The Russian guarantee of the statehood of the szlachta-controlled Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Russian policy in Poland at the beginning of the uprising of the Bar Confederation (1768)

Abstract

The article deals with the policy of Russia in Poland in the 18th century, aimed at establishing the dependence of the szlachta republic on St. Petersburg. This policy was also implemented in the initial period of the uprising of the Bar Confederation, which broke out after the ratification by the Sejm in February 1768 of the Russian-Polish treatise on the guarantee of the statehood of the gentry republic and the equalization of the class and political rights of the Catholic and the dissident (Protestant and Orthodox) szlachta. Based on the materials of the Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire, the author considers the attempts of the Russian ambassador in Warsaw N. V. Repnin to enlist the support of the Polish king and magnate groups (primarily of the “family” of the Czartoryskis) to convene a new Sejm, which was supposed to declare the confederation illegal. The failure of attempts to convene the Sejm and the beginning of the Russian-Turkish war of 1768–1774 predetermined the failure of the policy of St. Petersburg to achieve a solution to the crisis that had arisen through a compromise with the magnate tops. At the same time, the political efforts of Russia during the preparation of the Sejm in the autumn of 1768 objectively contributed to the stabilization of the Polish statehood and, to a certain extent, its political modernization.