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The Peasant Revolt of 1846 in Galicia: Recent Polish Historiography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Thomas W. Simons Jr.
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Extract

In February 1846 Polish-speaking peasants in the western districts of Galicia, the Austrian part of partitioned Poland, struck down a national uprising composed largely of Polish nobles (szlachta) and joined Austrian troops marching on the tiny Republic of Cracow, where a Polish National Government had been established. Between four hundred and five hundred manors were sacked and over a thousand Poles killed. This peasant revolt is’ the point at which the national and social problems cross most strikingly in Polish historiography. Every historian of these events must explain how Polish peasants could rise against Polish patriots seeking to free Poland from the foreign yoke.

Controversy began immediately, but for almost a century, until World War II, debate was confined within fairly narrow interpretive limits. All the major treatments were based on one or another version of an “outside agitator“ thesis.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , December 1971 , pp. 795 - 817
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1971

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References

1. For a review of the historiography concentrating on the prewar years see Kieniewicz, Stefan, Ruch chłopski w Galicji w 1846 roku (Wrocław, 1951), pp. v–xviii.Google Scholar

2. In his Die Entwickhng des gutsherrlich-bäuerlichen Verhaltnisses in Galizien (1772-1848), Wiener staatswissenschaftliche Studien, vol. 4, pt. 2 (Vienna and Leipzig, 1902).

3. Bolesław Limanowski, Historic ruchu rewolucyjncgo w Polsce w 1846 r. (Cracow, 1913), pp. 160–72.Google Scholar

4. Michał Janik, “Zesłanie Jakuba Szeli na Bukowinę,” Przegląd Współczesny, vol. 49 (April-June 1934); “Słowa pisane Jakuba Szeli,” Piast (Cracow), no. 57 (Dec. 16, 1934), no. 58 (Dec. 23, 1934), no. 1 (Jan. 6, 1935), and no. 2 (Jan. 13, 1935). Reprinted in Czesław Wycech, ed., Jakub Szela: Pięć prac o Jakubie Szeli (Warsaw, 1956), pp. 82- 119 and 66-79Google Scholar respectively. On outside provocation see p. 67.

5. Kazimierz Ostaszewski-Barański, Krwawy rok (1846): Opowiadanie historyczne (n.p., 1913; 1st ed., 1896), p. 261.

6. Zawieyski, Jerzy, “Szela,” Młoda Myśl Ludowa, 1932, no. 12.Google Scholar Reprinted in Wycech, Jakub Szela, pp. 122-34 (quotation on p. 126).

7. Lasocki, Zygmunt, “Szela i Andrusikiewicz,” Wieś i Panstwo, 3, no. 5 (1946): 447–58.Google Scholar The “real peasants” are discussed on p. 454.

8. Płomieński, Jerzy Eugeniusz, “Przed wybuchem powstania kfakowskiego w 1846 r.,” Twórczość, 2, no. 2 (1946): 62–69;Google Scholar W kręgu polskiej irredenty (0 Edwardsie Dembowskim, Jakubie Sseli i rzezi galicyjskiej) (Warsaw, 1946). The book is a reconstruction of a work originally written in 1936-40 and lost in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. I deduce Płomieński’s PPS connection from the fact that he published a response to reviews of his book in the party newspaper: “Retusze myślowe,” Robotnik, no. 45 (804) (Feb. 16, 1947). The peasant pogroms are discussed on p. 67 of the article and p. 9 of the book, and the impermissibilities on pp. 85 and 91 of the book.

9. Tadeusz Hołuj, Rok 1846: Rewolucja i rabacja (Cracow, 1946). The “imperial” peasants are discussed on pp. 14 and 56, Austrian provocation on pp. 37-38, and the conclusion on pp. 56-59. The book has no scholarly apparatus but appears to follow Limanowski—for example, the idea that incompetent leadership, rather than the peasant revolt, was the main cause of the uprising’s failure (p. 39).

