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A BRIEF HISTORY OF POLAND
Copyright 1994 - AngloPol Corporation -- Distributed by the Polonia Media Network
Part 9
The 19th Century--
Polish Wars and Uprisings
Since the time of the partitions until World War I (during 123 years of captivity) successive generations of Poles launched attempts to regain independence, but it was hard to rely upon rebuilding Poland without a favorable international situation. Russia, Prussia and Austria pursued a common policy aimed at retaining the spoils of war and tried to avoid conflicts among themselves.
It was impossible to defeat the three powers at the same time. The three partitioning monarchies were absolute states and their political systems stood in complete contradiction to the Polish tradition of democracy, self-government and civil freedoms of the gentry. Those traditions were cultivated not only by Polish landowners, clergy and the enlightened part of the bourgeoisie, but also by intelligentsia tracing their descent to the gentry. The Polish struggle for freedom amounted to the struggle against violence and absolutism. That is why the Polish cause was related to the European freedom and democratic movements. That was reflected in the participation of Poles in European uprisings and revolutions in the 19th century, as well as the participation of foreigners in Polish uprisings.
The slogan "For your freedom and ours" ["Z nasza i wasza wolnosc"] became the symbol of the Polish contribution to the democratization of the European political systems.
At the turn the 19th century, Napoleon's France was Poland's ally. The Polish legions were set up in Italy in 1797 to support Napoleon in his war on Austria. In the years 1806-1807 Napoleon defeated Austria, Prussia and Russia. Under the Treaty of Tilsit the Duchy of Warsaw was established on part of the lands of Prussian-annexed Poland. The Duchy was granted a Constitution by Napoleon, a Polish government was formed, the Napoleonic Code was introduced and peasants were given personal freedoms.
Poland's future was sealed by Napoleon's abortive expedition against Russia in 1812 and the battle of nations lost by France at Leipzig (1813), during which Prince Jozef Poniatowski, the Commander-in-Chief of the Duchy's Army, died a heroic death.
The Congress of Vienna in 1815 relinquished part of the Duchy, together with Poznan, over to Prussia. The remaining lands were turned into the Kingdom of Poland, tied with Russia. Tsar Alexander I became King. Its own Constitution, government, Sejm and the army were those factors which made up the Kingdom's identity. However, it proved impossible to reconcile the constitutional regime of the Kingdom with the despotic regime in Russia. The incessant violations of the Constitution and setbacks suffered by opposition led Polish youth to join conspiratorial organizations preparing for an uprising. This coincided with the persecution of everything that represented Polishness in the eastern territories of the former Republic, the destruction of the flourishing University of Wilno [now called Vilnius] and the rebellion of the Decembrists in Russia (1825). The signal for revolt was given by the July Revolution in France, the uprising in Belgium and the Russian plans to intervene militarily, providing for the use of the Kingdom's army to put down the freedom movements.
The uprising broke out in Warsaw on November 29, 1830. An independent government was called into being, with the Sejm dethroning the Tsar. The Polish-Russian war followed. The well-trained and armed Polish army held out till September, 1831, but was not able to win that war in view of the enormous human and economic resources of Russia.
The fall of the uprising brought on the annulment of the Constitution, the liquidation of the Kingdom's army, the closing of Warsaw University and the construction of the citadel in Warsaw. Everything Polish was doggedly hunted down in Lithuania, Byelorussia [now Bielarus] and Ukraine. Deportations and confiscations of property came in the wake of the crushed revolt. The University of Wilno was closed. Poles were also persecuted by the Prussian authorities in the Poznan province and by the Austrians in Galicia.
The defeat sent some 10,000 uprising leaders and participants into exile. They went, primarily, to France. Poets Adam Mickiewicz (at left) and Juliusz Slowacki settled in Paris, where they continued their writing. Composer Frederyk Chopin (below at right) and historian Joachim Lelewel also went to Paris.
