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Defining Us and Them: Poles and Russians in the “Western Provinces,” 1863-1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Theodore R. Weeks
Theodore R. Weeks*
Affiliation:
Southern Illinois University of Carbondale
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Extract

Like other multinational states in Europe, from the middle of the nineteenth century the Russian Empire found itself confronted, indeed threatened, by the growing strength of non-Russian national movements. Unlike other contemporary national “awakenings,” however, the Polish question in the Russian Empire had roots extending beyond the eighteenth century and posed, at least in the minds of Russian administrators, a serious and persistent threat to Russian national interests in the empire’s vulnerable western borderlands. From the 1830s an anti-Polish policy had been pursued in these areas, but only after the 1863 uprising did the Russian imperial state dedicate itself to a policy of radical elimination of Polish influence in the so-called “western provinces,” a fusion (sliianie) of these territories with the Russian interior in terms of administration, economy, culture and nationality.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , Spring 1994 , pp. 26 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1994

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References

1. In principle, the term “Tsarstvo Pol'skoe” was replaced after the 1863 uprising by the ethnically neutral “Vistula Land” (Privislianskii krai); however, this name never caught on either among the Poles (for obvious reasons) nor even among Russian officials.

2. As so often in the Russian Empire, the operative term here is “in principle.“ See Stanley John Zyzniewski, “Russian Policy in the Congress Kingdom of Poland, 1863-1881” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard: 1956); and Offmariski, Mieczyslaw, Charakterystyka rzadow Aleksandra III w Ziemiach Polskich 11881-18941 (Lwow: Orion, 1895 Google Scholar).

3. Obviously the sketch presented here cannot do justice to this very rich period. See, for example, Blejwas, Stanislaus A., Realism in Polish Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984 Google Scholar; Jaszczuk, Andrzej, Spor pozytywistow z konserwatystami o przysztosc Polski 1870-1903 (Warsaw: państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1986)Google Scholar; Brykalska, Maria, Aleksander Swietochowski, redaktor “Prawdy” (Warsaw: Zaklad Narodowy im. Ossolinskich, 1974)Google Scholar; and Pogodin, A., Glavnye techeniia pol'skoi politicheskoi mysli (St. Petersburg: G. A. Leman, 1907 Google Scholar).

4. That is to say, of absolute assimilation. Polish nationalists emphasized that it lay in the nature of the Russian state to expand and swallow up different ethnic groups (e.g. Popławski, Jan L., Pisma polityczne [Kraków: Gebethner i Wolff, 1910], 1: 216 Google Scholar). Even recent studies sometimes portray the tsarist government as bent on national elimination of non-Russians: “The [Russian] authorities considered] Lithuanians and Poles in the western provinces as material for russificatory processes … “ ( Jurkiewicz, Jan, Rozwój polskiej myśli politycznej na Litwie i Bialorusi w latach 1905-1922 [Poznari: Wydawn. Nauk. Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza, 1983], 18–19 Google Scholar).

5. Edward C. Thaden, ed., Russification in the Baltic Provinces and Finland, 1855- 1914 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 8.

6. On this process, see Yaney, George, The Systemization of Russian Government: Social Evolution in the Domestic Administration of Imperial Russia, 1711-1905 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1973 Google Scholar.

7. To complicate matters further, we must consider the complexity of “assimilation“ and at least theoretically grant the possibility of a mixture and coexistence of two cultures, even within the same human being. However, this topic would expŁóde the boundaries of this paper.

8. For a general history of this region and Russian policy there, see Thaden, Edward C., Russia's Western Borderlands, 1710-1870 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984 Google Scholar.

9. When dealing with regions of mixed nationality, place names are a constant problem. Since this is primarily a study of Russian government policy and thought, the Russian forms will be used. It should go without saying that this does not indicate any endorsement of Russian claims in this ethnically non-Russian territory.

10. After 1870, the provinces were usually divided into three groups: those under the governor general of Vil'na (Vil'na, Grodno, Kovno), or the “northwest” provinces; the “western” provinces (Minsk, Vitebsk, Mogilev) which were not subject to any governor general; and the “southwest” provinces (Kiev, Podolia, Volhynia) under the jurisdiction of the governor general of Kiev. In common parlance, the “western” and “northwest” provinces were usually grouped together.

