Unlike other Western and Eastern European countries, Poland in the 16th-17th centuries. did not turn into a centralized absolutist state, but remained a Sejm monarchy with a weak royal power at the head, whose prerogatives were increasingly limited to please the magnates and gentry. The reasons for this direction of evolution of the Polish state were hidden in the peculiarities of the socio-economic development of Poland, in which the weak beginnings of capitalist forms of production were suppressed by the omnipotence of the magnates and gentry, who monopolized the land and turned to their own benefit all the benefits of the development of the commodity-money economy.

Cities. Development of crafts and trade. At the end of the XV-XVI centuries. Polish cities experienced significant growth. The urban population increased. In Warsaw it reached its end XVI V. 20 thousand, in Gdansk - 40 thousand people. This largest port city in Europe had significant economic power and enjoyed great trade and political privileges - it had complete self-government, subject only to the formal supremacy of the king. His income was not inferior to that of the royal treasury.

The main form of organization of handicraft production was guilds. But in some of its branches, for example in mining, the embryos of capitalist relations appeared in the form of centralized or dispersed manufacture created by trading capital.

Domestic and foreign trade developed, and the internal market took shape. Annual fairs were held in Lublin. IN 60- x years XVI V. Measures and weights were unified, which contributed to the development of internal trade. Foreign trade with Western countries was carried out mainly along the Vistula through Gdansk. Agricultural products were exported from Poland, and industrial products were imported - cloth, linen, paper, metal products, iron and steel. Lively trade took place with Russian lands, from where furs, leathers, and wax came in exchange for imported goods from the West.

Transition to the folk-corvee system. IN agriculture to the middle XVII V. there was also a significant increase. Internal colonization continued, sown areas expanded, land cultivation improved, and productivity increased. At the end XVI V. she reached sam-5.

Land in Poland was the monopoly property of the feudal lords; the townspeople were prohibited from purchasing land as their own.

In the Polish regions, gentry land ownership predominated, the proportion of which, however, from the end XVI V. began to decline in favor of large magnate land ownership. In lands with a non-Polish population, magnate land ownership occupied a dominant position. The largest of the magnates owned entire regions. In the possessions of Prince Ostrozhsky, for example, at the beginning XVII V. there were about 100 cities andcastles and around 1300 villages His annual income was over 1 million zlotys.

In agriculture in the XV-XVI centuries. There was a transition to the folk-corvee system, which was due to the growth of the capacity of the urban market and the increased demand for Polish agricultural products on the foreign market, which was associated with the development of capitalist relations in the advanced countries of Western Europe. From the second half XV V. The main items of Polish export to the West were grain, furs, and livestock. From the end XV V. exports exceeded imports in value. Towards the middle XVI V. the importance of the foreign market has increased even more. The feudal lords appropriated communal lands, seized peasant plots, creating large farms (farms) based on corvee labor. This led to peasant land shortage; The number of peasants who had tiny plots of land or no land at all increased significantly - zagorodniks, khalupniks, komorniks.

The main form of rent was labor rent, which gave the landowner the opportunity to sharply increase the exploitation of peasants. The landowner economy was closely connected with the market. Peasant or could only barely maintain its existence and was almost completely pushed out of the city market. Development of commodity production in agriculture in Poland in the 15th-16th centuries. contributed to the strengthening of the feudal-corvee system of economy. This was due to the political and economic weakness and small number of Polish cities compared to the advanced countries of Western Europe and to a favorable situation for magnates and gentry social forces in a country that provided them with undivided political dominance.

Political strengthening of the gentry. Formation of the class monarchy. Before XVI V. political development Poland went in approximately the same direction as in other European countries - from fragmentation to centralization. At the end XV V. royal power achieved significant strengthening. She fully controlled the central and provincial administration, held foreign policy and the army in her hands, and dominated the Polish episcopate. The king, at his own will, convened the Sejms and established the order of their meetings, and had legislative initiative. While fighting the magnates, the royal power tried to win over the middle-class gentry, whose political weight steadily increased with the transition to the peasant-corvee system. The king, trying to weaken the magnates, granted the nobility more and more privileges. But in reality, this did not so much weaken the position of the magnates as undermine the basis of state centralization.

