Kingdom Of Poland Research Articles

The genesis of anabaptism in the Kingdom of Poland and in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1550–1560

The genesis of anabaptism in the Kingdom of Poland and in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1550–1560

Stosunek społeczeństwa polskiego do biurokracji rosyjskiej w Królestwie Polskim po powstaniu styczniowym

<p>The beginning of the era after the January Uprising brought a fundamental change in the organisation and functioning of the apparatus of civil administration in the Kingdom of Poland. In the intention of the tsarist authorities, it was supposed to be similar to the Russian model of territorial administration. All the central authorities of the Kingdom were subject to liquidation and the various areas of administrative management were subordinated to the competent ministries in St. Petersburg. The field administration has been reorganised according to Russian models. At the same time, the Russian language and officials brought from Russia were introduced to the offices. According to the tsarist authorities, only officials of Russian origin, loyal to the State, were able to effectively implement a new form of administrative system in the Kingdom and give the offices a style of functioning adopted in the administration of the Russian Empire. It was also expected that the massive influx of Russian officials with families would strengthen the number of the Russian element in the Kingdom and significantly contribute to making the country similar to the Empire’s core provinces. From the Polish perspective, the Russian system of civil administration introduced in the Kingdom of Poland after the January Uprising was clearly judged by Polish society at the time to be alien to Polish tradition, imposed by force and contrary to the Polish national interest.</p>

Poland after the Thirteen Years’ War (1454–1466): The Scope of Political and Structural Changes

<p>The war of Poland with the Teutonic Knights Order in the years 1454–1466, ended with the peace of Toruń 1466, had a significant impact on the increase in the importance of Poland’s position in Europe, which was reflected in the subordination of the defeated Teutonic Order state in Prussia and Poland’s obtaining a dominant position in Central and Northern Europe. Above all, however, events that took place during the war, especially the political crisis caused by claims of the nobility gathered for war as part of the levy in mass and the issuing of privileges for the nobility in 1454 initiated the start of changes in the political system of the Kingdom of Poland, which led to transformations in the structures of state assemblies and the creation of the new power system. The result of the transformation processes initiated at that time was the establishment in 1468 of a nationwide bicameral parliament, based on the representation of territorial assemblies, whose convocation was, moreover, due to the need to solve the financial problems arising as a result of the war, which ended in 1466. The war of 1454–1466 had a real impact on the formation of a new political structure of the Kingdom of Poland, whose development was continued in the 16<sup>th</sup> century.</p>

Creation of the Kingdom of Poland in the Discourse of the Russian Press

This article is devoted to the analysis of the rhetoric presented in the Russian press in 1814—1818 regarding the imperial policy in the newly annexed Kingdom of Poland. The aim of the authors is to show that it is necessary to separate the real policy of the Russian autocracy in this territory from the images created first by French publicists, and then repeatedly exaggerated by Russian journalists. It is noted that Alexander I in 1814—1818 appears on the pages of French publications as a tsar-liberator. It is shown that these stories were quickly picked up by Russian newspapers and magazines and, as a result, a paradoxical picture emerged: for several years the mass media convinced the Russian society that the Russian Tsar was the new Polish national sovereign. It is argued that this, of course, caused rejection in conservative circles and among advanced Westerners such as Vyazemsky or Turgenev. It is concluded that it is the dominant discourse that can be considered, on the one hand, one of the factors in the emergence of the Decembrist movement, and on the other, a “trap” for Alexander I, since the liberal rhetoric of the press over time began to diverge more and more from the real policy of the Russian autocracy.

