Development of Russian-Polish relations in the 17th century. History of relations between Russia and Poland

If the Poles want to remain a great people, they need military-economic integration with the Russians

A frenzied crowd, as if electrified by demonic energy, faces distorted with anger. No, this is not the Middle East with the eternal confrontation between Israelis and Arabs, nor Egypt blazing with the fire of street clashes and not drowning in the maelstrom civil wars– “thank you” to American “democracy” – Iraq and Libya. This is the center Eastern Europe and outwardly respectable Warsaw. And the genie of hatred that has broken out is aimed at Russia, which once liberated Poland from fascism. And sometimes it seems that our Slavic brothers are diligently trying to forget about it.

However, the penultimate sentence will cause malicious comments: how, how, who liberated... Only five years earlier, the Red Army plunged a knife into the back of the heroically - without irony - Polish Army that fought the Wehrmacht. And in 1944, she allegedly deliberately did not provide assistance to the anti-Hitler uprising in Warsaw; finally, the liberators did not want to leave the country after the end of the war, essentially occupying it, destroying the underground Home Army.

Yes, I don’t argue, that happened. It is difficult not to agree with the fact that the centuries-old and blood-darkened pages of the Russian- Polish relations, perhaps the most bitter in the two Slavic peoples. Bratskikh. There's no getting around this either.

And what’s amazing: the Poles also had a difficult time with Germany, to put it mildly, but they don’t burn garbage cans near the fence of its embassy. And they don’t feel the same hatred for the Germans as they do for us - at least they don’t express it in such wild forms as they did on November 11 of last year in front of the Russian embassy. Why? Let's try to figure it out.

Where did the hostility come from?

The origins of the antipathy of some Poles towards the Russians can be found in two specific dates: July 15, 1410 and June 28, 1569.

The first of them is associated with the victory of the Polish-Lithuanian troops with the direct help of Russian regiments and Tatar detachments over the army of the Teutonic Order. The second went down in history with the Union of Lublin, which laid the foundation for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - the united Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Why these two dates? Because Grunwald gave impetus to the birth of the imperial idea among the Polish knighthood (gentry), and the Union of Lublin formalized it, one might say, legally. And with the birth of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the gentry felt themselves to be a great, in Hegel’s language, a historical people, however, the philosopher himself did not classify the Poles, as well as the Slavs in general, as such. But this is true, by the way.

Thus, the formation of Polish imperial consciousness began with the Grunwald victory. What did this mean? In the so-called ideology of Sarmatism. Its founder was the outstanding Polish chronicler and diplomat Jan Dlogusz, who lived in the 15th century. His younger compatriot, Maciej Miechowski, consolidated this idea, or rather, the mythology in the treatise “On Two Sarmatias”.

On its pages, he affirmed the flattering pride of the gentry, the origin of the Poles from the Sarmatians, who roamed in the 6th–4th centuries BC. e. in the Black Sea steppes. Moreover, from the point of view of the gentry, they were the only truly Polish people, descendants of the Sarmatians; the local peasantry was perceived as nothing other than cattle and had nothing to do with the once powerful tribes. So... Slavic commoners...

What we have before us is a bizarre interweaving in the minds of the gentry of a sense of their own superiority over the same “Asian-Russians” and at the same time an internal feeling of inferiority - otherwise how to explain the distancing from their own Slavic origin? It is interesting that in external forms the ideology formulated by Mekhovsky, which dominated among the gentry in the 16th–17th centuries, found expression in the Sarmatian armor of the winged hussars - once the best and most beautifully equipped cavalry in the world.

To be fair, I note that such a sense of self was characteristic not only of our Western Slavic brothers, but also of the Russian elite - how can one not recall Ivan the Terrible’s statement about the origin of the Rurikids from the Roman Augustus Caesar, which he set out in a letter to the Swedish king Johan III.

So, imagining themselves to be descendants of the Sarmatians, the gentry took upon themselves the historical mission of bringing civilization to the barbarian peoples, that is, the Russians. The descendants, as the Poles believed, of the “wild” and “ignorant” Scythians. On top of that, in the eyes of the gentry, the Russians were schismatics - schismatics who had once broken away from the Catholic Church. Let me remind you that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth saw itself as an outpost of Catholicism in Eastern Europe. That is, in relation to the “Muscovites”, the gentry felt a sense of both ethnic and religious superiority, which they tried to prove through an expansionist foreign policy, expressed in the desire to conquer the original Russian lands - the siege of Pskov by the Polish king Stefan Batory in 1581-1582. And that was just the beginning. During the Time of Troubles, the Polish king Sigismund III Vasa wished to annex Russia, which was plunging into chaos, into the possessions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

It is noteworthy that at the same time he laid claim to the Swedish throne, a little later the nobles took part in the Thirty Years' War, and the Polish magnates fought with the Turks and Austrians for dominance in Moldova. Before us is an example of an active expansionist policy characteristic of any empire, and a demonstration at the level of military-political will of imperial consciousness.