Discussions on the causes of the uprising's defeat were held by the Polish Democratic Society, which also conducted preparations for further armed struggle. Diplomatic efforts to keep the Polish issue alive were carried on by Prince Adam Czartoryski. The essential part of those discussions on the defeat focused on the situation of the Polish peasantry, which was the main social problem until 1863. Peasants did not own farmland and had to pay rents to the gentry for its use. Enfranchisement and the granting of land to peasants were regarded as indispensable conditions for modernizing the economic structure and attracting the peasant masses to the Polish independence movement.
The first to enfranchise peasants were the Prussian authorities, which action later became the foundation for the propitious economic development of that part of Poland annexed by Prussia. The Austrians enfranchised peasants during the Spring of Nations, which also swept through Prussian-annexed Poland.
The peasant problem remained unresolved, however, in the Polish Kingdom. Much hope was pinned on the person of Tsar Alexander II in the belief that he would stop reprisals. Nonetheless the scope of concessions made by him was insignificant. The Tsar expressed that by his well-known saying: "Point de reveries Messieurs" ("no daydreaming, gentlemen.") A wave of religious and national demonstrations swept the Kingdom; conspirators were preparing an uprising. It broke out in January, 1863, and was waged in the Kingdom, Lithuania, Byelorussia, and Volhynia for a year and a half. It was a guerrilla war.
The clandestine National Government and the decrees issued under its seal were respected voluntarily. The foundation of an underground state in Europe was something entirely unique in the 19th century. The government collected taxes, organized the supplies of weapons and published newspapers. One of its first decisions was to enfranchise the peasants, but calculations based on a massive enrollment in the fighting failed. Only the gentry, priests, rural clerks, burghers and intelligentsia fought. It is estimated that some 200,000 men went through the ranks of the guerrilla units during eighteen months of struggle, with some 30,000 guerrillas fighting at one time.
The Russian Army, thwarting the uprising, numbered 340,000 soldiers at its peak. The last "dictator" of the uprising, Romuald Traugutt, was arrested and hanged, together with four of his aides, on August 5, 1864, amid the prayers of the despairing people of Warsaw. A similar fate befell other leaders and guerrillas. The uprising collapsed, reprisals followed and the state of war lingered on until the outbreak of World War I. The Tsar scrapped the remnants of the administrative autonomy of the Kingdom. Administration, judicature and education were Russified. The rights of the Church were trimmed. The suffering and moral crisis of the people were further deepened by the loss of hope for winning independence.
On March 2, 1864, the Tsar issued a decree to enfranchise peasants, patterned after the decree of the National Government. Its aim was to attract the peasantry to the Tsardom, but in the long term its outcome turned out to be quite the contrary from what had been intended. Having been freed of the feudal burdens, peasants gradually became conscious members of the national community.
The demand of the enormous Russian market and the influx of capital into the Kingdom from foreign investors, who were interested in that market and in cheap labor, led to a quick development of industry. At the beginning of the 20th century, Warsaw numbered about one million residents; Lodz, the center of the textile industry, had a population of about 500,000. The economy of Prussian-annexed Poland was also developing favorably, whereas the economy of the Austrian-occupied Poland remained backward. All the three sectors, though, recorded a high rate of natural increase.
In 1910, the Polish Kingdom, Galicia and the Grand Duchy of Poland were inhabited by about 22.5 million people, with Poles making up some 75% of the population.
In the face of the loss of the statehood and the defeat of successive uprisings, an enormous role in maintaining Polish identity was played by culture. That culture created two patterns in the 19th century that keep on influencing Poland and Poles even today: Romanticism and Positivism.
Romantic literature promoted the image of a heroic fighter for freedom who alone opposed violence with the power of his spirit: "Reach where your vision does not reach, break up what mind cannot break," was the call by romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz. The other literary giant of the time, Juliusz Slowacki (at left), wrote about heroes as "like stones thrown by God on a rampart." In music Frederic Chopin used Polish folk and national motifs.
After the November Uprising, Paris became the center of Polish romantic art and literature. Some of the exiles went farther. Ignacy Domeyko, one of the founders of modern science in Chile, was a graduate of the University of Wilno. Poles also made great contributions to the ethnographic, geographic and biological studies in Siberia, to which they had been deported.
