previous kings in relation to dissidents.

Meanwhile, the crown hetman Jan Zamoyski with his supporters gave battle to Maximilian at Bychik in Silesia. The Austrians were defeated, and the Archduke himself was taken prisoner. At the beginning of 1590, the Poles released Maximilian with the obligation to no longer claim the Polish crown. His brother, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, vouched for him.

Unlike the previous kings of Poland, Sigismund was a fanatical Catholic. His beliefs were influenced by his mother, a staunch Catholic, and the reformation in Sweden.

Having ascended the throne, Sigismund III immediately began to persecute dissidents (that is, non-Catholics). In 1577 the famous Jesuit Peter Skarga published a book On the Unity of the Church of God and on the Greek Apostasy from This Unity. The first two parts of the book were devoted to dogmatic and historical research on the division of the church, the third part contained denunciations of the Russian clergy and specific recommendations to the Polish authorities in the fight against Orthodoxy. It is curious that in his book Skarga calls all Orthodox subjects of the Commonwealth simply "Russians".

Skarga proposed to introduce a union, for which only three things are needed: firstly, that the Metropolitan of Kyiv should receive a blessing not from the patriarch, but from the pope; secondly, that every Russian in all articles of faith should agree with the Roman Church; and, thirdly, that every Russian recognize the supreme authority of Rome. As for the church rites, they remain the same. Skarga reprinted this book in 1590 with a dedication to King Sigismund III. Moreover, both Skarga and other Jesuits pointed to the union as "a transitional state necessary for Russians stubborn in their faith."

In the book of Skarga and in other writings of the Jesuits, decisive action by the secular authorities against the Russians was proposed as a means of introducing the union.

Sigismund III firmly supported the idea of the union. Orthodox churches in the Commonwealth were organizationally weakened. A number of Orthodox hierarchs succumbed to the promises of the king and the Catholic Church.

On June 24, 1594, an Orthodox church council was convened in Brest, which was supposed to resolve the issue of union with the Catholic Church. The supporters of the union, by hook or by crook, managed to adopt the act of the union on December 2, 1594. The union split the Russian population of the Commonwealth into two unequal parts. The majority of Russians, including gentry and magnates, refused to accept the union.

On May 29, 1596, Sigismund III issued a manifesto for his Orthodox subjects about the completed union of churches, and he took full responsibility in this matter: our Greek faiths were brought into their original and ancient unity with the universal Roman Church under the obedience of one spiritual shepherd. Bishops [Uniates who traveled to the pope. - A, Sh.] brought from Rome nothing new and contrary to your salvation, no changes in your ancient church rites: all the dogmas and rites of your Orthodox Church are preserved inviolably, in accordance with the decrees of the holy apostolic councils and with the ancient teaching of the holy Greek fathers, whom you praise names and celebrate holidays.

Persecution of Russians who remained faithful to Orthodoxy began everywhere. Orthodox priests were expelled, and the churches were handed over to the Uniates.

Orthodox gentry, headed by Prince K.K. Ostrozhsky and the Protestants, led by the Vilna governor Kryshtof Radziwill, decided to fight the union in the old legal way - through the diets. But the Catholic majority, with the strong support of the king at the diets of 1596 and 1597, frustrated all attempts by the dissidents to abolish the union. As a result, the conflict between the Uniates and the Orthodox was added to the already existing inter-confessional strife. And in general, Sigismund was a man from another world, alien not only to his Russian subjects, but also to the Polish lords. He wore a wedge beard, like his contemporary, the cruel and suspicious Spanish King Philip, from whom Sigismund took an example in many ways. Instead of the simple caftan and high boots worn by Bathory and other Polish kings, Sigismund dressed in refined Western clothes, stockings and shoes.

The election of Sigismund III to the throne was the first step towards the death of the Commonwealth. Religious repressions caused continuous uprisings of the Orthodox within the country, and territorial claims to all neighbors without exception - long wars.

Let's pay attention to the coat of arms of the Commonwealth in the reign of Sigismund III. Along the edges it is framed by the coats of arms of the lands that were part of the Commonwealth. Among them are Greater Poland, Lesser Poland, Lithuania. But this is understandable. But then come Sweden, Russia, and not in pieces, but in their entirety, Pomerania, Prussia, Moldavia, Wallachia, etc.