After the Time of Troubles, throughout the 17th century, Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth crossed swords more than once: first, the Smolensk War of 1632–1634, and then the Russian-Polish War of 1654–1667. Moreover, given that the gentry saw us as wild Asians, the methods of fighting the “Scythians” were also often appropriate. Suffice it to recall the plunder of Orthodox monasteries and churches by Poles and Lithuanians during the Time of Troubles, and the scorched earth tactics used by Prince Jeremiah Vishnevetsky against Russian villages during the Smolensk War.

In general, Polish expansionism failed, but did not affect the mental attitudes of the gentry. But even then, in the first half of the 17th century, our Western Slavic brothers showed a trait that ultimately led to the collapse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the tragic pages of Polish history, namely the incommensurability of the country’s military potential with its geopolitical claims.

Territorially large on a European scale, throughout its history the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth remained essentially a fragmented state with weak royal power and the arbitrariness of the gentry. The magnates who lived in Ukraine, the same Vishnevetskys, were actually independent rulers who had their own armed forces. And at the end of the 18th century, this led to the collapse of the country and its subsequent division between the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and the Habsburg Monarchy.

And most importantly, the loss of independence led to the moral humiliation of the gentry. How - “wild Russian barbarians” rule over “civilized European-Sarmatian Poland”. This hurt the pride of the Polish elite. After all, the imperial consciousness became her flesh and blood. But no empire can be subordinate to anyone. Perish - yes, as the Roman Empire fell under the blows of the Ottoman Turks in 1453. But never be dependent on anyone.

As an example, I will give an episode from Russian history, namely standing on the Ugra River in 1480. By then Golden Horde practically disintegrated, but the energetic Khan Akhmat managed to reunite under his rule a significant part of the once powerful state. Akhmat demanded that Muscovite Rus' resume payment of tribute, backing up his arguments with a military campaign. Ivan III came out to meet the Tatars, but on the Ugra he began to hesitate and was ready to admit dependence on Sarai. However, by that time the Russian elite already felt like the heir of the Romans, which was expressed in the ideology of “Moscow – New Jerusalem” and a little later – “Moscow – Third Rome”.

Imperial mentality

As I have already noted, any imperial idea is born first in the mind, and only then finds its embodiment in state building. And it was the “Message to the Ugra” of the Rostov Archbishop John Rylo that changed the mood of Ivan III. In this document, the khan is conceived not as the legitimate ruler of Rus' - the tsar, as it was before, but as a wicked atheist. In turn, Vassian for the first time called Ivan III Tsar.

So Russia became a kingdom at the level of mental attitudes ruling elite, and only then, in 1547, the formal proclamation of the monarchy took place. The same thing happened in Poland: first Grunwald, then the Union of Lublin.

But when discussing the imperial mentality of the Polish elite, one should not forget the bitter truth - the Europeans themselves, who lived west of the Oder, did not and do not consider either the Poles or the Slavs to be their own. Let us remember the story of the election of Henry Valois, the future French monarch Henry III, to the Polish throne in 1574. Less than a year had passed before the king fled from his subjects at the first opportunity. There were, of course, many reasons, but not the least of them was the mental incompatibility of the Poles and the French: for Henry, the Poles of the same faith turned out to be strangers.

A similar situation has developed in Russia: I mean unsuccessful attempts Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich to marry his daughter Irina to the Danish Prince Voldemar, the son of King Christian IV.

Perhaps the Polish elite itself in the 19th century was aware of a certain mental incompatibility with the West, but it did not intend to part with its imperial identity. But its vectors were shifted towards the pagan roots of Polish culture, but no longer Sarmatian, but Slavic, and with a sharply negative attitude towards Catholicism. The origins of such views were the outstanding Polish scientist of the early 19th century, Zorian Dolenga Khodakovsky.

But in general, a significant part of the Polish intellectual elite felt and feels precisely part of the European Christian culture. For example, the outstanding Polish essayist Czeslaw Milosz in the mid-50s of the last century published a book with the expressive title “Native Europe”.