Positivism promoted well-organized work, education and economic development. In raising national issues, it invoked the historical costume in novels by Henryk Sienkiewicz (at right), who won the Nobel Prize in 1905 for his novel "Quo Vadis," in paintings by Jan Matejko, and in operas by Stanislaw Moniuszko. The greatest Polish novel of the 19th century, "Lalka" [The Doll] by Boleslaw Prus, depicted the tragic conflict between the two attitudes--the main character, a former insurgent, then a rich businessman, is killed by his love of a mediocre aristocratic lady.
The turn of the 20th century saw a revival of romantic feeling and trends in poetry, drama (Stanislaw Wyspianski) and painting.
The emigration of artists and scientists continued throughout the entire period of bondage. In France, Maria Sklodowska-Curie found opportunities for her pioneering work in physics, taking the Nobel Prize together with her husband in 1905 and individually in 1910. In the United States the talents of Helena Modrzejewska and Ignacy Paderewski came to full bloom.
The post-uprising period saw an intensification of Russification pressure in the Russian partition, and of Germanization and a cultural struggle [Kulturkampf] against the Church in the Prussian partition. Those pressures resulted in a growth of national awareness and religious moods, but preparations for new uprisings were given up. The Austrian partition, Galicia, particularly after it was granted homerule, became the center of Polish culture. There were two universities there, in Krakow and Lwow, as well as the Polish Academy of Letters and numerous associations. In the Prussian partition, Poles could use the institutions of the law-abiding state for their defense. They could claim their rights at courts of law, set up scientific societies and economic-financial organizations.
Modern political parties--peasant, worker, national--developed at the turn of the 20th century. The problems of workers grew in conjunction with the development of industries and towns. This found expression in the revolution of 1905, which "embraced" Russia and the Kingdom.
Part 10
INDEPENDENCE REGAINED
The uprisings of the 19th century, although lost, were not in vain. Owing to them, one generation passed the desire for independence and the willingness to make sacrifices to the generation that followed. In the first half of the century that desire was common only among the socially elite, but by the turn of the next century it became universal among Poles.
The upcoming war in Europe meant that Polish politicians had to choose which side to take. The chance for Poland resulted from the fact that the partitioning nations found themselves in opposing camps. Only one of the sides could come out victorious from the war--either Russia in alliance with France and England or Germany allied with Austria-Hungary. The National Democrats, led by Roman Dmowski, wanted to align themselves with Russia. The Polish Socialist Party, especially the faction led by Jozef Pilsudski (at right), declared itself on the side of Austria-Hungary. The Polish legions were formed in Galicia to support Austria against Russia.
German military successes pushed Russians from the territory of the Kingdom of Poland. By 1915 Germany and Austria-Hungary occupied the entire territory of the Kingdom. The occupiers permitted the organization of local self-governments and city councils, as well as the Polonization of education and the setting up of a university and a polytechnic. Polish society, whose aspirations and opportunities had been stifled for decades, commanded the human potential capable of using those chances immediately.
Nevertheless in economic terms, the Kingdom's situation was dangerous. Many factories and much of the machinery, as well as positions filled by technical personnel, were evacuated by the retreating Russians. What remained of industry and farming was ruthlessly plundered by the occupiers. Malnutrition and epidemics reigned in towns.
The situation of the Central Powers, i.e., Germany and Austria-Hungary, deteriorated in 1917. Being aware of that, Jozef Pilsudski took advantage of the clandestine Polish Military Organization (POW) set up in 1914 and refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Germans and Austrians, a fact that led to his arrest. The Regency Council instituted in the Kingdom had little prestige. The Polish National Committee acting in Paris under the leadership of Roman Dmowski was recognized as the representation of Polish interests.
A Polish lancer is pictured at left.
The outbreak of the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 and the conclusion of the separatist peace treaty between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers in Brest (March 3, 1918) enabled the Western Powers to support the Polish cause. Earlier, Article 13 of a message by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson (January 8, 1918) called for the restoration of an independent Polish state. France was striving to weaken Germany and rebuild a strong Poland.