11. Pervaia vseobshchaia perepis’ naseleniia Rossiiskoi Imperii [1897], Obshchii svod (St. Petersburg: Tsentral'nyi statisticheskii komitet, 1905), 2, 20-23 and Ezhegodnik Rossii, VII (1910): 65-67. For a Polish corrective to official statistics, see Czyriski, Edward, Etnograficzno-statystyczny zarys liczebności i rozsiedlenia ludności polskiej (Warsaw: Gebethner i Wolff, 1909 Google Scholar. Unfortunately, statistics are rather unreliable prior to 1897, particularly as regards nationality. A recent major study of the results of the 1897 census is Bauer, H., Kappeler, A. and Roth, B., eds., Die Nationalitdten des Russischen Reiches in der Volkszählung von 1897 (Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1991 Google Scholar).

12. According to the figures of the 1897 census, the population of the empire consisted of 65.28% “Russians” (43.40% Great Russians, 17.41% Ukrainians, 4.57% Belarusians); 6.17% Poles; 3.94% Jews; and the remaining nearly 25% made up of dozens of smaller nationalities from Lithuanians and Germans to Armenians, Swedes, Uzbeks and Yakuts. Quoted in Kastelianskii, A. I., ed., Formy natsional'nogo dvizheniia (St. Petersburg: Tovarishchestvo “Obshchestvennaia pol'za”, 1910), 280 Google Scholar.

13. The most extreme example of this trend in Polish thought may be found in the works of Franciszek Duchiński, who equated Russians with Asians and denied their membership in the Slavic “tribe.“

14. Russian State Historical Archive (formerly TsGIA), St. Petersburg (henceforth RGIA), f. 821 (Ministry of Internal Affairs. Department of Spiritual Affairs of Foreign Confessions), op. 125, d. 312, 1. 38. The report, dated 20 April 1885, is entitled, “On the question of the Roman Catholic clergy in the Northwest territory.” In discussing the Catholic religion, the governor general immediately implicated the Poles.

15. Poles held 2, 435, 226 desiatiny in the three provinces, Russians 811, 362 (RGIA, f. 1284 [Ministry of Internal Affairs. Department of General Affairs], op. 190, 1896, d. 353, 11. 12-21). One desiatina equaled 1.09 hectares.

16. This point is made by M. Dragomanov in “Evrei i poliaki v lugo-Zapadnom krae,” Vestnik Evropy X (July 1875): 156.

17. For some background on the position of the Polish landowning class in the west and particularly the southwest, see Beauvois, Daniel, Le noble, le serf et le revizor: La noblesse polonaise entre le tsarisme et les masses ukrainiennes (1831-1863) (Paris: Editions des Archives Contemporaines, 1985 Google Scholar).

18. Report of the Gagarin commission of 1865, appended to a letter of the minister of state domains to the minister of internal affairs dated 16 December 1865 (RGIA, f. 1284, op. 189, 1865, d. 4, 1. 5v).

19. On these confiscations, see RGIA, f. 1270, op. 1, 1864, dd. 9 and 10: “Po voprosu o konfiskatsii imenii politicheskikh pristupnikov.“

20. The original law of 8 June 1863 placed a 10% annual levy on all estates of the region, regardless of the nationality of their owners. This tax was then reduced to 5% and applied exclusively to Polish estates (“Graf Leliva” [pseudonym for Antoni Tyszkiewicz], Russko-pol'skie otnosheniia [Leipzig: I. A. Kasprovich, 1895], 32-34. See also the law of 31 December 1870: “O nekotorykh merakh v otnoshenii protsentnogo sbora v 9-ti Zapadnykh guberniiakh,” Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii (PSZ), 2d series, XLV (1870), no. 49091: 631f.

21. Ibid., XV (1865), no. 42759: 326-27.

22. On the effects of these restrictions, see Russho-pol'skie otnosheniia, 16-38, and Boleslav G. Ol'shamovskii, Prava po zemlevladeniiu v Zapadnom krae (St. Petersburg: Iu. A. Mansfel'd, 1899).

