Sejm of Grodno

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The New Castle of Grodno, the place of the Sejm
Russian Ambassador to Poland Jacob Sievers
Poland in the borders after the Second Partition of Poland (1793)

The Sejm of Grodno ( Polish Sejm grodzieński , Lithuanian Gardino seimas ) was the last Sejm of Poland-Lithuania . It took place from June 17 to November 23, 1793 in Grodno on the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania . The result of the meeting was the Second Partition of Poland .

The Sejm was convened in Grodno at the end of the Russo-Polish War of 1792 , which ended with the victory of Russia and its allied, the Targowica Confederation , to confirm Russian claims. From 1673, Grodno was, along with Warsaw , the main venue for Sejm meetings, and Warsaw was considered too unsafe for the Russians, which was to be confirmed the following year during the Warsaw Uprising . Many of the members of the Sejm supported the Russian position, such as the Sejm Marshal Stanisław Kostka Bieliński, some of them were bribed by Russian representatives, and some of the local leadership of the Russian army in Poland had forced the election of their suitable candidates for the Sejm.

The Sejm was held in the New Castle in Grodno. In and around the castle a Russian garrison was stationed under the command of the Russian envoy in Poland Jacob Johann Sievers , which ensured the obedience of the deputies; Dissenters were threatened with beatings, arrest, expropriation and banishment. Many of them were denied the right to speak.

The most important legislative proposal on the agenda was the 'Eternal Alliance between Poland and Russia', which, at the request of Russian Tsarina Catherine the Great , was introduced to the Sejm by Polish supporters of Russia as 'the wish of the Polish people'. Despite everything, 25 of the 140 MPs present dared to speak out against the proposal, especially against the Prussian territorial claims. After further measures and threats by the Russians, however, the alliance was decided on October 14, 1793 by " acclamation ". In fact, in the presence of Russian soldiers who were preventing the MPs from leaving the room, the Marshal of the Sejm asked three times whether the motion would be approved. When there was silence, Józef Ankwicz, another supporter of the foreign powers, declared the motion to be unanimously accepted (“If you keep silent, you agree”).

The Russian Empire did not use this strategy for the first time: The fate of the Sejm of Grodno was similar to that of the Mute Sejm of 1717 , when only the Sejm Marshal had the right to speak, or that of the Repnin Sejm from 1767 to 1768, during whose opponents of the Russian intervention were arrested and were exiled to Russia.

The Sejm of Grodno passed the following laws:

  • the Eternal Alliance between Poland and Russia : Poland became a dependent Russian ally, in fact a Russian protectorate . The Russian Empire was granted the right to station troops in Poland and to let them march over Polish territory at will. Poland was not allowed to sign its own agreements or independently maintain diplomatic relations with other countries without Russian consent;
  • the cession of territories to Russia and Prussia (second division);
  • the constitution of May 3, 1791 was repealed, but some of the civil rights enshrined there were retained;
  • the cardinal laws ( Prawa kardynalne , including Free Election , Liberum Veto ) were reinstated, as was the Permanent Council ( Rada Nieustająca ), which was now chaired by the Russian ambassador;
  • the Polish army was limited to 15,000 men;
  • the Polish order Virtuti Militari was abolished.

The consequences of the second Polish division include the Kościuszko uprising and the third Polish division .

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literature

  • Jones, Robert E., Provincial Development in Russia. Catherine II and Jacob Sievers , Rutgers University Press 1984 (English)
  • Robert Howard Lord, The Second Partition of Poland: A Study in Diplomatic History , Harvard University Press, 1915
  • Henryk Kocój, Targowica i sejm grodzieński 1793 w relacjach posła pruskiego Ludwiga Buchholtza , Wydawnictwo UJ, 2004, ISBN 83-233-1840-9 (Polish)
  • Volumina Legum, TX Konstytucje Sejmu Grodzieńskiego z 1793 r. Wydał Z. Kaczmarczyk przy współudziale J. Matuszewskiego, M. Sczanieckiego i J. Wąsickiego, Poznań 1952. (Polish)
  • JE Sievers, Jak doprowadziłem do drugiego rozbioru Polski , Warszawa 1992 (Polish)
  • W. Smoleński, Ze studiów nad historią Sejmu Grodzieńskiego z 1793 r. , “Przegląd Historyczny” t. VIII, Warszawa 1919 (Polish)
  • J. Wąsicki, Diariusze Sejmu Grodzieńskiego 1793 roku , "Czasopismo prawno-historyczne" III, Poznań 1951, pp. 356–364 (Polish)
  • J. Wąsicki, Konfederacja Targowicka i ostatni Sejm Rzeczypospolitej z 1793 r. Study historyczno-prawne , Poznań 1952 (Polish)
  • L. Wegner, Sejm Grodzieński ostatni , Poznań 1866. (Polish)

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