This text is an introductory piece.

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The Union of Lublin The Russian people had to endure terrible trials at the end of the 16th and at the beginning of the 17th centuries. Muscovite Rus', although tormented and impoverished, nevertheless quite soon got out of the Time of Troubles, took out of it its faith and nationality in all their integrity; it was not the same with the western -

The Russians played a fatal role in the fate of the imperial ambitions of several of their restless neighbors at once, claiming the lands of Russia itself and influence in a large part of the Old World. The fate of Poland is a vivid example of this.

The ancient Polish state, which arose shortly after Rus', almost simultaneously with its eastern neighbor, experienced an era of feudal fragmentation, which the Poles also endured very hard - having lost part of their lands and found themselves dependent on the German Empire for a whole century. Poland was beaten at this time by the Teutons, Prussians, Lithuanians, Czechs and southwestern Russian principalities. Mongol troops marched through its lands.

In the XIV century, Poland united again, and itself had already begun to expand, capturing Galicia and Volhynia from 1349 to 1366. For some time, Poland was a "junior" ally of Hungary, but the Union of Krewo sharply strengthened its international positions.

During the events of the Livonian War, Poland concluded the Union of Lublin with Lithuania (playing the "first violin" in it) and dramatically expanded its possessions in the Baltic states. Led de facto by the Poles, the Commonwealth became a powerful power stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

In 1596, in Brest, the Poles forced part of the Orthodox bishoprics located on the territory of modern Belarus and Ukraine to go under the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Repressions unfolded against the population that remained faithful to Orthodoxy. Taking advantage of the Time of Troubles in Russia and the suppression of the Rurik dynasty, the Poles first tried to seat False Dmitry on the Russian throne, and then, with the help of the Seven Boyars, they imposed their prince Vladislav on Russia as king. The Polish garrison entered Moscow, and soon massacred the capital. But in 1612, the Poles were expelled from the capital by the people's militia under the leadership of Minin and Pozharsky. After that, the Commonwealth made several more attempts to break through to Moscow, but they were all unsuccessful.

Soon after the defeat in Russia, the Poles began to pursue setbacks. The Swedes recaptured part of the Baltic from them. And then, in response to the oppression of the Orthodox, a large-scale uprising of Cossacks and peasants began under the leadership of Bogdan Khmelnitsky (according to some sources, supported by Moscow). The Zaporozhye Army, which played the main role in it, defeated the Polish troops in a significant part of the territories of modern Ukraine and Belarus, and, according to the results of the Pereyaslav Rada of 1654, became part of Russia. Taking advantage of the situation, Russia launched an offensive against Poland, regaining Smolensk, Mogilev and Gomel, and the Swedes attacked the Commonwealth from the Baltic, occupying even Warsaw, and forcing it to abandon a number of lands under its control. In 1658 - 1662, the Poles, using the death of Khmelnitsky and the betrayal of part of the Cossack foremen, in turn attacked the Russian and Zaporozhye troops, pushing them back across the Dnieper. However, the failures that followed forced the Commonwealth to sign peace treaties with Russia, returning to it all the lands that had been taken away as a result of the Time of Troubles, plus Left-Bank Little Russia and Kyiv. This was the beginning of the end of Polish power.

In the 18th century, a struggle broke out between Russia and Sweden for influence on Poland. Gradually, Warsaw became completely dependent on Moscow. The uprisings of the Poles dissatisfied with this state of affairs led, in the end, to the three divisions of the country between Russia, Austria and Prussia, and the speech on the side of Napoleon led to the final division of the former Commonwealth at the Congress of Vienna.

During the Russian Civil War, Warsaw tried to restore "Polska from Mozha to Mozha", having gained independence from the hands of the Bolsheviks. However, this ended for her with Soviet troops near Warsaw. And only a miracle and the support of Western states allowed Poland to get out of that war, taking the territories of Western Ukraine and Belarus. In the 1930s, Warsaw had high hopes for joint actions with Adolf Hitler and even managed to take part in the partition of Czechoslovakia in alliance with the Germans, but the Nazis, as you know, deceived the hopes of the Poles. As a result, Poland remained within the borders that it was allowed to establish by the victorious countries in the Second World War. Today in Warsaw, voices are again heard from the right camp demanding expansion to the east, but so far Poland is still far from the power of the times of the Commonwealth.