Actually, in the above lines the answer to the question about the reasons for the calmer attitude of the Poles towards the Germans than towards the Russians. The first ones for the “descendants” of the Sarmatians are their own, native Europeans. Russians are strangers. Moreover, the “despicable Muscovites” became the masters of Poland for more than a century. This humiliated the gentry and made them hate Russians and at the same time experience a feeling of inferiority towards them, as the famous Polish journalist Jerzy Urban wrote: “The contemptuous attitude of Poles towards Russians stems from the Polish inferiority complex.”

Nevertheless, the imperial idea in the minds of the gentry was never eradicated, because throughout the 19th century the Poles sought not only to gain independence, but also to restore the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth within the previous borders in which it existed in the 17th century. I mean the foreign policy of the Kingdom of Poland, formed in 1812, Napoleon’s most loyal ally, as well as the anti-Russian uprisings in the Kingdom of Poland in 1830–1831 and 1863. Let me emphasize once again that these uprisings are not just a struggle for independence, but an attempt to restore the empire - the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, including the non-Polish population.

An interesting detail: precisely being dependent on Napoleonic France and being part of Russian Empire, the gentry under Alexander I managed to create a regular, well-trained and, most importantly, disciplined army, which the independent Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with its Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (militia), troops of magnates, etc., could not boast of.

Path of Conquest

Finally, in 1918, the age-old dream of the Poles came true - their homeland gained freedom. But the country’s leaders did not start organizing internal life on their land, shocked by the First World War, but... embarked on the path of conquest, wanting to revive the empire - the second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from “sea to sea.” What did the Poles want? A lot. Namely, to annex Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine to the Dnieper.

The attitude towards the recent masters of Poland, the Russians, has also not changed: “savage barbarians”, unworthy of leniency. This is me about prisoners of war of the Red Army who ended up in Polish concentration camps after the unsuccessful campaign of the troops of the Bolshevik punisher Tukhachevsky against Warsaw. By the way, if the Reds had been led by a truly intelligent military leader, and not an upstart amateur, the history of independent Poland would have ended before it even began. However, Tukhachevsky’s incompetent command allowed the Poles, with the help of French generals, to defeat and capture part of the Belarusian and Ukrainian lands. To be fair, I note that neither the Belarusians nor the Ukrainians, who became Polish citizens, particularly protested, especially when they learned about the creation of collective farms in the USSR. I will add that in 1920 the Poles occupied part of Lithuania with Vilnius.

Considered by the Western powers to be nothing more than a cordon sanitaire on the path of Bolshevism to Europe, Warsaw sought to put its imperial ambitions into practice in the interwar period. Suffice it to recall the occupation of the Cieszyn region, which was part of Czechoslovakia, by the Poles in 1938 and the ultimatum presented to Lithuania demanding the restoration of diplomatic relations broken off in 1920. What's wrong with restoring diplomatic relations? Nothing, except that their conditions should have been de jure recognition of Poland’s occupation of Vilnius. If the Lithuanians are intractable, Warsaw promised to use military force. Well, it’s logical in its own way - any empire is created with iron and blood and does not particularly take into account the sovereignty of weaker countries.

Another example of the imperial consciousness of the Polish elite. On the eve of World War II, Hitler made territorial claims to Czechoslovakia and made certain proposals to Poland, which in the early 30s he called “the last barrier to civilization in the East” - namely, proposals, not claims. The reaction of both countries is known.

In 1938, Prague meekly accepted the terms of the Munich Treaty and allowed the country to be occupied without firing a shot. Although the superiority of the Czechoslovak army over the Wehrmacht was unconditionally recognized by the German generals. Warsaw refused any compromises with the Germans on the issue of the so-called Danzig Corridor and the Free City of Danzig. And as I already noted, Hitler’s initial demands to his eastern neighbor were very moderate: to include Danzig, the majority of whose population was already German, into Germany, to give the Third Reich the right to build an extraterritorial railway and highway that would connect Germany proper with East Prussia. In addition, knowing about the hatred of the Polish ruling elite towards the Soviet Union, Berlin invited Poland to join the Anti-Comintern Pact directed against the USSR.

Warsaw refused on all counts for a very simple reason: the Polish leadership understood perfectly well that in Berlin they were destined for the role of junior partners. And this contradicted the Polish imperial consciousness. And the Poles were not afraid of the Germans. They reasoned something like this: “Possible aggression from Germany? No problem: Berlin is a hundred kilometers away. We’ll get there if anything happens.” And this was not empty boasting, for the imperial policy of the leadership of the second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was supported by fairly successful military construction.