THE CASE OF THE COUNTERFEITER ADAM BOGUSZ (1868‒1870)

Summary. The purpose of the research is to introduce into the scientific circulation the history of the activity of the counterfeiter Adam Bogusz, who played a significant role in the financial sabotage of the British against Russian Empire during the second half of the XIX century. The research methodology is defined by a set of general scientific methods, citations of the archival materials are given in the original language. The scientific novelty is that for the first time the main stages and the result of the activity of the counterfeiter Adam Bogusz are fully covered. Conclusion. In the first quarter of the XIX century the increase of the number of detected counterfeit credit notes brought to the Russian Empire from Kingdom of Great Britain has seriously alarmed the authorities. The investigation has gradually gained a national level of importance. In the 1820s, the Russian authorities resorted to careful tracking of all Jews who went through the Kingdom of Poland and could potentially carrycounterfeit credit notes for spending them in Russia. Attempts to transport so-called "English" counterfeiting in Poland were also recorded across the border with Prussia, the appearance of such citizens with a high degree of authority and trust them fake Prussian documents. In October 28, 1868 the Governor of Warsaw received the report from the Chief of the Radzewski County on available credible records of a salesman who fabricated in London as early as 1864 fake ten Russian ruble credit notes by a Polish-born owner of an estate in Olganowo, Włocław County of Warsaw – Adam Bogusz, who was selling them in the Prussian province – the Grand Duchy of Poznan to the sheep traders. On January 11, 1870, the Warsaw Penitentiary Court sentenced the seller of the counterfeit banknotes – Adam Bogusz – to deprivation of all rights and freedoms and exile to Siberia for six years of hard labor. But he was not the only one whose case was notorious for investigating a financial subversive activity from London.

Mining Industry and Education in the Kingdom of Poland in the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries

Mining Industry and Education in the Kingdom of Poland in the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries

„Establishment of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth” – a philological commentary to the 1569 Union of Lublin act

The Union signed at the Sejm of 1569 in Lublin established common institutions for the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, creating the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth which lasted till 1795. Apart from the monarch elected by the nobility of both states, it established a common legislature (Sejm), foreign and defense policy and currency. The armies, treasuries, law systems, state offices and judiciaries remained separate. The philological aspects important of the characterization of the Union comprise of the fact it was written in Polish and it’s stylistic affilation, the document’s signatories name form diversity, the way the text is composed and official and rhetoric style determinants included, which imply both informative and persuasive functions.

Letters of Remigian Korwin Kossakowski (Remigijus Korvin Kosakovskis 1730–1780) in the Vilnius University Library

In this article it is aimed to tell about a person, which was unduly forgotten in the history of the Vilnius University, though among his other activities, he did a lot to support and help the astronomers, coming to Paris and London from Vilnius. A former jesuit, talented preacher, professor of Rhetorics and other disciplines in Vilnius academy, Remigian Korwin Kossakowski (1730–1780) wrote a lot of letters to Vilnius (and perhaps to Warsaw too), from 1774 on, while working in Paris as the representative of the National Comission of Education of the Commonwealth of Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The letters which are kept in Vilnius university library, mainly addressed to the astronomers Marcin Poczobut and Andrzej Strzecki (1737–1797) are mainly connected with the scientific journey of Strzecki in 1778 to Paris and London and the circumstances of election of Poczobut as a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris. Letters are filled with digressions, reminding of gawenda literary genre, providing the researcher with data on the details of everyday life in the second half of XVIII century, political and ideological views of the addressee, his nostalgy for the Grand Duchy and Poland and his exceptional gift of expressing his feelings. The style of these letters show us that the human who wrote them was well educated, highly critical, curious and well-spoken, and the contents testify the not so well known side of the history of science relations between Vilnius, Warsaw and Paris.

Policy of Russification in the Grand Duchy of Finland and the Kingdom of Poland – Analogy and Specificity

Policy of Russification in the Grand Duchy of Finland and the Kingdom of Poland – Analogy and Specificity

