Weichselland

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Map of the Weichselland from the second half of the 19th century

The territory called Weichselland or Vistula Region ( Russian Привислинский край Priwislinski kraj ; Polish Kraj Nadwiślański , also Kraj Przywiślański ) designated the westernmost province of the Russian Empire from March 1867 , which was gradually established between 1831 and 1867 in Poland . The Russian territory was limited to the middle Vistula , because the upper reaches around Krakow were under Austria , the lower reaches from Thorn belonged to West Prussia .

Other names were Generalgouvernement Warsaw and Vistula Governorate . Together with the General Government of Kowno (Kaunas, Kaun), the Vistula area made up " Russian Poland ".

history

prehistory

After Poland-Lithuania was severely weakened by numerous previous wars and conflicts in the second half of the 18th century, it came under the tutelage of Russia in 1768 . In the years 1772, 1793 and 1795 there were three partitions of Poland among the neighboring powers Russia, Prussia and Austria , so that from 1795 no independent Polish nation state existed for over 120 years. However, this provoked the resistance of the Poles, who tried in numerous uprisings to shake off the foreign rule.

In 1807 Napoléon established the Duchy of Warsaw , a rump and satellite state that existed until 1815, from the formerly Polish territories now occupied by Prussia and Austria . As his successor, the Constitutional Kingdom of Poland (" Congress Poland ") was created at the Congress of Vienna , which was closely linked to the Russian Empire through personal union. In the Polish November uprising of 1830, Tsar Nicholas I was deposed as Polish king by the Polish parliament. After the restoration of Russian power in 1831, the structures decided in 1815, such as the Polish royal title for the Russian tsar, the constitution of 1791 or the parliament, were no longer retained. Thus the name of the country “Kingdom of Poland”, which was still used, no longer corresponded to the facts (the term “Congress Poland”, which is common in German, does not clearly reflect the contradiction).

The failed January uprising of 1863 resulted in a further restriction of autonomy and national rights. The leaders of the uprising were executed, and rights and cultural freedoms were restricted. Polish was banned as an official language and pushed out of official use (e.g. in schools).

Russian "Weichselland"

In 1867 the coat of arms of "Congress Poles" was abolished and its ten governorates were integrated directly into the Tsarist Empire. Although the old name was never officially changed, the term "Weichselland" has been used more and more frequently in various administrative acts since the 1880s and the word "Poland" has even been avoided as a geographical term by the Russian side.

By 1880 the “Weichselland” rose to become the most economically developed Russian province. By contrast, the political situation stagnated. The population grew to 9.4 million people by 1900. With the accession to the throne of Tsar Nicholas II in 1894 there were no significant changes in the circumstances. The 1905 revolution resulted in minor concessions on cultural and religious issues.

Upheaval as a result of the First World War

During the First World War , the Eastern Front shifted significantly to the east in 1915 when German and Austro-Hungarian troops conquered and occupied what had previously been the Russian part of Poland. During their Great Retreat , the Russian Army literally left a scorched earth . The tsarist rule was thus de facto ended there, and officially with the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk in early 1918. Although the Central Powers tried in 1916 to revive a Polish monarchy by founding a reign of Poland , the Second Polish Republic was formed at the end of 1918 .

Administrative division

Of the ten governorates (Russian: Guberniya ) into which the area was divided from 1867 to 1916 , five were to the right of the Vistula:

Five were to the left:

In 1912, a Cholm governorate ( Gолмская , seat in Chełm ) was formed from parts of the Lublin and Siedlce governorates , but it was spun off from the “Weichselland” and subordinated to the Kiev General Governorate .

Viceroys and Governors General of Warsaw

The title viceroy was replaced by that of the governor general in 1874

literature

  • Manfred Alexander: Small history of Poland. Stuttgart: Reclam 2003 (source).
  • Roman Dmowski : Germany, Russia and the Polish question (excerpts). In: Andrzej Chwalba (Ed.): Poland and the East. Texts about a tense relationship (= thinking and knowing. A Polish library. Volume 7). ISBN 3-518-41731-2 .
  • Hensel, Jürgen (Ed.): Poles, Germans and Jews in Lodz 1820–1939. A difficult neighborhood. fiber publishing house, Osnabrück 1999.
  • Hartmut Michael Kühn: Poland in the First World War: The struggle for a Polish state up to its re-establishment in 1918/1919. Peter Lang Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-631-76530-2 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Królestwo Polskie . Encyclopedia PWN. Retrieved December 10, 2011.
  2. ^ W. Bartel: Historia państwa i prawa Polski. In: J. Bardach, M. Senkowska-Gluck (Red.): Od rozbiorów do uwłaszczenia. Volume 3, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warsaw 1981, p. 67.
  3. ^ M. Czapliński, collective of authors: Słownik encyklopedyczny: Historia. Wydawnictwo Europa Sp. Zo. o, Wroclaw. 2007, p. 199.