It is a myth that the Poles had a technically weak army. By 1939, the Polish Army was armed with medium 7TR - one of the best in Europe, superior in tactical and technical data to Wehrmacht combat vehicles. The Polish Air Force had the latest P-37 Losi bombers for its time.

Such a quick victory of the Nazis in September 1939 is explained by the superiority of German military thought over Polish, and over Franco-English and, finally, over Soviet. Suffice it to recall the battles of 1941 - the first half of 1942.

Second world war once again confirmed that the Poles are strangers to Europe. This is evidenced by their losses in the war and the inhumane regime established by the Reich in the conquered Slavic countries, which was very different from that which existed, say, in Denmark, Norway or France. At one time, Hitler directly stated: “Any manifestation of tolerance towards the Poles is inappropriate. Otherwise, we will again have to face the same phenomena that are already known to history and that have always occurred after the partitions of Poland. The Poles survived because they could not help but take the Russians seriously as their overlords... It is necessary, first of all, to ensure that there are no cases of copulation between Germans and Poles, because otherwise fresh German blood will constantly flow into the veins of the Polish ruling layer... ."

Against the background of these inhumane statements of the Fuhrer, attention is drawn to his maxim regarding the Poles’ non-perception of the Russians as their overlords. It's hard to disagree with this.

The fate of post-war Poland was not easy. On the one hand, it did not have freedom in the field of foreign policy, being dependent on the Kremlin, on the other, it achieved certain successes in socio-economic terms without copying the Soviet model of socialism. There were no repressions against the Church in Poland, and Cardinal Karol Wojtyla for many years became Roman Pontiff John Paul II. Finally, with the help of the USSR, the Poles created a combat-ready army equipped with Soviet equipment. This is the undoubted merit of Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, who was the Minister of Defense of the People's Republic of Poland from 1949 to 1955.

The role of cannon fodder

With the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, as is known, Poland hastened to join NATO, where it was expected with open arms, because the United States and its Western allies urgently needed cannon fodder for the Gulf War in 1991 and for the conquest of Iraq in 2003, and fighters were also needed for the occupation army in Afghanistan. Well-trained Polish soldiers were the best fit here and died heroically on the inhospitable banks of the Tigris and Euphrates and in the harsh mountains of Afghanistan, so far from Poland. However, with accession to NATO, the level of combat training of Polish military personnel cannot be called corresponding to the standards of the North Atlantic Alliance due to lack of funding.

As is known, Warsaw actively supports the desire of pro-Western political circles in Ukraine to “drag” it into the European Union. However, it is obvious to any sane person that neither Poland nor Ukraine will ever become full members of the European community. I do not mean the declarative statements of certain politicians, but rather the mental attitudes of Western society. For for him, the countries of the former socialist camp, including Poland, are nothing more than a source of raw materials and cheap labor, as well as cannon fodder in modern and future wars.

Poland can avoid such a humiliating position only through military-economic integration with Russia, forgetting old grievances. There is no other way for her. If the Poles, of course, want to remain a great people.

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3.4 Partitions of Poland

The Russian-Turkish war gave matters a wider course. The idea of ​​dividing Poland had been floating around in diplomatic circles since the 17th century. Under the grandfather and father of Frederick II, Peter I was offered the division of Poland three times. The war between Russia and Turkey gave Frederick II the desired opportunity. According to his plan, Austria, hostile to both of them, was involved in the alliance between Russia and Prussia, for diplomatic assistance to Russia in the war with Turkey, and all three powers received land compensation not from Turkey, but from Poland, which gave the reason for the war. Three years of negotiations! In 1772 (July 25), an agreement followed between the three powers - shareholders. Russia has made poor use of its rights in both Turkey and Poland. The French minister maliciously warned the Russian commissioner that Russia would eventually regret the strengthening of Prussia, to which it had contributed so much. In Russia, Panin was also blamed for the excessive strengthening of Prussia, and he himself admitted that he had gone further than he wanted, and Grigory Orlov considered the treaty on the division of Poland, which so strengthened Prussia and Austria, a crime worthy of the death penalty. Be that as it may, a rare factor in European history will remain the case when the Slavic-Russian state during the reign of national direction helped the German electorate with its scattered territory turn into a great power, a continuous wide strip stretching across the ruins of the Slavic state from the Elbe to the Neman. Thanks to Frederick, the victories of 1770 brought Russia more glory than benefit. Catherine emerged from the first Turkish war and from the first partition of Poland with independent Tatars, with Belarus and with great moral defeat, having raised and not justified so many hopes in Poland, in Western Russia, in Moldavia and Wallachia, in Montenegro, in Morea.

