Silent Sejm 1717

The Mute Sejm of 1717 formally ended on February 1, 1717 the uprising of the Tarnogród Confederation 1715-1716 , which was under Russian influence, against King August II of Poland-Lithuania . The term "mute" stems from the fact that the Polish aristocracy was not allowed to object to the resolutions of the Sej meeting this time. He only confirmed within one day the results of the Warsaw Peace Treaty of November 3, 1716, in which Tsar Peter I had brokered peace between the Poles, more precisely the Confederate of Tarnogród , and their King August II.

prehistory

The Mute Sejm was a great nuisance to the Polish nobility, the Szlachta , because for the first time since 1652, apart from the Sejm Marshal Stanislaw Ledóchowski , he was denied the golden freedom of unrestricted right to speak and object in the Reichstag. This included the Liberum Veto . This regulation made it possible for every single member of parliament to make the decisions of the entire Reichstag null and void. In practice there was almost always a member of the Szlachta who was bribed by some aristocratic party or from abroad in order not to let the Reichstag come to a decision. Since even the king could not make any important decisions without the Reichstag, this led to domestic political chaos, foreign policy weakness and economic backwardness in Poland.

King August II tended to want to solve this problem and the associated problem of the electoral monarchy by means of a coup, a fact that Polish historiography gives him negative credit to this day. One of the results of his unsuccessful policy in Poland was that the Russian Tsar Peter I, as the mediator and guarantor of the Peace of Warsaw in 1716 and the Silent Sejm of 1717, gained even greater influence on Polish domestic politics, which August got through his plans actually wanted to prevent.

activities

The Saxon troops stationed in Poland since the Great Northern War , with the exception of the royal bodyguard and the Saxon ministers, had to leave the country. The Kingdom of Poland-Lithuania was by the Saxony-Poland called personal union with the Electorate of Saxony connected. The Reichstag had to be convened every two years, after which the king was allowed to travel to Saxony for a maximum of three months. These and other measures severely restricted August the Strong's political rights in Poland.

In return, the troops of the Tarnogród Confederation were disbanded and other confederations were banned without the consent of the king. Instead, a small standing army of 24,000 soldiers was created, which was to be financed on the basis of a taxation of noble estates. In practice, however , this army strength was far too low (the smaller Brandenburg-Prussia had 60,000 soldiers at that time). Further measures curtailed the rights of the hetmans and officials of the aristocratic republic and expanded royal jurisdiction. The king also regained control of his crown property.

The Liberum veto was not touched, nor was the electoral monarchy , as this was unrealistic on the one hand and was not in the interests of the Russian mediator on the other.

Conclusion

The Mute Sejm of 1717 thus stabilized relations between Saxony and Poland. As a result, attempts were made on both sides to change the results of this Reichstag, but progress remained within a comparatively modest framework. In particular, in the 1740s, several projects to increase the number of the army failed due to domestic political rivalries. The Mute Sejm of 1717 was unable to put a stop to the internal decline of the Polish state, which between 1772 and 1795 finally led to the division of Poland by Russia , Prussia and House of Austria .