Formed at the beginning XVI V. class monarchy in Poland did not in any way contribute to political unityunderstanding of the state, but, on the contrary, strengthened the centrifugal tendencies in it. IN 1505 The gentry achieved the publication of the Radom Constitution, which began with the words: “No innovations” (Nihil novi). Now new laws could be issued only with the consent of both chambers of the Val (general) Sejm, the highest legislative body in the state, which limited royal power in favor of the feudal lords. The lower house of the Val Sejm - the embassy hut - consisted of representatives of the gentry (zemstvo ambassadors) elected at the sejmiks. The upper house was the Senate. Over time, the embassy hut began to play an increasingly important role in solving state affairs. The peasantry and cities were not represented at all in the Sejms. The process of centralization of the country was incomplete. He did not go further than creating a single legislative body.

Polish feudal lords acted together against peasants and townspeople. IN 1543 the transfer of peasants was prohibited, who were placed under the exclusive jurisdiction of their owners and turned into serfs. Townspeople were prohibited from owning zemstvo (gentry) estates. IN 1496 The gentry achieved the granting of the right of propination (distillation) and the exemption of goods imported and exported by it from duties. Income from foreign trade began to play a very significant role in the budget of the lords and gentry. With these measures, the elite magnates undermined the economic foundations of the Polish city.

Reformation movement in Poland in the 30-70s. XVI century

The clash between magnates and gentry and the Catholic Church over the issue of tithes and the limitation of church land ownership created favorable conditions for the spread of humanistic and reformation teachings among secular feudal lords. Reformation teachings also penetrated into Polish cities. However, the movement for the Reformation did not acquire wide national scope in Poland: the ideas of the gentry Reformation were alien to the masses, and the gentry were hostile to radical trends in the reform movement.

Already in 20- x years XVI V. Lutheranism spread among the German population of Gdansk and other cities. In the middle XVI V. Calvinism appeared in the gentry circles of Lesser Poland. The teachings of the “Czech brothers” also penetrated into Poland, and Zwinglianism and Arianism appeared in some cities.

The gentry opposed church tithes, demanded the secularization of church property and the introduction of worship on native language.

The weakness of the reformation movement in Poland was the presence of many movements and the lack of unity between Protestants of different directions. Attempts were made to unite Protestant churches. To this end, at the insistence of the Calvinist figure Yana Lasky in 1570 a congress was convenedin Sandomierz. However, representatives of the reformed churches did not come to lasting unity.

By the end XVI V. The gentry began to move away from the Reformation. One of the reasons for her return to the fold of Catholicism was the fear of the spread among the people of radical reformation teachings that opposed serfdom.

Along with the reform movement, a struggle for political reforms unfolded among the Polish gentry. The gentry sought to strengthen public finance and the creation of a permanent army through reduction - the return to the king of the estates pledged by him from the magnates. A small group of progressive-minded nobility insisted on carrying out radical reforms that were supposed to strengthen the Polish state: to make the Val (general) Sejm a body of state unity, eliminating the dependence of its deputies (ambassadors) on local sejmiks, to strengthen the position of the king through the prerogatives of the Senate. But these demands were rejected by the majority of the Polish gentry, who valued their petty privileges.

Transformation of Poland into a gentry “republic” (Rzeczpospolita). The peculiarity of the political development of Poland was that the class monarchy did not become a step towards the establishment of absolutism. Neither the magnates nor the gentry were interested in centralizing the feudal state and strengthening royal power. A conflict was brewing between the magnates and the gentry. The gentry supported King Sigismund I(1506-1548), who demanded the reduction (return) of crown estates, most of which were in the possession of large feudal lords. The reduction (the so-called “execution of rights”) met with decisive resistance from the magnates. However, at the Diet of 1562-1563. the magnates were forced to agree to the return of the crown estates they received after 1504 g., which was a significant victory for the gentry. At the same time, the gentry sought to subordinate royal power to their control. She stubbornly refused the king money to form a standing army. The struggle between magnates, gentry and spiritual feudal lords that took place within the ruling class ended in a compromise, which later turned out to be more beneficial to the large feudal lords. The compromise that took shape in 1569-1573 had a compromise character. constitution of the Polish state.

One of the basic principles of the gentry's constitution was the principle of the election of kings by the entire gentry. When in 1572 the last king of the Jagiellonian dynasty, Sigismund, died II August, the gentry achieved the right to participate in the elections of the new king and acted as a decisive force during the election struggle. The French prince Henry of Valois (1573-1574), who was elected king of Poland, adopted the so-called Henry's Articles - the most important component of the gentry's constitution -Poland in the XVI-XVII centuries.

confirming the principle of free election (election) of kings by the entire gentry. Without the consent of the Senate, the king could not declare war and make peace, and without the consent of the Sejm, convene a pospolitan destruction (a general feudal militia). The Senate Rada (council) was to sit under the king. The king's refusal to fulfill these obligations freed the magnates and gentry from obedience to him. According to the rules established later, the Sejm made decisions only if there was unanimity of its “ambassadors”. Frequent disruptions of the Sejms due to lack of unanimity over time led to the fact that real power in certain parts of the state was assigned to the local Sejmiks, where magnates were in charge of all affairs. In addition to the usual diets, in the 16th-17th centuries. congresses of the armed gentry - a confederation - were convened, where the principle of unanimity was not applied. Often confederations were formed against the king. Such performances were called ro-kosh. The principles of pan-gentry “unanimity” and confederation, used by individual magnates and gentrygroups fighting for dominance in the country led to feudal anarchy.