Western Rus' had to be reunited; Instead, Poland was divided by the St. Petersburg Conventions of the 1770-90s, the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was divided (three sections - 1772, 1793, 1795) between Prussia, Austria and Russia. In 1807, Napoleon I created the Duchy of Warsaw from part of the Polish lands. The Congress of Vienna in 1814-1815 redistributed Poland: the Kingdom of Poland was formed from most of the Duchy of Warsaw (transferred to Russia). . Russia annexed not only Western Rus', but also Lithuania and Courland, but not all of Western Rus', losing Galicia into German hands. With the fall of Poland, the clashes between the three powers were not eased by any international buffer. Moreover, “our regiment has disappeared” - there is one less Slavic state; it became part of two German states; this is a major loss for the Slavs; Russia did not appropriate anything originally Polish; it only took away its ancient lands and part of Lithuania, which had once attached them to Poland. Finally, the destruction of the Polish state did not save us from the struggle with the Polish people: 70 years have not passed since the third partition of Poland, and Russia has already fought three times with the Poles (1812, 1831, 1863). Perhaps, in order to avoid hostility with the people, their state should have been preserved.

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In the history of our country, the 17th century is a very significant milestone, since at that time many events took place that influenced the entire subsequent development of the state. Russian foreign policy was especially important in the 17th century, since at that time it was very difficult to fight off numerous enemies, while at the same time maintaining strength for domestic work.

Firstly, it was urgent to return all the lands that were lost as a result of the Troubles. Secondly, the rulers of the country were faced with the task of annexing back all those territories that were once part of the Kievan Rus. Of course, they were largely guided not only by the ideas of reuniting once divided peoples, but also by the desire to increase the share of arable land and the number of taxpayers. Simply put, Russian foreign policy in the 17th century was aimed at restoring the country's integrity. The Troubles had an extremely difficult impact on the country: the treasury was empty, many peasants became so impoverished that it was simply impossible to collect taxes from them. Obtaining new lands that were not plundered by the Poles would not only restore Russia's political prestige, but also replenish its treasury. In general, this was the main foreign policy of Russia in the 17th century.

At the beginning of the 16th century. At the Dnieper rapids, a free Cossack republic emerged - the Zaporozhye Sich. There was no feudal dependence in Zaporozhye. The Cossacks had their own self-government, an elected hetman and a “kosh chieftain”.

The Polish government is trying to take control of the Ukrainian Cossacks and recruit them into service. From the 16th century Cossack uprisings against the Poles begin. Strengthening religious, national and social oppression leads to the outbreak of a liberation war.

In 1648 it was headed by Bogdan Khmelnytsky. He expels the Polish garrison from the Sich, is elected hetman and appeals to the Cossacks for an uprising. Having concluded a military alliance with the Crimean Tatars, Khmelnitsky inflicted defeats on the Poles at Zheltye Vody, Korsun and Pilyavtsy.

In August 1649, the Cossack-Tatar army won a victory near Zborov. A peace treaty was concluded, according to which Poland recognized the autonomy of Right-Bank Ukraine.

In 1650, Polish troops began a new campaign against Khmelnitsky and in 1651, as a result of the betrayal of the Crimean Khan Islam-Girey (who withdrew his troops from the battlefield), they managed to win a victory near Berestechko. The Poles restored their power over Ukraine, limiting the number of Cossacks to 20 thousand.

B. Khmelnitsky, realizing the impossibility of confronting Poland alone, repeatedly raised the question of the reunification of Ukraine with Russia before Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. On October 1, 1653, the Zemsky Sobor decided to accept Ukraine into Russian citizenship. The royal ambassadors went to Hetman Khmelnitsky. On January 8, 1654, the Pereyaslav Rada decided to accept citizenship and took the oath of allegiance to the Tsar, confirming its consent to Ukraine’s entry into Russia.

This caused the war of 1654-1667. between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russia. The war was protracted and ended with the Truce of Andrusovo in 1667. The Smolensk region, Left Bank Ukraine and Kyiv went to Russia. In 1686, an “eternal peace” was concluded with Poland, which consolidated the terms of the Attdrus truce. Belarus remained part of Poland.

The reunification of Ukraine and Russia economically, politically and militarily strengthened the Russian state, preventing the destruction of Ukraine as a result of Polish or Turkish intervention.

At the same time, Russia was at war with Sweden. In 1661, according to the Treaty of Kardis, Russia was forced to return its lands in Livonia to Sweden, and found itself without access to the sea.