World War I brought an unexpected defeat to all of the three partitioning powers. Austria-Hungary capitulated on January 3, 1918, and Germany surrendered on November 11. Russia was excluded from the group of victors by the revolution. This opened the road to independence for Poland. The Austrians and Germans retreating from the East were disarmed by units of the Polish Military Organization.
On the night of November 6, 1918, representatives of the Polish Socialist Party and of the Peasant Party formed a Polish government in Lublin with Ignacy Daszynski at the head. On November 10 Pilsudski returned to Warsaw, having been released from prison. The Regency Council and Daszynski's government handed power over to him. Pilsudski assumed the functions of the Head of State. Preparations began for parliamentary elections to be held according to a democratic electoral law. Women were granted full civil rights. The eight-hour workday and social insurance for workers were introduced. The elections to the Legislative Sejm were held in January, 1919, and won by the National Democrats.
Ignacy Paderewski, composer, musician and statesman is pictured above at right. He advanced the Polish cause on an international basis.
The delineation of borders posed one of the most difficult problems for the revived Polish state. The restoration of Poland to her pre-partition borders was impossible in view of the formation of a national consciousness on the part of Ukrainians in the 19th century, as well as by the Lithuanians and to some extent also the Belarusians [then known as Byelorussians]. The adoption of the ethnographic principle in marking the borders was also difficult to accept, because of multi-ethnic settlement in the majority of borderland areas. Yet, even some of the lands indisputably inhabited by Poles in 1918 were beyond the government's control. One such example was Wielkopolska [Great Poland]. An uprising broke out there in December, 1918. Following heavy fighting against the Germans the land was incorporated into the Polish state in 1919.
The provisions of the Treaty of Versailles stipulated that Poland would receive Pomerania, but Gdansk would be a free city, and that a plebiscite would be held to resolve the future of Eastern Prussia and Upper Silesia. The result was unfavorable to Poland. Nevertheless, three successive uprisings by the Polish population in Upper Silesia caused that part of the region to be given to Poland. The Polish-Czech treaty dividing Tsesin Silesia was violated by Czechoslovakia, which took the entire disputed territory by force.
The greatest problems were posed, however, by the question of the eastern border. Soviet Russia already had renounced the Treaty of Brest in late 1918 and launched an offensive in the Ukraine and Bielarus [then called Byelorussia]. The local national movements and the budding state structures were jeopardized.
The advancing Bolsheviks murdered Poles living in those areas.
Early in 1919, the Polish army launched a counter-offensive. Simultaneously, attempts were under way in Ukraine to form an independent Ukrainian state. Britain proposed the Curzon Line (on the Bug River) as the eastern border for Poland, which if accepted, would have left millions of Poles outside their homeland and under Russian rule. In May, 1920, Polish troops entered Kiev in alliance with the Ukrainian troops under Petlura's command. That was a partial realization of the federative plans of Jozef Pilsudski, who wanted to unite Poland, Ukraine, Bielarus and Lithuania.
Poland was too weak, however, to guarantee the existence of the federation. The counter-offensive by the Red Army broke the front line, with the Bolsheviks pushing westward. In August, 1920, the Soviet Army under the command of Tukhachevsky reached the outskirts of Warsaw, which put the city and Poland's independence, and even the independence of Germany and Europe, in grave danger. A plan to defend the city was drawn up under the direction of the Commander-in-Chief, Pilsudski. The battle, ultimately victorious, continued from August 12 to August 15 on the outskirts of Warsaw, with a Polish counter-offensive being launched from the area of the Wieprz River on August 16. The Bolshevik troops were smashed and defeated once again on the Niemen River.
The Peace of Riga concluded on March 18, 1921, establishing Poland's eastern border on the Zbrucz River, providing for payment of reparations to Poland and stipulating the return of the cultural treasures looted by Russia during the time of the partitions.
The Polish Army took Wilno [now called Vilnius] in combat, which ended the process of shaping the borders of the Polish state. The Peace Treaty of Riga ensured political stability in Central-Eastern Europe, as well as the independence of the Baltic states.