10. Werfel, Roman, “Dembowski i Szela: Rok 1846,” Nowe Widnokręgi, 1941, no. 2, pp. 104–51;Google Scholar Twórczść, 2, no. 2 (1946): 70-109. The revisions are insignificant for the present purposes. The argument that the democrats could have taken the peasants in hand is on pp. 148-49 of the original and pp. 105-6 of the 1946 article.

11. Juryś, Roman, “Henryk Michał Kamieński i Edward Dembowski,” Nowe Widnokręgi, 5, no. 23-24 (Dec. 30, 1945): 16–18.Google Scholar Stalin’s statement, in an interview of Dec. 13, 1931, with Emil Ludwig, was, “Peasant uprisings can succeed only if they interweave with worker uprisings and if workers direct the peasant uprisings“; Stalin, I. V., Sochineniia, 13 vols. (Moscow, 1947-53), 13: 112–13.Google Scholar It was printed in Bolshevik, Apr. 30, 1932. Neither the National Library in Warsaw, the Warsaw University Library, nor the Warsaw University Historical Institute library has a copy of the 1932 Polish edition used by Werfel, although the National Library has two copies of a Yiddish edition published in Warsaw in 1935.

12. Gąsiorowska, Natalia, ed., W stulecie Wiosny Ludów, 1848-1948, 5 vols. (Warsaw, 1948-53).Google Scholar

13. Kieniewicz, Stefan, “Sprawa włościańska w Galicji w 1848 r.,” Przegląd Historyczny, 38 (1948): 61–128.Google Scholar

14. Ibid., pp. 68-69.

15. Kieniewicz, Stefan, ed., Rewolucja polska 1846 roku: Wybór źródeł (Wrocław, 1949), pp. xxi–liv.Google Scholar On Breinl as the “creator” see pp. xxx-xxxi.

16. I [lia] S [olomonovich] Miller, “Nakanune otmeny barshchiny v Galitsii,” Uchenye sapiski Instituta slavianovedeniia (Moscow and Leningrad), 1949, no. 1, pp. 119-240; part 4, “Krest'ianskii vopros v revoliutsionriykh sobytiiakh 1846 g.” (pp. 183-240) is reprinted as “Sprawa chłopska w wydarzeniach rewolucyjnych roku 1846,” Zeszyty Hisioryczne “Nowych Dróg” (Przekłady), 2, no. 3 (1951): 70-88; the whole work was reprinted as W przededniu zniesienia pańszczyzny w Galicji (Warsaw, 19S3).

17. Witold Konopka, “O niektórych ruchach chłopskich w pierwszej połowie XIX w.,” Nowe Drogi, 5, no: 4 (1951): 111-36.'

18. Kieniewicz, Ruch chlopski (see note 1).

19. Kieniewicz, Stefan, “Walka klasowa chłopów w XIX i XX wieku w oświetleniu historiografii polskiej,” Kwartalnik Historyczny, 58, no. 1 (1951): 39–57.Google Scholar

20. Wycech, Czesław, Z przeszłości ruchów chłopskich (1768-1861) (Warsaw, 1952), pp. 5–12.Google Scholar

21. Buszko, Józef in Przegląd Historyczny, 44, no. 1-2 (1953): 250.Google Scholar

22. Żychowski, Marian, “Na marginesie antyfeudalnego powstania chłopskiego w Galicji w 1846 r.,” Kwartalnik Historyczny, 60, no. 1 (1953): 239–42.Google Scholar

23. Kieniewicz, Stefan, “Z postępowych tradycji polskich ruchów narodowo-wyzwoleńczych,” Kwartalnik Historycsny, 60, no. 2 (1953): 183–206 (quotation on p. 198).Google Scholar

24. Wycech, Czesław, Powstanie chłopskie w roku 1846: Jakub Szela (Warsaw, 1955), p. 201.Google Scholar

25. Wycech, Jakub Szela (see note 4). On Kieniewicz see p. 18.

26. Żychowski, Marian, Rok 1846 w Rzeczypospolitej Krakowskiej i w Galicji (Warsaw, 1956). Compare p. 166 Google Scholar with Miller, Zeszyty, pp. 78-79, and p. 162 with Miller, p. 71.

