January uprising
The January Uprising ( Polish Powstanie styczniowe ) is a Polish uprising in Congress Poland and in the Lithuanian-Belarusian governorates of the Russian Empire in 1863/64, which was mainly directed against the division of Russia . The uprising, which was also joined by parts of the bourgeoisie and peasants, was mainly led by the aristocratic classes . The struggle of the poorly equipped insurgents, who despite sympathy in England and France received no military support against the imperial Russian troops , was mainly fought as a partisan war. Despite some successes, the uprising was brutally suppressed, also because it did not succeed, as at the time of the November uprising 1830/31 , to win the large mass of the peasants for the uprising. As a result, all Polish special rights were abolished and a policy of increased Russification began .
prehistory
After the defeat in the November uprising of 1830/31 and the brief hope of the “stormy year” of 1848 (cf. March Revolution ), a political depression spread in large circles of patriotically conscious Poles. In addition, there was also the endeavor to promote the process of the emergence of a new nation-wide society supported by an educated middle class and to prove oneself not in conspiracy and heroic struggle, but in everyday national and economic disputes, through awareness-raising and educational work.
A politically new situation appeared to be associated with the Crimean War in the mid-1850s. The hope that the war between Great Britain and France against Russia would lead to changes for Poland as well, however, was not fulfilled. Polish emigration also turned out to be divided. After the Crimean War, reforms also took place in Russian-occupied Poland under the new Tsar Alexander II . This included political gestures such as the release of political prisoners . Poles were admitted to the administrative service and in 1857 a medical college was established in Warsaw. This soon became the center of the country's young intellectuals. The opposition-minded forces began to differentiate themselves into the revolutionary “Reds” and the more liberal-moderate “Whites”. An agricultural society ( Towarzystwo Rolnicze ) with 4,000 members and affiliated organizations in numerous areas under the leadership of the more conservative magnate Andrzej Artur Zamoyski had a larger base than these circles . In 1859, the emperor asked the Polish nobility to submit proposals for agrarian reforms. In this context, Aleksander Wielopolski gained influence.
Aggravation of the situation
The economic situation in Russian-occupied Poland was comparatively favorable, and a revolutionary situation born of necessity did not exist. In Warsaw, however, the discussions among the students, with their mixture of romantic crush and Polish nationalism, gained importance. Then there was the discussion about land reform. In some cases, political demands were also articulated, for example for autonomy.
After a series of religious-national celebrations (e.g. a funeral service on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the November Uprising ), mass demonstrations were held on February 25, 1861 (anniversary of the Battle of Grochów ) and February 27. These should the Agrarian Society, which was holding its annual meeting at that time, to swift decisions regarding the - in Russia at the same time, on February 19th jul. / March 3, 1861 greg. , proclaimed - cause peasants to be liberated. At the demonstration, five people were shot dead by the Cossacks , adding to national excitement.
On the other hand, Alexander II tried to avoid a major conflict in Poland. Because the politically dominant layer in Russia (nobility and higher officials) was concerned with the disputes over the "Great Reform" of the peasant liberation decreed by Alexander II. This abolished serfdom and at the same time changed the agricultural constitution and thus a basis for coexistence in the villages and in the manor districts. He responded with concessions, but also abolished agrarian society.
Aleksander Wielopolski was appointed head of a new department for education and culture. The reopening of the University of Warsaw went back to this. A State Council and Polish self-government bodies (such as the Delegacja Miejska in Warsaw ) were introduced. However, Wielopolski's closeness to the Russians led him to distance himself from other political forces and the Polish public.
New demonstrations, the suppression of which resulted in numerous deaths, exacerbated the differences. A national mood grew over previous social and religious boundaries. The Jews had spoken out in favor of joining forces with the Poles. On April 8, 1861, there was another large demonstration in the course of which more than a hundred people were killed. The situation worsened because the new viceroy, Count Karl Lambert, increasingly relied on the military map. With that, Wielopolski lost even more support. Before the growing pressure, the churches gained importance. At the funeral of Archbishop Antoni Melchior Fijałkowski there were new rallies, which led to the imposition of martial law. The soldiers even entered the churches and arrested thousands of people. Wielopolski protested against it. In doing so, he also lost confidence among the Russians. Alexander II had him come under guard to report. While Wielopolski was in Russia for several months, the anti-Russian sentiment in Warsaw continued to intensify .