23. As we have seen, Polish landowning still exceeded Russian in four of the nine western provinces even more than thirty years after the 1863 uprising. On methods of evading the law used by the Poles, see the letter dated 2 May 1891 from the governor general of Kiev, Ignat'ev, to the minister of internal affairs in RGIA, f. 1282 (Chancellery of the Minister of Internal Affairs), op. 2, 1891, d. 869, 11. 1-7, esp. 3.

24. In general on educational restrictions see Russkopol'skie otnosheniia, 150-90. On the use of Polish in the schools of the northwest after 1905, see the correspondence between the ministry of internal affairs and the governor general of Vil'na in RGIA, f. 1276 (Council of Ministers), op. 1, 1905, d. 114.

25. Russko-pol'skie otnosheniia, 153, 163f. On the situation after 1905, see RGIA, f. 821, op. 125, 1906, d. 275: “Zakon Bozhii na russkom i mestnykh iazykakh.“

26. For an example of these legal penalties, see the law of 3 April 1892 (PSZ, 3rd series, XII, no. 8486: 223-224): “Vysochaishe utverzhdennye Vremennye Pravila o vzyskaniiakh za tainoe obuchenie [in the 9 western Provinces].” Even after 1905 the organizers of secret schools were subject to fines and imprisonment, though governors complained that the penalties provided by law were not heavy enough.

27. Russko-pol'skie otnosheniia, 54-55.

28. Wanda Dobaczewska, Wilno i Wilenszczyzna w latach 1863-1914 (Wilno: n.p., 1938).

29. See, for example, TsGIA, f. 821, op. 150, dd. 226-242: “Konduitnaia kniga o katolicheskikh sviashchennikakh, so svedeniiami … o repressiiakh za uchastie v vosstanii 1863 g.“

30. Of course, the actual liturgy was in Latin, but for hymns, sermons and supplemental prayers, the local language was used. Before the turn of the century in the northwest provinces, this so-called “supplemental service” was held nearly everywhere in Polish. 31. On this movement for “depolonizing the Catholic church” (razpoliachenie kostela), see the documents in RGIA, f. 821, op. 125, dd. 277-293 (1867-1910), especially d. 277 (1867-1901); and Vladimirov, A. P., Istoriia raspoliacheniia Zapadno-russkogo kostela (Moscow: Russkii vestnik, 1896 Google Scholar.

32. See the letter of 2 February 1855 from the minister of internal affairs to the governors general of Vil'na and Kiev, and the ensuing discussion in RGIA, f. 1282, op. 2, 1856, d. 330.

33. Ironically, it was easier for Poles to make a career in the Russian interior, where such restrictions did not exist. This fact gave rise to large Polish communities in the Russian capital and elsewhere. See Ludwik Bazyłow, Polacy w Peterburgu (Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolinskich, 1984Google Scholar).

34. Regarding restrictions on government employment in the western territory for Poles, see Russko-pol'skie otnosheniia, 38-47; and RGIA, f. 1284, op. 190, 1901, d. 88: “O naznachenii lits pol'skogo proiskhozhdeniia (katolicheskogo ispovedaniia) na dolzhnosti.“

35. See, for example, Erazm Pil'ts, Povorotnyi moment v russko-pol'skikh otnosheniiakh. Tri stat'i Petra Varty (St. Petersburg: Kraj, 1897).

36. On the widespread atmosphere of hope in thefirst years of Nicholas IPs reign, see Beylin, Karolina, Dni powszednie Warszawy w latach 1880-1900 (Warsaw: Paristwowy Institut Wydawniczy, 1967), 397–99, 420–22 Google Scholar. For a contemporary, highly critical view of these hopes, see Poplawski, J., ‘“Nowy Kurs’ w zaborze rosyjskim,” in Pisma polityczne, 2, 78–88 Google Scholar (originally published in Przegląd Wszechpolski, 1897).

37. For the text of the 12 December ukase, see PSZ, 3rd series, XXIV (1904), otd. 1, no. 25495: 1196-1198. Article 3 concerned the extension of self-government, article 6 religious freedom and article 7 promised a review of restrictive laws on non-Russians (“peresmotr zakonov, ogranichivaiushchikh prava inorodtsov“).

38. For the government's deliberations in this matter, see RGIA, f. 1276, op. 1, 1905, d. 105 (Poles in the Kingdom of Poland); and ibid., d. 106 (Poles in the western provinces). Note the separate deliberations for the two regions; and note also the use of “Kingdom of Poland” (Tsarstvo Pol'skoe) here, even though the term had been officially abolished nearly two generations earlier.