What role did the Union of Lublin play in the history of Poland?

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The union in Lublin is regarded by Polish and Lithuanian historians as both the greatest achievement and the greatest loss. The most positive aspects highlighted by Polish historians were the introduction of Catholicism and the Polish language, the merging of all cultures into a single (Polish) one. The creation of the Commonwealth is often viewed as the unification of two parts of an already created union state, that is, in fact, the removal of the last obstacles to the creation of a single country, much stronger than Poland and Lithuania. In addition, a state was created that played a significant role on the world stage for the next 200 years. There are also many negative aspects of this Union. Sigismund II sought not only to unite the states, but also to carry out a much-needed political reform in Poland. In reality, the Unia did not so much strengthen the power of the monarch (which Sigismund wanted), but rather strengthened the influence of the gentry, at the same time increasing its numbers. The formation of absolutism, so necessary for all countries in the 16th century, was stopped with the beginning of the union. The powers of local authorities were seriously consolidated, which led to a strong increase in corruption within the newly formed Commonwealth. In addition to everything, the principle of “liberum veto” was legally enshrined, which allowed the Sejm to make some decisions only unanimously. This norm practically paralyzed the work of the Sejm, blocking the adoption of almost any decisions. The result was anarchy, which further actively destroyed the Commonwealth.

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The first reliable information about Poland dates back to the second half of the 10th century. Poland was even then a relatively large state, created by the Piast dynasty by combining several tribal principalities. The first historically reliable ruler of Poland was Mieszko I (reigned 960-992) from the Piast dynasty, whose possessions - Greater Poland - were located between the Odra and Vistula rivers. Under the reign of Mieszko I, who fought against German expansion to the east, the Poles in 966 were converted to Christianity of the Latin rite. In 988 Mieszko annexed Silesia and Pomerania to his principality, and in 990 Moravia. His eldest son Bolesław I the Brave (r. 992–1025) became one of Poland's most prominent rulers. He established his power in the territory from the Odra and Nysa to the Dnieper and from the Baltic Sea to the Carpathians. Having strengthened the independence of Poland in the wars with the Holy Roman Empire, Bolesław took the title of king (1025). After the death of Boleslav, the growing feudal nobility opposed the central government, which led to the separation of Mazovia and Pomerania from Poland.

Feudal fragmentation

Bolesław III (r. 1102–1138) regained Pomerania, but after his death the territory of Poland was divided among his sons. The eldest - Vladislav II - received power over the capital Krakow, Greater Poland and Pomerania. In the second half of the 12th c. Poland, like its neighbors Germany and Kievan Rus, fell apart. The collapse led to political chaos; the vassals soon refused to recognize the sovereignty of the king and, with the help of the church, significantly limited his power.

Teutonic Knights

In the middle of the 13th c. Mongol-Tatar invasion from the east devastated most of Poland. No less dangerous for the country were the incessant raids of pagan Lithuanians and Prussians from the north. To protect his possessions, the prince of Mazovia Konrad in 1226 invited the Teutonic knights from the military-religious order of the Crusaders to the country. Within a short time, the Teutonic Knights conquered part of the Baltic lands, which later became known as East Prussia. This land was settled by German colonists. In 1308, the state created by the Teutonic Knights cut off Poland's access to the Baltic Sea.

Decline of the central government

As a result of the fragmentation of Poland, the dependence of the state on the highest aristocracy and the petty nobility began to grow, whose support it needed to protect itself from external enemies. The extermination of the population by the Mongol-Tatars and Lithuanian tribes led to an influx of German settlers into the Polish lands, who either created cities themselves, governed by the laws of Magdeburg law, or received land as free peasants. In contrast, the Polish peasants, like the peasants of almost all of Europe at that time, began to gradually fall into serfdom.