Both the moderate side around Zamoyski and the more radical forces began to build underground organizations. There was an action committee that also maintained contact with the emigrants. After Wielopolski's return, he was able to stabilize his position again and acted almost like the head of the Polish administration under the new Viceroy Konstantin Nikolajewitsch Romanow . A number of other concessions were made, such as the establishment of a Polish administration, an expansion of the university, the declaration of equal rights for Jews and the announcement of land reform. The conflict with the Catholic Church was settled. However, the moderate Zamoyski was expelled from the country. As a result, the radicals ("The Reds") gained further influence. In the summer of 1862, the Action Committee was transformed into a National Central Committee ( Komitet Centralny Narodowy ). This saw itself as an underground government. It started in November with the planning of a major uprising.
Outbreak of the uprising
A big problem was that the Poles were inadequately prepared militarily and had hardly any weapons. The attempt to buy weapons abroad failed. The conspirators were also forced to strike out when Wielopolski announced that 10,000 young Poles suspected of conspiracy would be called up for Russian military service in January 1863 on the basis of lists of names, as many as possible Get rid of insurgents. The radical forces pushed through that the uprising should begin against this background, in spite of the inadequate preparation.
The uprising that broke out on January 22, 1863 was fundamentally different from the November uprising, because the rebels had neither trained units nor sufficient weapons, nor a clear military command. The National Committee had a manifesto circulated calling on the peoples of the old Polish-Lithuanian Empire, i.e. Poles, Ukrainians and Lithuanians, to revolt. The peasants were to own the land they cultivated, and the landless were promised state-owned land. Another manifesto addressed the Jews and promised equal rights.
Even before an organized approach could be taken, peasant insurgents spontaneously attacked the Russian garrisons. The commander and dictator provided Ludwik Mierosławski was when he mid-February from Kuyavian tried to advance from a small crowd, beaten once, had to withdraw after a few days and its function could never exercise. His successor was Marian Langiewicz , who was in office for only a few weeks. Karol Majewski's national government was in office from June to September .
course
There was no real general survey. Nonetheless, the movement reached far beyond the Kingdom of Poland. Parts of today's Ukraine , Belarus and Lithuania were seized . Help came from the Prussian province of Posen and the Austrian Galicia . The Poles had no more than 30,000 men fighting at the same time. But over the entire period of the fighting taken together, more than 200,000 men were involved. A crucial problem was that the insurgents could not get the city of Warsaw under their control. There was no center and the national government was forced to move back and forth across the country. However, it was possible to organize a kind of underground administration in Warsaw. This had its own post and rail connections as well as a police force.
While Britain, France and Austria called for the constitution of 1815 to be restored, it did not affect the Russian stance. However, this led to more and more moderate whites joining the uprising. In his power calculation with Russia, the new Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck concluded the Alvensleben Convention , which stated that troops on both sides should be allowed to temporarily cross the borders to pursue Polish insurgents. Bismarck, who saw the Polish uprising as a threat to the territorial integrity of the eastern provinces of the Kingdom of Prussia , believed that Prussia must remain a natural opponent of the autonomous national development of the Kingdom of Poland .
The Russian army that was used against the insurgents was about 300,000 strong. There were no battles and major military operations such as 1830/31 and April / May 1848, but only small skirmishes and partisan combat that flared up again and again , mostly in confusing forest areas. After high losses at the beginning, the insurgents were able to inflict various serious defeats on the Russians in the further course of the fighting, and they also controlled a few small towns for a time. However, the Poles were never able to seriously endanger the Russian military superiority. Since the summer of 1863, General Friedrich Wilhelm Rembert von Berg was in command as the new governor . He cracked down on the insurgents with severity. Death sentences were imposed, goods were confiscated and exiles to Siberia took place.