In 1677, a war began with Turkey over Ukraine. Turkish troops planned to capture Kyiv and the entire Left Bank Ukraine. But, faced with the heroic resistance of the Russian-Ukrainian army during the defense of the Chigerin fortress, the exhausted Turks signed an agreement in Bakhchisarai (1681) on a truce for 20 years. Türkiye recognized Russia's left bank and Kyiv. The lands between the Dnieper and Kyiv remained neutral.

The issue of relations between Russians and Poles is historically complex. So much so that almost any topic related to the two nations can escalate into a quarrel, full of mutual reproaches and listing of sins. There is something in this acuteness of mutual affection that is different from the carefully hidden, alienated hostility of the Germans and the French, the Spaniards and the English, even the Walloons and the Flemings. In relations between Russians and Poles, there will probably never be a sobering coldness and averted glances. Lenta.ru tried to figure out the reason for this state of affairs.

Since the Middle Ages in Poland, all Orthodox Christians living in the territory of the former Kievan Rus were called Russians, without making any distinction for Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians. Even in the 20th century, in the documents of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the definition of identity, as a rule, was based on religious affiliation - Catholic, Orthodox or Uniate. At the time when Prince Kurbsky sought refuge in Lithuania, and Prince Belsky in Moscow, the mutual connection was already quite strong, the differences were obvious, but there was no mutual perception through the prism of “friend or foe”. Perhaps this is a normal property of the feudal era, when it is too early to talk about national identity.

Any self-awareness is formed in times of crisis. For Russia in the 17th century it was the era of the Troubles, for Poland - the Swedish Flood (the Swedish invasion of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1655-1660). One of the most important results of the “flood” was the expulsion of Protestants from Poland and the subsequent strengthening of the influence of the Catholic Church. Catholicism became the blessing and curse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Following the Protestants, the Orthodox Christians, who made up a large part of the country's population, came under attack, and a mechanism of self-destruction was launched in the state. The former Polish-Lithuanian state was distinguished by fairly high national and religious tolerance - Polish Catholics, Muslims, Karaites, Orthodox and pagans, Lithuanians who worshiped Perkunas successfully coexisted together. No wonder the crisis state power, which began under the most prominent of the Polish kings, John III Sobieski, led to a catastrophic contraction and then the death of the Polish state, which had lost its internal consensus. The system of state power opened up too many opportunities for conflicts, giving them legitimacy. The work of the Sejm was paralyzed by the right of liberum veto, which allowed any deputy to cancel everything with his vote. decisions made, and the royal power was forced to reckon with the gentry confederations. The latter were an armed association of the gentry, which had every right, if necessary, to oppose the king.

At the same time, to the east of Poland the final formation of Russian absolutism was underway. Then the Poles will talk about their historical inclination towards freedom, and the Russians will be simultaneously proud and embarrassed of the autocratic nature of their statehood. Subsequent conflicts, as usual in history inevitable for neighboring peoples, acquired an almost metaphysical meaning of rivalry between two peoples very different in spirit. However, along with this myth, another will form - about the inability of both Russians and Poles to implement their ideas without violence. Famous Polish public figure, editor-in-chief Gazeta Wyborcza Adam Michnik writes wonderfully about this: “Every now and then we feel like students of a magician who have freed powers that no one can control from captivity.” The Polish uprisings and the Russian revolution, in the end, the Ukrainian Maidan - a senseless and merciless instinct of self-destruction.

Russian statehood was strengthening, but this was not, as it may seem now, a consequence of territorial and human superiority over its neighbors. Our country at that time was a huge, poorly developed and sparsely populated territory. Someone will say that these problems still exist today, and they will probably be right. At the end of the 17th century, the population of the Muscovite kingdom exceeded 10 million people, which is slightly more than in the neighboring Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, where 8 million lived, and in France - 19 million. In those days, our Polish neighbors did not and could not have a complex of small people who were threatened from the East.

In the Russian case, it was all about the historical ambitions of the people and the authorities. Now it no longer seems at all strange that, having completed the Northern War, Peter I accepted the title of Emperor of All Russia. But let's look at this decision in the context of the era - after all, the Russian Tsar placed himself above all other European monarchs. The Holy Roman Empire of the German nation does not count - it was not an example or a rival and experienced its own worst times. In relations with the Polish king Augustus II the Strong, Peter I undoubtedly dominated, and in terms of development, Russia begins to outstrip its western neighbor.

In just a century, Poland, which saved Europe from the Turkish invasion in 1683 near Vienna, turned into a completely unviable state. Historians have already concluded the debate about whether internal or external factors became fatal for Polish statehood in the 18th century. Of course, everything was decided by their combination. But as for the moral responsibility for the gradual decline of Poland's power, it can be said quite definitely that the initiative of the first partition belonged to Austria, the second - to Prussia, and the final third - to Russia. Everything is equal, and this is not a childish argument about who started it first.