The reunification of most of Poland was carried out by Vladislav Loketok (Ladislav the Short) from Kuyavia, a principality in the north-central part of the country. In 1320 he was crowned as Vladislav I. However, the national revival is more connected with the successful rule of his son, Casimir III the Great (r. 1333–1370). Casimir strengthened royal power, reformed the administration, legal and monetary systems according to the Western model, promulgated a code of laws called the Wislice Statutes (1347), eased the situation of the peasants and allowed Jews to settle in Poland - victims of religious persecution in Western Europe. He failed to regain access to the Baltic Sea; he also lost Silesia (withdrawn to the Czech Republic), but captured in the east Galicia, Volhynia and Podolia. In 1364 Casimir founded the first Polish university in Krakow, one of the oldest in Europe. Having no son, Casimir bequeathed the kingdom to his nephew Louis I the Great (Louis of Hungary), at that time one of the most powerful monarchs in Europe. Under Louis (r. 1370–1382), Polish nobles (gentry) received the so-called. Kosice privileges (1374), according to which they were exempted from almost all taxes, having received the right not to pay taxes above a certain amount. In return, the nobles promised to transfer the throne to one of the daughters of King Louis.

Jagiellonian dynasty

After the death of Louis, the Poles turned to his youngest daughter Jadwiga with a request to become their queen. Jadwiga married Jagiello (Jogaila, or Jagiello), the Grand Duke of Lithuania, who ruled in Poland under the name Vladislav II (r. 1386–1434). Vladislav II accepted Christianity himself and converted the Lithuanian people to it, founding one of the most powerful dynasties in Europe. The vast territories of Poland and Lithuania were united in a powerful state union. Lithuania became the last pagan people in Europe to adopt Christianity, so the presence of the Teutonic Order of the Crusaders here lost its meaning. However, the crusaders were no longer going to leave. In 1410, the Poles and Lithuanians defeated the Teutonic Order at the Battle of Grunwald. In 1413 they approved the Polish-Lithuanian Union in Horodlo, and public institutions of the Polish type appeared in Lithuania. Casimir IV (r. 1447–1492) tried to limit the power of the nobility and the church, but was forced to confirm their privileges and the rights of the Sejm, which included the higher clergy, the aristocracy, and the petty nobility. In 1454, he granted the noblemen the Neshav Statutes, similar to the English Magna Carta. The thirteen-year war with the Teutonic Order (1454-1466) ended with the victory of Poland, and under the agreement in Torun on October 19, 1466, Pomerania and Gdansk were returned to Poland. The order recognized itself as a vassal of Poland.

Golden Age of Poland

16th century became the golden age of Polish history. At this time, Poland was one of the largest countries in Europe, it dominated Eastern Europe, and its culture reached its peak. However, the emergence of a centralized Russian state that claimed the lands of the former Kievan Rus, the unification and strengthening of Brandenburg and Prussia in the west and north, and the threat of the militant Ottoman Empire in the south posed a great danger to the country. In 1505, in Radom, King Alexander (reigned 1501–1506) was forced to adopt a constitution “nothing new” (lat. nihil novi), according to which the parliament received the right to an equal vote with the monarch in making government decisions and the right to veto all issues, concerning the nobility. According to this constitution, the parliament consisted of two chambers - the Sejm, in which the petty nobility was represented, and the Senate, which represented the highest aristocracy and the highest clergy. The long and open borders of Poland, as well as frequent wars, made it necessary to have a powerful trained army in order to ensure the security of the kingdom. The monarchs lacked the funds needed to maintain such an army. Therefore, they were forced to obtain the sanction of Parliament for any large expenditures. The aristocracy (monarchy) and the petty nobility (gentry) demanded privileges for their loyalty. As a result, a system of "small local noble democracy" was formed in Poland, with the gradual expansion of the influence of the richest and most powerful magnates.

Rzeczpospolita

In 1525, Albrecht of Brandenburg, Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, converted to Lutheranism, and the Polish king Sigismund I (r. 1506–1548) allowed him to transform the possessions of the Teutonic Order into the hereditary Duchy of Prussia under Polish suzerainty. During the reign of Sigismund II Augustus (1548-1572), the last king of the Jagiellonian dynasty, Poland reached its greatest power. Krakow became one of the largest European centers of the humanities, architecture and art of the Renaissance, Polish poetry and prose, and for a number of years - the center of the reformation. In 1561, Poland annexed Livonia, and on July 1, 1569, at the height of the Livonian War with Russia, the personal royal Polish-Lithuanian union was replaced by the Union of Lublin. The united Polish-Lithuanian state began to be called the Commonwealth (Polish "common cause"). From that time on, the same king was to be elected by the aristocracy in Lithuania and Poland; there was one parliament (Seim) and common laws; common money was put into circulation; religious tolerance became common in both parts of the country. The last question was of particular importance, since large territories conquered in the past by the Lithuanian princes were inhabited by Orthodox Christians.

