Saxony-Poland
The term Saxony-Poland denotes the personal union between the Wettin Electorate of Saxony and the aristocratic republic or elective monarchy Poland-Lithuania by Elector Friedrich August "the Strong" of Saxony, who was also known as August II King of Poland was elected, and his heir to the throne as Elector, who was named August III. Was king of Poland. After his death in 1763, the personal union expired, since the guardian of the Saxon Elector Friedrich August III. (1750-1827) renounced claims to the throne and the Russian tsarina Catherine the Great had her favorite Stanislaus II August Poniatowski elected as king. In Poland, the period with Wettin rulers on the Polish throne is also known as the Saxon Period ( czasy saskie ). It is known in Polish memory for its particular disorder .
Domains
Poland-Lithuania
Due to the exhausting Second Northern War , the aristocratic republic was a country without state administrative organs, with an underdeveloped economy, inadequate tax revenues and an army that was neither qualitatively nor numerically up to the demands of the time. In return, the aristocratic republic had a wealth of raw materials and was therefore of interest to the industrialized Saxony. The Polish officials, the Polish crown army and the state treasury were subordinate to the Sejm , whose policy was determined by the powerful magnate families and the Szlachta . Their tendency to form confederations turned the kingdom into a powder keg. Because of these private interests, the Diet of Poland was relatively incapable of action ( Liberum Veto ); the crown itself had only limited income, which was subordinate to the crown treasurer Przebendowski . This meant that Poland had an extreme preponderance of the class over the monarchical component.
Electorate of Saxony
The Electorate of Saxony had a highly developed manufacturing and handicraft system. Due to its closed territory, it was considered a more powerful state structure on a European scale, which was still superior to Brandenburg-Prussia in terms of internal development at the end of the 17th century , but had to cede the Protestant leadership role in the Holy Roman Empire to Brandenburg in the following decades .
King's coronation by Elector Friedrich-August
One impetus for the achievement of the Polish royal dignity was the desire for political sovereignty, which Elector Friedrich-August promised to give further weight to foreign policy. The long-lasting and consolidated dominance of the Habsburg dynasty in the empire encouraged the elector to avoid the threat of a loss of rank and power by increasing the rank of an area that did not belong to the empire. Another important motif were questions of rank and ceremonial, which at that time indicated the position of power and therefore had direct political significance. All the princes of this time followed the French model of Louis XIV in their splendor, such as elaborate courtly ceremonies , elaborately staged entrances and imaginative fireworks, lavish banquets with opera performances and ballets. The acquisition of the Polish royal crown therefore represented a question of prestige of the first order for Elector Friedrich-August. Because only with a royal crown could a German prince express his quasi-sovereign position and thus be accepted as equal by the European powers.
Oil painting by Jean-Pierre Norblin de La Gourdaine , circa 1790
The Saxon ambassador in Warsaw, Count Flemming , had previously managed to completely split up the competition by constantly recruiting new applicants. The efforts of the nephew of Pope Innocent XI. , Prince Livio Odescalchi , Duke of Bracciano and Ceri, son of the former King John III. Sobieski , Prince Jakob Ludwig Heinrich , Elector Johann Wilhelm von der Pfalz , Duke Leopold of Lorraine , Margrave Ludwig Wilhelm of Baden-Baden , Elector Max II of Bavaria and twelve other candidates were therefore hopeless. Prince Franz Ludwig von Bourbon-Conti , who traveled from France to vote for a king, was even able to garner a larger number of votes than August, but had to return to his homeland without success, forced by Saxon troops.
After the usual bribes, Elector August the Strong could on 26./27. June on the election field in Wola against all initial expectations. On September 15, 1697, he was coronated as August II Mocny in Krakow .
Starting conditions
After the royal coronation, mutually beneficial opportunities arose. Both partners felt threatened by Prussia and its territorial ambitions. By merging the two countries, this danger has been averted for the time being. Both powers needed mutual support in uncertain northern Europe, where the Prussian, Swedish and Russian armies were far superior to the Saxon and Polish armies. Since Poland-Lithuania was the larger of the two partners, the local nobility had reason enough to believe that they would succeed in safeguarding their separatist interests. As constitutionalists, they were also more likely to control a foreign ruler than a local.
Despite the advantages, such as additional dynastic claims to inheritance and greater weight in peace negotiations, the Saxon court was not satisfied with winning the Polish royal crown. Instead, the potential of Poland for the Dresden court should be made financially and militarily usable. This was countered by the limited powers that a Polish electoral king possessed. The Electorate of Saxony could only hope to benefit from the connection with Poland if it succeeded in acquiring a land bridge between the two countries. This hope was dashed with the Prussian annexation of Silesia after 1740. As long as communication, trade in goods and troop movements depended on the goodwill of Habsburg or Brandenburg-Prussia, a great power Saxony-Poland could not be considered. The idea of a real union between these opposing territories as such was certainly utopian, but the actors still considered a certain merger of the two countries in the areas of administration, military, economy and finance, similar to the core countries in the Habsburg Empire , possible. Points of contact were, for example, the wealth of raw materials in Poland and the developed manufacturing economy in Saxony.
