The Transformation of Imperial Politics in Poland from Constitutionalism to Bureaucratic Centralization

Abstract

The article explores the process of the formation the new Polish policy through the prism of biographies of representatives of the Kingdom of Poland who became members of the Council of State during the reign of Nicholas I. The article demonstrates that the problem of management of a huge country at the beginning of the researched period was one of the main issues. The extraordinary circumstances of the accession to the throne, that is, the dynastic and political crises, and then the revolutionary upheavals in Europe, had a decisive influence on the choice by Nicholas I of strategic priorities and tactical attitudes of state policy. A tactical means of achieving it was a new type of absolutism combining the monarch’s strong authoritarian power with an improved management system, one of the most important components of which was determined by the “national” administration of Poland. At the same time, the “information war” unfolding in connection with European revolutionary events forced the supreme power to pay special attention to its ideological and institutional convergence with the political system of Russia. Given the conditions of the destruction of the system of relations with Poland that existed until 1830, the government’s priority was to develop a new domestic policy that would ensure that the imperial center maintain social peace in the region by means of not only establishing a single legislative space,but also by incorporating the Polish administrative and military elite into the highest state institutions of the country.