Elective Kings: The Decline of the Polish State.

After the death of the childless Sigismund II, the central power in the vast Polish-Lithuanian state began to weaken. At a stormy meeting of the Diet, a new king, Henry (Henrik) Valois (r. 1573–1574; he later became Henry III of France), was elected. At the same time, he was forced to accept the principle of "free election" (election of the king by the nobility), as well as the "consent pact", which each new monarch had to swear. The right of the king to choose his heir was transferred to the Sejm. The king was also prohibited from declaring war or raising taxes without the consent of Parliament. He had to be neutral in religious matters, he had to marry on the recommendation of the senate. The council, which consisted of 16 senators appointed by the Sejm, constantly advised him. If the king did not fulfill any of the articles, the people could refuse him obedience. Thus, the Henryk Articles changed the status of the state - Poland moved from a limited monarchy to an aristocratic parliamentary republic; the head of the executive branch, elected for life, did not have sufficient powers to govern the state.

Stefan Batory (r. 1575–1586). The weakening of the supreme power in Poland, which had long and poorly protected borders, but aggressive neighbors, whose power was based on centralization and military force, largely predetermined the future collapse of the Polish state. Henry of Valois ruled for only 13 months, and then left for France, where he received the throne, vacated after the death of his brother Charles IX. The Senate and the Sejm could not agree on the candidacy of the next king, and the gentry finally elected Stefan Batory, Prince of Transylvania (reigned 1575–1586), giving him a princess from the Jagiellonian dynasty as his wife. Batory strengthened Polish power over Gdansk, ousted Ivan the Terrible from the Baltic states and returned Livonia. At home, he won the loyalty and help in the fight against the Ottoman Empire from the Cossacks - fugitive serfs who organized a military republic on the vast plains of Ukraine - a kind of "border strip" stretching from southeast Poland to the Black Sea along the Dnieper. Bathory gave privileges to the Jews, who were allowed to have their own parliament. He reformed the judiciary, and in 1579 founded a university in Vilna (Vilnius), which became an outpost of Catholicism and European culture in the east.

Sigismund III Vase. A zealous Catholic, Sigismund III Vasa (r. 1587-1632), the son of Johan III of Sweden and Catherine, daughter of Sigismund I, decided to create a Polish-Swedish coalition to fight Russia and return Sweden to the bosom of Catholicism. In 1592 he became the Swedish king.

In order to spread Catholicism among the Orthodox population, a Uniate church was established at the cathedral in Brest in 1596, which recognized the supremacy of the Pope, but continued to use Orthodox rituals. The opportunity to seize the throne of Moscow after the suppression of the Rurik dynasty involved the Commonwealth in the war with Russia. In 1610, Polish troops occupied Moscow. The vacant royal throne was offered by the Moscow boyars to Sigismund's son, Vladislav. However, the Muscovites rebelled, and with the help of the people's militia under the leadership of Minin and Pozharsky, the Poles were expelled from Moscow. Sigismund's attempts to introduce absolutism in Poland, which at that time already dominated the rest of Europe, led to a revolt of the gentry and the loss of the king's prestige.

After the death of Albrecht II of Prussia in 1618, the Elector of Brandenburg became the ruler of the Duchy of Prussia. Since that time, the possessions of Poland on the coast of the Baltic Sea have become a corridor between two provinces of the same German state.

decline

During the reign of Sigismund's son, Vladislav IV (1632–1648), the Ukrainian Cossacks revolted against Poland, the wars with Russia and Turkey weakened the country, and the gentry received new privileges in the form of political rights and exemption from income taxes. Under the rule of Vladislav's brother Jan Casimir (1648–1668), the Cossack freemen began to behave even more militantly, the Swedes occupied most of Poland, including the capital, Warsaw, and the king, abandoned by his subjects, was forced to flee to Silesia. In 1657 Poland renounced sovereign rights to East Prussia. As a result of unsuccessful wars with Russia, Poland lost Kyiv and all areas east of the Dnieper under the Andrusovo truce (1667). The process of disintegration began in the country. The magnates, creating alliances with neighboring states, pursued their own goals; the rebellion of Prince Jerzy Lubomirski shook the foundations of the monarchy; the gentry continued to defend their own “freedoms”, which was suicidal for the state. Since 1652, she began to abuse the pernicious practice of "liberum veto", which allowed any deputy to block a decision that he did not like, demand the dissolution of the Sejm and put forward any proposals that should have been considered by its next composition. Taking advantage of this, the neighboring powers, through bribery and other means, repeatedly frustrated the implementation of decisions of the Sejm that were objectionable to them. King Jan Casimir was broken and abdicated the Polish throne in 1668, in the midst of internal anarchy and strife.