The response to the crisis of statehood was, although belated, fruitful. The Educational Commission (1773-1794) begins work in the country, which was actually the first ministry of education in Europe. In 1788, the Four-Year Diet met, embodying the ideas of the Enlightenment almost simultaneously with the French revolutionaries, but much more humanely. The first in Europe and the second in the world (after the American) Constitution was adopted on May 3, 1791 in Poland.

It was a wonderful undertaking, but it lacked revolutionary force. The Constitution recognized all Poles as the Polish people, regardless of class (previously only the gentry were considered such), but retained serfdom. The situation in Lithuania was noticeably improving, but no one thought to translate the Constitution itself into Lithuanian. The subsequent reaction to changes in the political system of Poland led to two partitions and the fall of statehood. Poland has become, in the words of British historian Norman Davies, “God’s plaything,” or, to put it simply, an object of rivalry and agreement between neighboring and sometimes distant powers.

The Poles responded with uprisings, mainly in the territory of the Kingdom of Poland, which became part of the Russian Empire in 1815 following the results of the Congress of Vienna. It was in the 19th century that the two peoples truly got to know each other, and then mutual attraction, sometimes hostility, and often non-recognition formed. Nikolai Danilevsky considered the Poles to be an alien part of the Slavs, and a similar approach would later appear among the Poles in relation to the Russians.

Polish rebels and Russian autocrats saw the future differently: some dreamed of reviving statehood by any means, others thought in terms of an imperial house in which there would be a place for everyone, including the Poles. The context of the era cannot be underestimated - in the first half of the 19th century, the Russians were the only Slavic people who had statehood, and a great one at that. Ottoman domination in the Balkans was seen as enslavement, and Russian power - as deliverance from suffering (from the same Turks or Persians, Germans or Swedes, or simply from native savagery). This view, in fact, was not without reason - the imperial authorities were very loyal to the traditional beliefs and customs of the subject peoples, did not try to achieve their Russification, and in many cases the transition to the rule of the Russian Empire was a real deliverance from destruction.

Following their usual policy, Russian autocrats willingly integrated local elites. But if we talk about Poland and Finland, then the system was failing. We can only remember Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, who served as Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1804-1806, but thought more about the interests of Poland.

Contradictions accumulated gradually. If in 1830 the Polish rebels came out with the words “For our freedom and yours,” then in 1863, in addition to the slogan “Freedom, equality, brotherhood,” completely bloodthirsty calls were heard. Methods guerrilla warfare brought bitterness, and even the liberal-minded public, who initially sympathized with the rebels, quickly changed their opinion about them. In addition, the rebels thought not only about national liberation, but also about the restoration of statehood within the borders that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had before the partitions. And the slogan “For our and your freedom” practically lost its previous meaning and was now more associated with the hope that other peoples of the empire would rise, and then it would inevitably collapse. On the other hand, when assessing such aspirations, we must not forget that the Russian Narodnaya Volya members and the anarchists hatched no less destructive plans.

The close but somewhat squeamish neighborhood of the two peoples in the 19th century gave rise to mainly negative stereotypes. During the St. Petersburg fires of 1862, there was even a belief among the people that “students and Poles” were to blame for everything. This was a consequence of the circumstances under which the peoples met. A considerable part of the Poles with whom the Russians dealt were political exiles, often rebels. Their fate in Russia is constant wandering, need, outcast, the need to adapt. Hence the idea of ​​Polish thievery, cunning, flattery and morbid arrogance. The latter is also understandable - these people tried to preserve human dignity in difficult conditions. On the Polish side, an equally unpleasant opinion was formed about the Russians. Rudeness, cruelty, uncouthness, servility to the authorities - that’s what these Russians are.

Among the rebels there were many representatives of the gentry, usually well educated. Their exile to Siberia and the Urals, willy-nilly, had a positive cultural significance for remote regions. In Perm, for example, the architect Alexander Turchevich and the founder of the first bookstore, Jozef Piotrovsky, are still remembered.

After the uprising of 1863-1864, policy regarding Polish lands changed seriously. The authorities sought at all costs to avoid a repetition of the rebellion. However, what is striking is a complete lack of understanding of the national psychology of the Poles. Russian gendarmes supported the type of behavior of the population of the Kingdom of Poland that best corresponded to their own myth about the inflexibility of the Polish spirit. Public executions and persecution of Catholic priests only contributed to the formation of the cult of martyrs. Attempts at Russification, in particular in the education system, were extremely unsuccessful.