27. Śreniowski, Stanisław, Uwłaszczenie chłopów w Polsce (Warsaw, 1956), p. 278n.Google Scholar

28. Ibid., pp. 153-68. There is a more recent basic study of vodka production and drunkenness in Russian Poland: Rożenowa, Halina, Produkcja wódki i sprawa pijaństwa w Królestwie Polskim, 1815-1863 (Warsaw, 1961).Google Scholar To my knowledge nothing comparable has been done on Galicia.

29. Śreniowski, Uwiaszczenie chlopów w Polsce, pp. 7-8, 293-95, 310. See also Kieniewicz’s review in Acta Poloniae Historica, 1 (1958): 146-53.

30. Kula, Witold, “Rok Mickiewiczowski,” Kwartalnik Historyczny, 62, no. 2 (1955): 3–12 (quotation on p. 7)Google Scholar.

31. Stefan Kieniewicz, “Problem rewolucji agrarnej w Polsce w okresie kształtowania się układu kapitalistycznego,” Z epoki Mickiewicza (Wrocław, 1956), pp. 3-39 (the author notes on p. 4 that the article is the revision of a speech given on June 29, 1955): “La question agraire et la lutte pour la libération nationale en Pologne et en Italie à l’époque du Printemps des Peuples,” Académie polonaise des sciences, Institut d’histoire, La Pologne au Xe Congrès international des sciences historiques à Rome (Warsaw, 1955), pp. 235-52.

32. Kieniewicz, Stefan, “Historiografia lat 1795-1914 w dorobku dwudziestolecia,” Kwartalnik Historyczny, 72, no. 1 (1965): 13.Google Scholar

33. The date of “release for assembly” is given with the printing information in all Polish books. That the draft was sent to the printer in January is attested in Kwartalnik Historyczny, 64, no. 3-4 (1957): 185.

34. Tadeusz Manteuffel, ed., Historia Polski, Stefan Kieniewicz and Witold Kula, ed., vol. 2: 1764-1864, pt. 2: 1814-1864 (Warsaw, 1956), pp. 419-23.

35. Record in Kwartalnik Historyczny, 64, no. 3-4 (1957): 13-200.

36. Ibid., p. 46 (Bardach), p. 60 (Gąsiorowska).

37. Ibid., pp. 13-30. Two years later Wereszycki suggested that the history of Galicia needed to be seen not just as part of the history of Poland but also as part of the history of Austria. Austria, alone among the three partitioning powers, had no ruling nation, despite desultory attempts by its German urban elements to become one. As a result, only in Galicia did the possibility of compromise between Poles and occupants exist, and Galicia. was the only part of partitioned Poland where for a time there was no strong national liberation movement. See Henryk Wereszycki, “Dzieje Galicji jako problem historyczny,” Sprawozdania Wrocławskiego Towarzystwa Naukowego, .1961, pp. 77-78, summarizing an article in Małopolskie Studie Historyczne, 1958, no. 1, pp. 4-16. Galicia was also the cradle of the peasant political movement which celebrated its seventy-fifth anniversary in 1970.

38. Kwartalnik Historyczny, 64, no. 3-4 (1957): 70, 171, 175, 177.

39. Tadeusz Manteuffel, ed., Historia Polski, Stefan Kieniewicz and Witold Kula, ed., vol. 2: 1764-1864, pt. 3: 1831-1864 (Warsaw, 1958), pp. 188–218. This is marked “Second Edition”; the draft (makieta) noted in note 34 above was marked “First Edition.” Comparative pagination between first and second editions on themes: “domestic conspiracy” (pp. 419 and 188), “treason to desertion” (pp. 422 and 192), “unleashing to agitation” (pp. 439 and 208), paraphrase of Marx and restatement on national liberation (pp. 447 and 217).