External intervention: prelude to partition

Mikhail Vyshnevetsky (r. 1669–1673) turned out to be an unprincipled and inactive monarch who played along with the Habsburgs and ceded Podolia to the Turks. His successor, Jan III Sobieski (r. 1674–1696), waged successful wars with the Ottoman Empire, saved Vienna from the Turks (1683), but was forced to cede some lands to Russia under an "Eternal Peace" treaty in exchange for her promises of assistance in struggle against the Crimean Tatars and Turks. After the death of Sobieski, the Polish throne in the new capital of the country, Warsaw, was occupied for 70 years by foreigners: the Elector of Saxony August II (reigned 1697–1704, 1709–1733) and his son August III (1734–1763). August II actually bribed the electors. Having united in an alliance with Peter I, he returned Podolia and Volhynia and stopped the exhausting Polish-Turkish wars, concluding the Karlovitsky Peace with the Ottoman Empire in 1699. The Polish king unsuccessfully tried to recapture the Baltic coast from the King of Sweden, Charles XII, who invaded Poland in 1701, and in 1703 he took Warsaw and Krakow. August II was forced to yield the throne in 1704–1709 to Stanislav Leshchinsky, who was supported by Sweden, but returned to the throne again when Peter I defeated Charles XII at the Battle of Poltava (1709). In 1733, the Poles, supported by the French, elected Stanislav king for the second time, but the Russian troops again removed him from power.

Stanisław II: the last Polish king. Augustus III was nothing more than a puppet of Russia; patriotic Poles tried with all their might to save the state. One of the factions of the Sejm, led by Prince Czartoryski, tried to cancel the pernicious "liberum veto", while the other, led by the powerful Potocki family, opposed any restriction of "freedoms". Desperate, Czartoryski's party began to cooperate with the Russians, and in 1764 Catherine II, Empress of Russia, succeeded in electing her favorite Stanisław August Poniatowski as King of Poland (1764–1795). Poniatowski was the last king of Poland. Russian control became especially evident under Prince N.V. Repnin, who, being ambassador to Poland, in 1767 forced the Sejm of Poland to accept his demands for equality of confessions and the preservation of the “liberum veto”. This led in 1768 to an uprising of Catholics (the Bar Confederation) and even to a war between Russia and Turkey.

Partitions of Poland. First section

In the midst 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 elective monarchy, and created a State Council of 36 elected members of the Sejm. The division of the country awakened a social movement for reform and national revival. In 1773, the Jesuit Order was dissolved and a commission for public education was created, the purpose of which was to reorganize the system of schools and colleges. The four-year Sejm (1788–1792), headed 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 system of executive power and a parliament elected every two years. The principle of "liberum veto" and other pernicious practices were abolished; cities received administrative and judicial autonomy, as well as representation in parliament; peasants, over whom the power of the gentry was maintained, were considered as an estate under state protection; measures were taken to prepare for the abolition of serfdom and the organization of a regular army. The normal work of the parliament and the reforms became possible only because Russia was involved in a protracted war with Sweden, and Turkey supported Poland. However, the magnates opposed the constitution and formed the Targowice Confederation, at the call of which the troops of Russia and Prussia entered Poland.