39. On Russian policy toward Poles during this period, see T. Weeks, “The National World of Imperial Russia: Policy in the Kingdom of Poland and the Western Provinces, 1894-1914” (Ph.D. diss., University of California at Berkeley, 1991), esp. chapters 4-6; Wierzchowski, M., Sprawy Polski w III i IV Dumie (Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1966 Google Scholar); and Pawel Piotr Wieczorkiewicz, “Polityka rosyjska wobec Krolestwa Polskiego w latach 1909-1914” (Ph.D. diss., University of Warsaw, 1976). For the “realist” view, see Piltz, Erazm, W chwili ciężkiej i trudnej (Warsaw: Gebethner i Wolff, 1912 Google Scholar. Leon Wasilewski argued that conditions for Poles in the Russian Empire actually deteriorated after 1905 (Rosya wobec Polakow w dobie “konstytucyjnej“ [Kraków: Nakl. Centralnego Biura Wydawnictw N.K.N., 1916], esp. 9.)

40. Russko-pol'skie otnosheniia, 7. See also the discussion in RGIA, f. 1276, op. 1, 1905, d. 106: “Delo po voprosu ob otmene ogranichenii v pravakh pol'skogo naseleniia v zapadnykh guberniiakh.“

41. Ibid., 1. 5v.

42. RGIA, f. 1282, op. 2, 1887-1893, d. 592. The ruling of the minister of internal affairs, dated 24 August 1890, is found on 1. 52.

43. RGIA, f. 1282, op. 2, d. 330, 1. 1.

44. RGIA, f. 1284, op. 190, 1900, d. 85, 1. 8. The letter from Sipiagin to Witte is dated 16 March 1900.

45. It must be stressed that here I am referring to Russian officials, not to the Russian intelligentsia. It should also be kept in mind that the Poles in Russia did constitute, from an objective point of view, a rather problematic group for Russian state interests.

46. RGIA, f. 1284, op. 194, 1904, d. 52, 1. 2.

47. It is difficult to describe precisely what the “triumph” of Russian culture over Polish would have entailed. When pressed on the point, officials always adamantly denied that they aimed to destroy Polish culture. They perceived their policy, rather, as a defense of local Russian culture and a neutralizing of the dangers of possible Polish separatism. 48. Like so many other Russian officials, Trotskii used the terms “russkii” and “pravoslavnyi” as synonyms.

49. The report (otchet) of 1898 is found in RGIA, f. 1263, op. 2, St. 252-332 (March 1900), d. 5385, 11. 583-622.

50. RGIA, f. 1282, op. 3, 1900, d. 355, 1. 1.

51. Trotskii made this point very forcefully in regard to the proposed elimination of laws forcing Lithuanian publications to be printed in Cyrillic letters, a proposal which he vigorously opposed (ibid., 1. 45).

52. RGIA, f. 1284, op. 190, 1899, d. 84B, 1. 3v. Also 1. 6v: “Unfortunately, our laws did not stipulate for Russian landholders in the northwest territories any obligations; these were also not recognized by the landholders themselves.“

53. Ibid., 11. 17-19 (Catholic church); 20-25 (schools); 27-29 (Poles and Polish national feelings).

54. Ibid., 1. 31v.

55. RGIA, f. 1284, op. 190, 1915, d. 84D, 1. 2.

56. The large Lithuanian and Jewish populations were conveniently ignored in this formulation.

57. On government efforts—or at least discussions—to reduce Polish and Catholic influence over the Belarusians, see RGIA, f. 821, op. 128, 1912, d. 697; ibid., 1914, d. 1216; and ibid., op. 150, d. 150.

58. See Petr Stolypin's speech before the State Council on 3 March 1911, in Gosudarstvennaia deiatel'nost'predsedatelia soveta ministrov statssehretaria P. A. Stolypina, II, 161f.

59. For example, one quite recent study speaks of the tsarist “biological destruction of the Polish nationality” after 1863 in the western provinces (Tadeusz Łepkowski, Polska—Narodziny nowoczesnego narodu 1764-1870 [Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1967], 134Google Scholar).