40. Sieradzki, Józef and Wycech, Czesław, eds., Rok 1846 w Galicji: Materialy źródłowe (Warsaw, 1958), pp. 13–31.Google Scholar Kieniewicz’s review in Przegląd Historyczny, 49, no. 4 (1958): 802.

41. Kieniewicz, Stefan, “Les récentes études historiques sur la Pologne au temps des partages,” Acta Poloniae Historica, 1 (1958): 59–73.Google Scholar

42. Roman Rozdolski, “Do historii ‘krwawego roku’ 1846,” Kwartalnik Historyczny, 65, no. 2 (1958): 403-22; Mieczysław Żywczyński, “Metternich i ‘krwawe premie’ w 1846 r. w świetle dziennika jego żony,” Przegląd Historyczny, 56, no. 3 (1965): 464-67; Franciszek Ziejka, “Dwie legendy o Jakubie Szeli,” Kwartalnik Historyczny, 76, no. 4 (1969): 831-52.

43. Rozdolski, Roman, Stosunki poddańcze w dawnej Galicji, 2 vols. (Warsaw, 1962).Google Scholar

44. Kieniewicz, Stefan, “On the Eve of an Agrarian Revolution (1832-1848),” in Kieniewicz, Stefan, ed., History of Poland (Warsaw, 1968), pp. 463–507;Google Scholar Historia Polski, 1795-1918, 2nd ed. (Warsaw, 1969), pp. 161-73; The Emancipation of the Polish Peasantry (Chicago and London, 1969), pp. 113-24.

45. Stefan Kieniewicz, “Rozwój polskiej ś;wiadomości narodowej w IX [sic] w.,” Współczesność (Warsaw), 14, no. 22 (299) (Sept. 24-Oct. 7, 1969): 1, 11.

46. That this need not be so is demonstrated by the latest treatment of the nearest competitor to the 1846 revolt—the 1651 peasant revolt in the Carpathian foothills. See Kersten, Adam, Na tropach Napierskiego (Warsaw, 1970).Google Scholar In reviewing the historiography (pp. 9-17) Kersten shows (besides the fact that Ilia Miller has had a creative role here too) that 1651 has witnessed the same tension between social and national liberators as 1846. But no one has won.

47. Wycech gave tip both posts in early 1971 to resume scholarly pursuits, and Żychowski was rumored to be seriously ill.

48. Kieniewicz, “Les récentes études,” p. 61.

49. Werfel, Twórczość, p. 108.

50. Marian Żychowski, “Uniwersalność treści a specyfika narodowa,” Trybuna Ludu, June 4, 1970, p. 3.

51. As I hope to show in another article, this was especially (rather than even) true in the case of the one peasant community in Galicia which supported the Polish national uprising in 1846, the highland village of Chochołów. The most recent works on this subject are Władysław Łyś, Powstanie chochołowskie: W 110 rocznicę 1846-1956 (Warsaw, 1956) and especially Rafał Gerber, ed., Powstanie chochołowskie 1846 roku: Dokumenty i materiały (Wrocław, 1960). For a description of the development of national consciousness in a non-Górale village in Galicia, see Zbigniew Tadeusz Wierzbicki, Żmiąca w pól wieku później (Wrocław, Warsaw, and Cracow, 1963), pp. 185-210. Wierzbicki writes, “The years 1939-1945 definitively concluded … the process of coming to national consciousness [proces uświadamiania narodowego] of Żmiąca’s population which had begun sometime at the beginning of the twentieth century” (p. 207).

52. Andrzej Błachowski, “Wątek jak rzeka,” review of Stanisław Piotrowski, Skalne Podhale w literaturze i kulturze polskiej (Warsaw, 1970), Walka Młodych, June 14, 1970, p. 14; Wawrzyniec Busza, “Konfederacja tatrzańska,” review of Leczykiewicz, Sylwester, Konfederacja tatrzańska (Warsaw, 1969)Google Scholar, Dziennik Ludowy, June 5, 1970, p. 4. Błachowski claims to print the anecdote for the first time. See also Wnuk, Włodzimierz, Walka podziemna na szczytach (Warsaw, 1965).Google Scholar