In Belarusian areas, the insurgents saw little support from the rural Orthodox population. On the other hand, the Russian government tried to play off the orthodox peasant lower classes against the Polish nobility, who had once again shown their disloyalty. The rebellious terror that ensued against the ordinary Belarusians increased their rejection of the uprising considerably, so that the peasants themselves formed partisan associations against the Polish Szlachta and supported the Russian state power with the capture and extradition of rebels.
In the winter of 1863/64, the former officer Romuald Traugutt, as dictator, once again gathered the Polish forces. When he was arrested in April 1864, the uprising ended after 15 months. A last group of partisans under the priest Stanisław Brzóska was only broken up in December 1864.
consequences
The Russian response to the January Uprising followed the 1831 scenario . Around 400 insurgents were executed in Congress Poland and the Russian "western provinces", around 2,500 were sentenced to forced labor (including Raphael Kalinowski, who was canonized in 1991 ) and 20,000 were deported to Siberia or other parts of Russia . Thousands of aristocratic families were expropriated and impoverished (around 3,500 goods belonging to Polish aristocrats were confiscated). In addition, high special charges were imposed. The Russian policy towards Poland in the following decades pursued the goal of solving the Polish question once and for all through repression and forced integration with the Russian Empire. As with the outbreak of the November uprising in 1830, it found support from the majority of the upscale Russian public, who were gripped by a new wave of hostility towards Poland . Political life was almost entirely suppressed. The name Kingdom of Poland was replaced by the name " Weichselland ". The viceroys were replaced by governors-general with great powers. The Polish administrative institutions were dissolved and Russian officials now administered the country. Only the Code Napoléon remained in force from the previous order. The tsar's government even took tough action against the Catholic Church . Numerous episcopal seats were vacant for a long time . The United Church was subordinated to the Russian Orthodox Church . The curricula of schools and universities have been adapted to those in Russia. With the exception of religion, lessons were now in Russian. This weakening of the education system meant that the illiteracy rate rose to 70 percent. In addition, the defeat was followed by a new wave of emigration . Dresden became one of the centers of Polish emigration .
The reaction was similar in Belarus and Lithuania. After the January uprising, Governor Mikhail Murawjow-Wilenski removed the previously dominant Polish element from administration and education and transferred its land to the predominantly Orthodox peasant population. Great efforts were made to restore the awareness of their own culture and history to the East Slav population after centuries of forced polonization of the elites. A commission was set up to process old documents and chronicles, and Orthodox churches and schools were built. On the basis of the then prevailing notion of the triune Russian people , the policy of Russification was understood as a revival and strengthening of the regional Russian (Belarusian and Minorussian identity ). As Governor General of Vilnius , Muravyov also enforced a ban on the Latin script and the printing of Lithuanian texts in 1864 . The ban was not lifted until 1904.
Movies
- Rok 1863 ( The year 1863 , POL 1922, directed by Edward Puchalski ), based on the novel Der getreue Strom by Stefan Żeromski
- Wierna rzeka ( Der getreue Strom , POL 1936, directed by Leonard Buczkowski ), based on the novel of the same name by Stefan Żeromski.
- Wierna rzeka (POL 1983, directed by Tadeusz Chmielewski ).
gallery
Polish insurgents by Ignacy Drewnowski 1863.
Battle of Ignacewo on May 8, 1863.
Polish fighters armed with scythes in 1863.
Polish fighters in 1863.
Execution of Polish insurgents by the Russians in Warsaw (L'Ouvrier: journal hebdomadaire illustré).
“Farewell to Europe” 1863 (the artist Aleksander Sochaczewski is among the exiles, on the right near the obelisk).
Execution of Polish insurgents by the Russians in Šiauliai (drawing by Stanisław Witkiewicz ).
“Patrol powstańczy” (by Maksymilian Gierymski ).
“Branka” (Young Poles were drafted into the Russian Imperial Army in 1863. Painting by Aleksander Sochaczewski ).
literature
- Hans-Werner Rautenberg: The Polish uprising of 1863 and European politics. Steiner, Stuttgart 1979.
- Karl Kaiser: Napoleon III. and the Polish uprising of 1863. Hoffmann brothers, 1932.
- Manfred Alexander: Small history of Poland. Bonn 2005, ISBN 3-89331-662-0 , pp. 228-240.