БЕЖАВШИЙ ОТ ВОЙНЫ: О РОССИЙСКОМ УЧЕНОМ-ЭМИГРАНТЕ Б.М. САПИРЕ

The article is devoted to the life, work and documentary legacy of the well-known abroad, but little-known in Russia historian and archivist Boris Moiseevich Sapir. B.M. Sapir lived a long life (1902–1989), full of various events. Born in 1902 in the city of Lodz in the Kingdom of Poland (that then belonged to Russia) into a Jewish Russian-speaking family, B.M. Sapir did not always voluntarily find himself in the center of major political events and even wars of the first half of the 20th century. Already in 1914, he and his parents came to Moscow. There, Sapir became interested in the social democratic movement and joined the Menshevik Party. However, not being an enemy of the Soviet state, he joined the Red Army in 1919 at the age of 17, being demobilized only in 1921. Soon, however, B.M. Sapir was arrested, imprisoned and deported until 1926. In 1926, he managed to escape to Germany (then the Weimar Republic). There, he became an activist of the International Youth Social Democratic Movement. However, when the Nazis came to power in Germany, Sapir’s long ordeal began in different countries. It was the Netherlands, where he began to actively study the history of Russian Populism and Menshevism (that topic became the main issue in his scientific work). Later his fate led him to Cuba, where he started researching the history of the local Jewish community, then – to the United States. It was only after the Second World War, and even then not immediately, that Sapir managed to come to the Netherlands, where he finally began to study the history of the revolutionary movement in pre-Soviet Russia. There he found not only his favorite occupation, but also his family happiness. B.M. Sapir did not survive his rehabilitation. He died in 1989, and was officially rehabilitated in the USSR only in 1991. Boris Moiseevich’s relatives received the relevant documents only in 1992. The most significant part of B.M. Sapir’s documents is kept in the United States, in one of the Russian archives – the Bakhmetyev archives (at Harward University). A copy of the scientific reference apparatus for the collection (Fund) of B.M. Sapir was digitized and made available to Internet users. However, a detailed study of B.M. Sapir’s documents is a matter for the future.

Sejm koronny w czasach jagiellońskich (1386–1572). Narodziny, rozwój, „złoty wiek”

The birth of parliamentarism in the Kingdom of Poland, its development, and its heyday, referred to in historiography as the ‘golden age’, are associated with the almost two-hundred-year reign of the Jagiellonian dynasty (1386–1572). During the reign of four generations of Jagiellons, the oligarchic monarchy of the fifteenth century was transformed into a parliamentary monarchy of nobles in the next century. One of the institutional foundations and principles of the state was the two-tier parliamentary system, which ensured actual participation in power of the holders of political rights. The year 1468 saw the birth of the Chamber of Deputies, based on the principle of representation, and consequently, the establishment of the bicameral Crown Sejm. The Polish-Lithuanian Union concluded in Lublin in 1569 resulted in legal and political decisions which determined the role and functioning of the Sejm until the collapse of the Commonwealth at the end of the eighteenth century.

Rozbudowa uzdrowiska w Krynicy w latach 1806–1830 w świetle akt Gubernium Lwowskiego

Extension to the health resort in Krynica in 1806–1830 in the light of the files of the Lviv Governorate The Austrian authorities in Galicia sought to use the mineral springs existing in that land. Krynica was one of the few state-owned villages that had mineral springs. The health resort was founded in 1793. But it was only the investments from 1806-1810 that transformed the village into a real health resort. In 1811, further works were stopped, and after a few years they were resumed to a very limited extent. The main reason for the lack of new investments was the financial crisis of the state related to the Napoleonic wars. Hopes for a quick transformation of Krynica into the main health resort of Galicia, to which Poles would also come from abroad (Russia, Prussia, the Duchy of Warsaw – later the Kingdom of Poland), ended in failure. The high number of visitors recorded in the first years of the 19th century soon declined. Krynica lost the competition with other spas in Southern Poland (Krzeszowice, Swoszowice), as well as with resorts in the Kingdom of Bohemia and in Hungary. Only in the second half of the 19th century, Krynica became the largest spa in Galicia, and one of the most important in Austria. However, this took place under completely different socioeconomic circumstances.

НАЦИОНАЛЬНАЯ ПОЛЬСКАЯ ШКОЛА И РОССИЙСКАЯ БЮРОКРАТИЯ: 1905–1907 ГГ.