Temporal course
After the occupation of Saxony by the Swedes in the Great Northern War , King August II had to give up the title of Polish king in the Peace of Altranstädt in 1706 and recognize Stanislaus I. Leszczyński, supported by Sweden, on the throne. After the Swedish defeat in the Battle of Poltava in 1709, the Saxon elector was able to regain the throne. After regaining the royal crown, King August II sought to overthrow the Sejm in a coup . His representatives there demanded the merger of the Saxon army with the Polish crown army, after all Polish fortresses had been occupied, camps set up and arrests carried out as early as 1713. As this would have meant a first step towards the establishment of an absolutist hereditary monarchy in Poland, it provoked the uprising of the Tarnogród Confederation in 1715/16 , led by Marshal Ledóchowski and Count Branicki , whereby August risked his throne. It was mainly a revolt of the petty nobility against the king; important magnates such as Lithuania's hetman Ludwik Pociej (a friend of Peter the Great ) tried to mediate. The Saxon troops were victorious in all major battles, but could not end the uprising, so that the funds were tight. King August II accepted the tsar's mediation brought into play by the Confederates and achieved only partial success in the Peace of Warsaw in 1716 and in the Silent Sejm in 1717. In return, the Saxon army had to leave the country.
After 1716, however, a certain stabilization of the August II government in Poland became apparent, which made some reforms possible - but there was no prospect of such reforms in the sense of absolutism. Several diets collapsed, and King August II tried unsuccessfully to secure the succession to the electoral prince . At least in the 1920s Poland recovered economically from the effects of the Great Northern War. The aristocracy produced intensively, the exchange of goods between Poland and Saxony, promoted by the Leipzig trade fair and facilitated by customs agreements , increased. Preferably the raw materials came from Poland and finished products from Saxony. Palaces, parks and numerous new churches testified that Poland still had resources. Only the aristocratic republic, which was constantly in a state of internal blockage and powerlessness, lacked the will to make something out of it. A central economic and financial policy was not enforceable in Poland, a large part of the taxes (up to 20%) got stuck on the collection routes and mercantilist thinking was limited to the self-interest of the magnate families.
In addition to the lengthy and frustrating reform work in Poland, the permanent safeguarding of Wettin rule in Poland played an important role in August II's policy. A first step in this direction was taken in 1733 as Elector Friedrich August II, the son of Augustus the Strong, with the support of Austria and Russia and the usual bribes against the candidate of Sweden and France, Stanisław Leszczyński , was elected King of Poland. This triggered the Polish War of Succession . August III. was crowned King of Poland on January 17, 1734 and claimed the crown in the Peace of Vienna (1738) . In view of this situation, the king and his prime minister Heinrich von Brühl hoped to stay afloat in Poland with the "ministerial system" of magnates loyal to the Saxony (who were placed in key positions) and to be able to connect both countries politically. During the Seven Years' War they even obtained the approval of their three allies for Saxony to run for the throne again, but the successes were only apparent and not permanent.
In Saxony, Heinrich von Brühl led the sole government after the overthrow of Count Sulkowski from 1738 to 1756, and in 1746 he was formally prime minister . He was a successful diplomat and consolidated the administration, but was sharply attacked in the state parliament in 1749 for wrong financial policy. Despite Brühl's ruthless financial measures, the Electorate of Saxony steered into a state crisis. The forced exchange of assets for state bonds shook the economy, the already too small Saxon army had to be disarmed and a significant portion of the taxes had to be mortgaged. In addition, there was pressure from outside, because Saxon exports were severely hindered by the Prussian (customs) policy of the time.
But it was not until the Seven Years War in 1756 that Saxony fell. The too small Saxon army capitulated under Count Rutowski without a fight on Lilienstein, King August III. and his court moved to Warsaw, where they remained in relative political impotence until the end of the war. The Electorate of Saxony, now temporarily administered by the Kingdom of Prussia and some cabinet ministers, became a theater of war and suffered from the high contributions on both sides. When the Seven Years' War came to an end in the Hubertusburg Peace in 1763, the electorate of Saxony, which had been quite prosperous until then, was ruined, which the court was reluctant to acknowledge. In addition, Saxony had no influence whatsoever on the award of the Polish crown: Poland-Lithuania had come under Russian supremacy more than ever; as the successor to August III. was Stanisław August Poniatowski . determined by Empress Catherine II. This ended the personal union between Saxony and Poland.
Result
The Saxon rule over Poland remained loose, so that the separation of Poland from Saxony in 1706 and 1763 did not tear any structures that had grown together. There have been attempts to expand the personal union of Saxony-Poland into a real state union. There were plans in Poland to establish a Saxon succession . However, these efforts did not lead to concrete developments. However, despite the additional reputation that the Polish crown brought, the Electorate of Saxony had clearly taken over its possibilities. Economy, administration and the army stagnated due to the additional burdens caused by the enormous additional expenditure for art and representation. There was a lack of consistent economic policy towards manufacturers in Saxony. Peuplication and improvement of agriculture were also neglected in Saxony. Saxony also lagged behind the neighboring powers in the development of its army.