- Emanuel Halicz: Partisan warfare in 19th century Poland. The development of a concept. University Press, Odense 1975.
- Arnon Gill: Freedom struggles of the Poles in the 19th century. Uprisings - uprisings - revolutions. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-631-31816-2 .
- Marianne Ludwig: The Polish struggle for independence of 1863 and Switzerland. (= Basel Contributions to History 122, ISSN 1661-5026 , also dissertation University of Basel) Helbing & Lichtenhahn, Basel u. a. 1968.
- Eugeniusz Kozłowski: Bibliografia powstania styczniowego (Bibliography of the January Uprising), Warsaw (Ministerstwo Obrony Narodowej) 1964.
- Theresia room: The January uprising 1863/64. In: Riccardo Altieri, Frank Jacob (Hrsg.): Spielball der Mächte. Contributions to Polish history. minifanal, Bonn 2014, pp. 140-164, ISBN 978-3-95421-050-3 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Marian Zgórniak: The January uprising in 1863 and its impact on the Polish national liberation movement , Duncker & Humblot, 1998
- ↑ Andreas Kappeler: Russia as a multi-ethnic empire: emergence - history - decay , p. 180/181
- ↑ Andreas Kappeler: Russia as a multi-ethnic empire: emergence - history - decay , p. 181
- ↑ Hans-Heinrich Nolte : Small history of Russia . Reclam, Stuttgart, 2nd edition 2003, ISBN 3-15-009696-0 , p. 139.
- ↑ Handbook of European History , Vol. 5, p. 733
- ↑ Hans-Joachim Torke: Introduction to the History of Russia , p. 167
- ↑ Jan Hecker-Stampehl: 1809 and the consequences: Finland between Sweden, Russia and Germany, BWV, p. 220
- ^ A b Jerzy Topolski: Historia Polski. Dom Wydawniczy Rebis, Poznań 2008, p. 203. ISBN 978-83-7510-142-3
- ↑ Ernst Willi Hansen: Basic course in German military history: The time until 1914: from the war crowd to the mass army , Oldenbourg, p. 309
- ↑ The spiritual and material support of the January uprising gave Bismarck the opportunity to give his first major Polish speech in the state parliament on February 26, 1863, condemning the "tendency [of the Germans] to be enthusiastic about foreign nationalities and national aspirations, " but did not result in severe punishment - and restriction measures, but even the non-application of the Alvensleben Convention, insofar as it concerned the permission to cross the border by Russian troops (Handbuch der Europäische Geschichte, vol. 5, p. 742).
- ↑ Andreas Kappeler: Little History of the Ukraine , p. 125
- ↑ Новик, Е. К .: В 1863 году белорусы поддержали не Польшу и Калиновского, а Россию и государя . Archived from the original on February 1, 2013. Retrieved January 26, 2013.
- ↑ Andreas Kappeler: Russia as a multi-ethnic empire: emergence - history - decay , Beckverlag, p. 208
- ↑ Andreas Kappeler: Russia as a multi-ethnic empire: emergence - history - decay , Beckverlag, p. 208
- ^ Thomas Urban : Poland , p. 60
- ↑ Andreas Kappeler: Russia as a multi-ethnic empire: emergence - history - decay , Beckverlag, p. 208
- ^ Thomas Urban: Poland , p. 60
- ↑ Andreas Kappeler: Russia as a multi-ethnic empire: emergence - history - decay , Beckverlag, p. 208
- ↑ Andreas Kappeler: Russia as a multi-ethnic empire: emergence - history - decay , Beckverlag, p. 208
- ↑ Hans-Heinrich Nolte: Small history of Russia . Reclam, Stuttgart, 2nd edition 2003, p. 147.
- ^ Thomas Urban: Poland , p. 60
- ↑ Гигин В. Ф .: Оклеветанный, но не забытый (Очерк о М. Н. Муравьёве-Виленском) . Retrieved January 22, 2014.
- ^ By the hated state representatives of the tsarist St. Petersburg autocracy.
- ^ By the hated state representatives of the tsarist St. Petersburg autocracy.
Web links
- Literature on the January Uprising in the catalog of the Berlin State Library