Second and third sections

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 Volhynia and Podolia. The Poles fought but were defeated, the reforms of the Four Years Sejm were reversed, and the rest of Poland became a puppet state. In 1794, Tadeusz Kosciuszko led a massive popular uprising, which ended in defeat. The third partition of Poland, in which Austria participated, took place 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 for the restoration of their independence. Each new generation fought, either by joining the opponents of the powers that divided Poland, or by raising 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 from the territories captured by Prussia during the second and third partitions, the Grand Duchy of Warsaw (1807–1815). Two years later, 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 the defeat of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna (1815) approved the partitions 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 Poznań (1815–1846); its other part was declared a monarchy (the so-called Kingdom of Poland) and annexed to the Russian Empire. In November 1830, the Poles raised an uprising against Russia, but were defeated. Emperor Nicholas I canceled the constitution of the Kingdom of Poland and began repressions. 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 also intensified. The situation improved somewhat after the 1905 revolution in Russia. Polish deputies sat in all four Russian Dumas (1905–1917), seeking Polish autonomy.

Territories controlled by Prussia. On the territory under the rule of Prussia, an 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 put down the Poznan 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

On the Austrian Polish lands, the situation was somewhat better. After the Krakow uprising of 1846, the regime was liberalized, and Galicia received local administrative 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. The preservation of the Polish language and Polish culture became the main task of the struggle waged by the intelligentsia, primarily poets and writers, as well as the clergy of the Catholic Church.

World War I

New opportunities for achieving independence. The First World War divided the powers that liquidated Poland: Russia was at war with Germany and Austria-Hungary. This situation opened up fateful opportunities for the Poles, but also created new difficulties. First, the Poles had to fight in opposing armies; secondly, Poland became the scene of battles between the warring powers; thirdly, disagreements between Polish political groups escalated. Conservative national democrats led by Roman Dmovsky (1864–1939) considered Germany the main enemy and desired the victory of the Entente. Their goal was to unite all Polish lands under Russian control and obtain the status of autonomy. The radical elements, led by the Polish Socialist Party (PPS), on the contrary, considered the defeat of Russia as the most important condition for achieving Poland's 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, embarked on 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

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. On March 30, 1917, after the February Revolution in Russia, the Provisional Government of Prince Lvov recognized Poland's right to self-determination. July 22, 1917 Pilsudski, who fought on the side of the Central Powers, was interned, and his legions were disbanded for refusing to take an oath of allegiance to the emperors of Austria-Hungary and Germany. In France, with the support of the powers of the Entente, in August 1917 the Polish National Committee (PNC) was created, headed by Roman Dmowski and Ignacy Paderewski; the Polish army was also formed with the 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 the collapse and collapse of the Central Powers, the Regency Council of Poland announced the creation of an independent Polish state, and on November 14, Piłsudski transferred full power in the country. By this time, Germany had already capitulated, Austria-Hungary had collapsed, and a civil war was going on in Russia.

State formation

The 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 institutions; finally, its borders were not defined and agreed with the neighbors. Nevertheless, state building and economic recovery proceeded at a rapid pace. After a transitional 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 were held to the Sejm, the new composition of which approved Piłsudski as head of state.

The Question of Borders

The western and northern borders of the country were determined at the Versailles Conference, according to which part of the Pomerania and access to the Baltic Sea were transferred to Poland; Danzig (Gdansk) received the status of a "free city". At a conference of ambassadors on July 28, 1920, the southern border was agreed upon. The city of Cieszyn and its suburb Cesky Teszyn were divided between Poland and Czechoslovakia. Violent disputes between Poland and Lithuania over Vilna (Vilnius), an ethnically Polish but historically Lithuanian city, ended with its occupation by the Poles on October 9, 1920; accession to Poland was approved on February 10, 1922 by a democratically elected regional assembly.

April 21, 1920 Pilsudski made 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 repel the enemy; this ended the war. The treaty of Riga that followed (March 18, 1921) was a territorial compromise for both sides and was officially recognized by the conference of ambassadors on March 15, 1923.

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 signed 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 consent and cooperation" with Germany and Italy. After that, on January 26, 1934, Poland and Germany signed a non-aggression pact for a period of 10 years, and soon the duration of a similar agreement with the USSR was extended. In March 1936, after the military occupation of the Rhineland by Germany, Poland again unsuccessfully tried to conclude an agreement with France and Belgium on Poland's support for them in the event of a 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 Teszyn region. In March 1939, Hitler occupied Czechoslovakia and put forward 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-Anglo-Soviet negotiations began in Moscow aimed at curbing German expansion. The Soviet Union in these negotiations 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 untied his hands. On September 1, 1939, World War II began with an attack on Poland.

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