With August's conversion to Catholicism, Saxony lost its leadership role among the Protestant imperial estates to Brandenburg-Prussia . August, however, refrained from using the instruments cuius regio, eius religio , which would have enabled him to re-Catholicize Saxony or at least to emancipate the Roman religion and instead assured his Saxon subjects in the religious insurance decree of 1697 (renewed by his son in 1734) that his conversion to Catholicism has no consequences for them. Nevertheless, the change of faith, which had only taken place out of power-political calculations, alienated the sovereign from his Protestant subjects.
The “Polish adventure” of their sovereign cost the Saxons dearly. Huge sums of bribes flowed from the Saxon state treasury to the Polish nobility and church dignitaries in Poland (around 39 million thalers during the reign of August) in order to incline them. King August II even sold some not insignificant Saxon lands and rights for this.
In Poland, this period, in which the Wettin dynasty ruled for 66 years, is also known as the Saxon period . The majority in Poland consider this time to be negative for Poland. The decadent mood of that time, which was reflected in proverbs, such as: Gdy August pił, cała Polska była pijana - When August had been drinking, all of Poland was drunk - or: Za króla Sasa jedz, pij i popuszczaj pasa - Unter eat, drink and loosen the belt of the Saxon king - which has become a symbol for the late Sarmatic aristocratic culture with its lavish festivals and the lack of sense of responsibility among the majority of the magnates towards their own state and with the later Confederation of Targowica (1792) Climax found. Due to the weakening of the aristocratic republic, the partitions of Poland occurred a few years later .
In Saxony, however, one speaks of the Augustan age . Saxony was one of the more important powers in Europe at this time. The Dresden Baroque reached its climax in the royal seat of Dresden , and the Dresden art collections gained importance throughout Europe. The conclusion of the Peace of Dresden in 1745 or the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, which almost coincided with the death of King August II and thus the end of the Saxon-Polish personal union, are considered to be the end of the Augustan Era .
aftermath
The constitution of May 3, 1791 , passed by the Sejm as a result of the first partition of Poland , provided that the respective "ruling Elector of Saxony should rule as king". Elector Friedrich August III. However, due to the power-political situation, again renounced the Polish crown. With Napoleon and the Confederation of the Rhine, the Electorate of Saxony became a kingdom in 1806, and in 1807 Friedrich August was also appointed Duke of Warsaw. The constitution for the Duchy of Warsaw , dictated by Napoleon, also linked the duchy of Warsaw hereditary with the Saxon royal family, but ended together with Napoleon's power in 1815.
After 1830, many emigrants came to Saxony, whose graves can still be found, for example, in the old Catholic cemetery in Dresden. A museum has now been set up in Kraszewski's house . “Saxony was happy to take in the refugees. ... While the arms were speaking in Poland, 'there was public prayer in Dresden for a victory for the Poles.' ... when the Poles revolted against the foreign rule of the Russians, Prussians and Austrians. "
literature
- Hans-Jürgen Bömelburg : The Wettins and the Saxon elites in Poland-Lithuania. In: Ronald G. Asch (Ed.): Hanover, Great Britain and Europe. Experience area personal union 1714–1837 (= publications of the Historical Commission for Lower Saxony and Bremen 277). Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8353-1584-6 , pp. 118-145.
- Norman Davies : God's Playground: The Origins to 1795 - A History of Poland. Oxford University Press, New York 2005, ISBN 0-19-925339-0 .
- René Hanke: Brühl and the Renversement des alliances. The anti-Prussian foreign policy of the Dresden court 1744–1756. Lit, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-8258-9455-X .
- Frank-Lothar Kroll , Hendrik Thoss (ed.): Two states, one crown. The Polish-Saxon Union 1697-1763. be.bra Wissenschaft verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 3-95410-057-6 .
- Rex Rexheuser (Ed.): The personal unions of Saxony-Poland 1697-1763 and Hanover-England 1714-1837. A comparison. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2005 ( online here ).
Movies
- Direction Guido Knopp and Peter Arens, authors Jan Peter and Yury Winterberg: The Germans II., Part 6, August the Strong and Love , ZDF Enterprises GmbH, Gruppe 5 Filmproduktion GmbH, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-8312-9952- 2
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ René Hanke: Brühl and the Renversement des alliances. The anti-Prussian foreign policy of the Dresden court 1744–1756. Lit, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-8258-9455-X , p. 18.
- ^ Norman Davies: God's Playground: The Origins to 1795 - A History of Poland. Oxford University Press, New York 2005, ISBN 0-19-925339-0 , p. 372.
- ^ René Hanke: Brühl and the Renversement des alliances. The anti-Prussian foreign policy of the Dresden court 1744–1756. Lit, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-8258-9455-X , p. 15.
- ^ René Hanke: Brühl and the Renversement des alliances. The anti-Prussian foreign policy of the Dresden court 1744–1756. Lit, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-8258-9455-X , p. 20.
- ↑ The so-called Augustan Age in Saxony , in: Uwe John, Josef Matzerath (ed.): Landesgeschichte als Challenge und Programm, Stuttgart 1997, pp. 443–458.
- ↑ Johannes Fischer: With tolerance towards European identity. in: TU spectrum 3/2001 online