The history of the movement for a national Polish school in 1905–1907 was for a long time a part of research on the history of the first Russian revolution; the “school strike” in the Kingdom of Poland was studied separately, but the position of the top Russian bureaucracy on that issue was not considered in detail. The article considers an evolution in the positions of the top Russian bureaucracy on the issue of teaching in Polish in the schools of the Kingdom of Poland during the first Russian revolution. For the first time, the differences between the positions of official Petersburg and the provincial administration of the Kingdom of Poland are shown. The provincial administration was more interested in achieving stability in the province by liberal methods and was ready to make concessions when the members of the Council of Ministers and Nicholas II initially held an ambiguous stance. Based on the analysis of the interdepartmental correspondence, part of which is introduced in the scientific circulation for the first time, it is concluded that hesitation of the tsarist government in resolving the issue of the national Polish school did not contribute to the stabilization of the situation in the region during the revolution, and the winning liberal course did not have the anticipated effect.

Ссыльные польские католические духовные лицав Западной Сибири (60-е — конец 70-х гг. XIX в.): некоторые аспекты изучения

Целью статьи является рассмотрение вопросов постоянно изменяющихся данных общего числа и количества в каждом месте отбытия наказания польских католических духовных лиц в Западной Сибири, освещение их деятельности и жизненных условий в более полном источниковедческом и познавательном объеме. Хронологические рамки работы охватывают 60-е — конец 70-х гг. XIX в. Это объясняется началом массовой высылки участников восстания 1863 г. в Царстве Польском и реальным появлением возможностей их освобождения от полицейского надзора и отъезда из Западной Сибири. Основными источниками являются официальные документы, мемуары, материалы периодической печати. Среди участников польского январского восстания 18631864 гг., оказавшихся в ссылке в Западной Сибири, были представлены различные сословия общества. Ссыльные католические священники в Западной Сибири размещались в основном в городах Томской и Тобольской губерний. Изучение и систематизация сохранившихся архивных документов позволили определить общее количество ксендзов, сосланных в Западную Сибирь по делу о восстании. В общей сложности оказалось 104 католических священника, высланных на жительство под надзор полиции в Западную Сибирь. Значительная часть духовных лиц, находясь в ссылке, утрачивала имевшийся ранее духовный сан и права состояния. Оказавшись в новых жизненных условиях отбытия наказания, большинство ссыльных столкнулось с материальными трудностями. Некоторые были вынуждены довольствоваться небольшими государственными пособиями или помощью родственников. Стремясь улучшить свое материальное положение, ссыльные католические священники занимались различной деятельностью, в том числе преподаванием вопреки правительственным запретам. В условиях изгнания ксендзы обеспечивали консолидацию польских ссыльных и способствовали успешному сохранению в их среде этнической идентичности. Лояльность, доброжелательность власти по отношению к ним была вызвана, скорее всего, желанием обеспечить стабильную бесконфликтную ситуацию в регионе, сохранить спокойствие и порядок на территории Западной Сибири. Ссыльные ксендзы имели возможности контактов и сближения с местным населением в различных сферах повседневной жизни. В результате деятельности выдающихся католических священников были заложены основы для интеграции европейской религиозной традиции в пространство православной культуры.

The revolution of 1905-1907 in the Kingdom of Poland

The revolution of 1905-1907 in the Kingdom of Poland

Sex, Lies and Career. Piquant Motifs of the Lives of Russian Dignitaries

On the eve of the World War I, the western peripheries of the Russian Empire were home to diasporas of Russian officials, military men and their families. Being isolated from local communities but at the same time highly hierarchically organised, they functioned solely within their own circle. Everyone knew one another to the most intimate detail. Nevertheless, their private lives often failed to meet the requirements imposed on the Russian officials residing in the borderland, which was reflected in the reports of the gendarmerie and memoirs, but silenced in the official documents of the institutions. Every once in a while, a lucky historian happens to stumble upon an opportunity to look at the same event from different angles through various types of sources. By presenting various cases of informal relations of Russian dignitaries (governors and vice-governors) with women in the Kingdom of Poland, the article analyses their impact on life and career. The author introduces the reader to characters of three Russian officials, of middle ranking on the scale of empire and dignitaries in the local hierarchy. The first, Mikhail Viktorovich Seletsky, the vice-governor of Lublin, despite his very good education and qualifications, committed suicide as a result of unhappy love for the governor’s daughter. The second, Ivan Dmitrievich Zaushkevich, the vice-governor of Sedlets, was ruined by a scandal with his mistresses, Jewish sisters, by whom he had children. In contrast, the third, Semyon Nikolaevich Korf, governor of Lomzhа and then Warsaw, despite his rather licentious behavior, made a relatively good career, which was only temporarily stopped by his stay in German captivity. The presented examples show the discrepancy between the official image of a representative of power with a rather conservative ideology and their everyday life, especially their sexual life. So, on the one hand, their way of life did not differ from the social norms of the time, which were already quite free at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, especially on the western edge of the Empire. On the other hand, they were criticized by their superiors and the political police.