Even before the uprising of 1863, the opinion had become established in Polish society that it would still be impossible to “divorce” with its eastern neighbor, and through the efforts of the Marquis of Wielopolsky, a policy of consensus was pursued in exchange for reforms. This yielded results - Warsaw became the third most populous city in the Russian Empire, and reforms began in the Kingdom of Poland itself, bringing it to the forefront of the empire. In order to economically connect Polish lands with other Russian provinces, in 1851 it was decided to build a railway from St. Petersburg to Warsaw. This was the fourth railway Russia (after Tsarskoye Selo, St. Petersburg-Moscow, and Warsaw-Vienna). At the same time, the policy of the Russian authorities was aimed at eliminating autonomy and separating the eastern territories, which were once part of the historical Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, from the Kingdom of Poland. In 1866, ten provinces of the Kingdom of Poland were directly annexed to Russian lands, and in next year introduced a ban on the use of the Polish language in the administrative sphere. The logical result of this policy was the abolition of the post of governor in 1874 and the introduction of the post of Warsaw governor-general. The Polish lands themselves were called the Vistula region, which the Poles still remember.

This approach cannot be called fully meaningful, since it actualized the rejection of everything Russian and, moreover, contributed to the migration of the Polish resistance to neighboring Austria-Hungary. Somewhat earlier, Russian Tsar Nicholas I joked bitterly: “The stupidest of the Polish kings was Jan Sobieski, and the stupidest of the Russian emperors was me. Sobieski - because he saved Austria in 1683, and I - because I saved it in 1848.” It was in Austria-Hungary at the beginning of the 20th century that Polish extremists, including the future national leader of Poland, Jozef Pilsudski, received refuge.

On the fronts of World War I, Poles fought on both sides in the hope that the conflict would weaken the Great Powers and Poland would eventually gain independence. At the same time, Krakow conservatives were considering the option of a triune monarchy of Austria-Hungary-Poland, and pro-Russian nationalists such as Roman Dmowski saw the greatest threat to the Polish national spirit in Germanism.

The end of the First World War did not mean for the Poles, unlike other peoples of Eastern Europe, the end of the vicissitudes of state building. In 1918, the Poles suppressed the Western Ukrainian People's Republic, in 1919 they annexed Vilna (Vilnius), and in 1920 they carried out the Kiev Campaign. IN Soviet textbooks Pilsudski's soldiers were called White Poles, but this is not entirely true. During the most difficult battles between the Red Army soldiers and Denikin’s army, Polish troops not only stopped advancing east, but also made it clear to the Bolsheviks that they were suspending active operations, thereby allowing the Reds to complete the defeat of the Volunteer Army. Among the Russian emigration there is still for a long time it was perceived as a betrayal. Next is Mikhail Tukhachevsky’s campaign against Warsaw and the “miracle on the Vistula,” the author of which was Marshal Jozef Pilsudski himself. The defeat of the Soviet troops and the huge number of prisoners (according to the estimates of the prominent Slavist G.F. Matveev, about 157 thousand people), their inhuman suffering in Polish concentration camps - all this became the source of almost inexhaustible Russian hostility towards the Poles. In turn, the Poles have similar feelings towards the Russians after Katyn.

What cannot be taken away from our neighbors is the ability to preserve the memory of their suffering. Almost every Polish city has a street named after the victims of the Katyn massacre. And no solution to problematic issues will lead to their renaming, acceptance of historical data and amendments to textbooks. In the same way, in Poland the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the Warsaw Uprising will be remembered for a long time. Few people know that the old corners of the Polish capital are actually rebuilt from paintings and photographs. After the Nazis suppressed the Warsaw Uprising, the city was completely destroyed and looked approximately the same as Soviet Stalingrad. Any rational arguments explaining the impossibility of supporting the rebels by the Soviet army will not be taken into account. This is part of the national tradition, which is more important than the dry fact of losing about 20 percent of the population in World War II. In turn, in Russia they will think with sadness about the ingratitude of the Poles, like all other Slavs, for whom we have stood up for the last three centuries.

The reason for the mutual misunderstanding between Russia and Poland is that we have different destinies. We measure by different measures and reason using different categories. The powerful Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth turned into a “toy of God,” and Muscovy, which was once on the outskirts, became a great empire. Even having escaped from the embrace of “big brother,” Poland will never find another destiny than to be a satellite of other powers. And for Russia there is no other destiny than to be an empire or not to be at all.