Dzieje Szwadronu Radomskiego (listopad 1918–marzec/kwiecień 1919). Przyczynek do dziejów ochotniczych szwadronów wojewódzkich Wojska Polskiego

In the study, the Author presented the plans and the process of developing the cavalry of Polish military units- the Polish Army- in the period from November 1918 to the beginning of April 1919. In this context, he described the emergence and formation, and next the participation of the voluntary Radom Squadron, which was one of the voivodeship squadrons formed at that time in the former Kingdom of Poland, in the Polish Ukrainian war. Its history has been described until the moment of incorporation into the ranks of 11th Legions Uhlan Regiment.

A Forgotten Network? New Perspectives on Progressive Synagoguesin Galicia and the Kingdom of Poland

A Forgotten Network? <i>New Perspectives on Progressive Synagoguesin Galicia and the Kingdom of Poland</i>

“Picturesque Russia” (1878/1881–1901) As a Method of Constructing the Russian Imperial Identity (On the Example of the Poles)

The article is devoted to the landmark publication Picturesque Russia. Our Fatherland in its geographical, historical, tribal, economic and everyday significance (1879/1881–1901), which was the first and only example of its time of a detailed and comprehensive description of Russia in a popular scientific form, but with strict reliance on scientific literature. The initiator and first publisher was M. O. Wolf, one of the most successful book publishers and booksellers in Russia. Many prominent representatives of science and culture took part in the preparation of the 19-volume edition. Particularly significant amongst them were N. I. Kostomarov, I. E. Zabelin, D. I. Ilovaisky, P. A. Kulish, and V. V. Chuiko. The editor-in-chief of the publication was P. P. Semenov (from 1906, P. P. Semenov-Tyan-Shansky). Volumes of Picturesque Russia consisted of essays devoted to all regions of the Russian Empire and were mainly of an ethnographic, geographical, and statistical nature. The importance of the volumes about the Kingdom of Poland is that they contain historical information to a greater extent than other volumes of the publication. From the point of view of the stated topic, essays of particular interest are those of author V. V. Chuiko focusing on the periods of Polish history before, during, and after the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The essays on state and political history allows us to analyse, from the point of view of the authors, their place and role in the context of Russian historical Polonistics and the Polish question. In addition, the work was an attempt to construct imperial identity, which was supposed to supersede – or replace – national identity in the modern history of the Russian Empire. The author of the article comes to the conclusion that Picturesque Russia, especially the Polish historical essays, is fertile material, the content of which it is advisable to analyse from the point of view of widespread (or just emerging) technologies of power in the empire.

Ashantis in Warsaw: Notions of “Blackness” in Polish Society at the Turn of the 20th Century – A Preparatory Contribution to Polish Colonial History

The author recognizes Włodzimierz Perzyński’s comedy Aszantka as a meaningful remnant of „blackness” in the history of Polish theatre, and therefore she uses it as a point of entrance into a broader inquiry about the entanglement of Polish society into European colonial project, and the ideas, values, and cultural practices it entailed. That is why in the article the author attempts to reconstruct possible concepts and images of “blackness” which Warsaw dwellers might have shared at the end of the 19th century by analysing the reception of the performances of alleged representatives of Ashanti people in the Warsaw circus in 1888. From “Ashanti” performances on, the popularity of this type of entertainment – so called ethnographic shows or human zoos – grew in the colonized capital of the Kingdom of Poland. The author points to “savageness” and “nakedness” as constitutive traits of “blackness” which she understands as a specific human condition, experienced both by overseas colonized societies as well as subaltern social groups (to which “Aszantka” from Perzyński’s comedy belonged) in European societies.