Formation of the multinational Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Union of Lublin 1569 G. The formalization of the gentry's constitution coincided with the completion of the formation of the multinational Polish state.

In the second half XV- beginning XVI V. Polish feudal lords did not use the weakening of the Teutonic Order to liquidate it and reunite its western lands with Poland. IN 1525 Mr. King Sigismund I and the Polish magnates allowed the master of the Teutonic Order, Albrecht of Brandenburg, to secularize the order’s possessions and become a hereditary duke, although continuing to remain a vassal of Poland for some time. Subsequently, the right of the Brandenburg margraves to inherit the Prussian throne was recognized in the event of the termination of the Albrecht line. A real threat was created of the unification in the hands of one dynasty of the Margraviate of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia, which engulfed the Polish possessions in the Baltic on both sides.

Polish feudal lords sought to strengthen the Polish-Lithuanian union and to incorporate the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into Poland. The Lithuanian gentry also sought to strengthen the union, hoping to acquire the privileges that the Polish gentry had. Opponents of incorporation (merger, literally “incorporation”) were Lithuanian magnates who wanted to maintain only a dynastic union with Poland.

Taking advantage of the difficult situation of Lithuania during the Livonian War, the Polish gentry at the Diet in Lublin in 1569 g. imposed an agreement on the Lithuanian lords (Union of Lublin), according to which Poland and Lithuania united into one state - the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with a common central body - the Sejm. The head of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was simultaneously the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania and was subject to election at the General Sejm. Each of the united states - Lithuania (principality) and Poland (crown) - retained its internal autonomy, separate administration, court, budget and army. Even before the conclusion of the Union of Lublin in the same 1569 In 2010, Polish feudal lords included the Ukrainian lands of Lithuania into the crown. Formed in 1569 The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth pursued an aggressive policy in the east.

The beginning of Poland's economic decline at the end XVI- first half XVII V. As a result of the sharp increase in feudal exploitation in XVI V. The serf owners managed to increase the overall productivity of the feudal economy. However, such a rise could not last long. The rapid growth of farms and feudal exploitation was accompanied by the decline of the peasant economy, as the farmer was crushed by heavy corvee duties. Signs of regression and crossYansky and landowner farming appeared already at the end XVI- beginning XVII V.

The rise of crafts and trade in the city was short-lived. The economic stagnation of the Polish city became noticeable from the end XVI V.

The transition to the folk-corvee system interrupted for a long time the process of the formation of the Polish national market. The peasant almost ceased to act in the city market as a seller and buyer.

The surplus of Poland's foreign trade brought little benefit to the country, since the profit partly ended up in the pockets of Gdansk merchants-intermediaries, partly was spent by the feudal lords on the purchase of foreign goods and was almost not invested in the development of the country's economy.

Livonian War. Failure of Poland's eastern expansion. Polish and Lithuanian feudal lords sought to cut off the Russian state from the Baltic Sea and prevent its further strengthening. Ivan the Terrible had to enter into a long and fierce struggle, first with Lithuania, and then with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Livonian War). It ended with the truce in Yam Zapolski (1582), according to which the Russian state was actually cut off from the Baltic Sea, and most of Livonia was captured by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

In an effort to transform the Russian state into dependent country, as well as to find use for the mass of impoverished gentry, the Polish government tried to use the crisis experienced by Russia at the end XVI- beginning XVII V. It supported False Dmitry, and in 1609 Mr. King Sigismund III began direct intervention in Russia. But as a result of the people's liberation war 1612 The interventionists were defeated and expelled. Truce of Deulin 1618 g. meant the recognition by the Poles of the failure of an attempt at widespread expansion to the east, which was confirmed by the Polyanovsky Treaty 1634 G.

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a multinational state. The Polishization of the feudal elite in Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus, the penetration of Polish feudal lords into Ukraine and Belarus led to the fact that class contradictions in the eastern regions of the state were complicated by national and religious ones. At the church council in Brest in 1596 d. a union was adopted, with the goal of subordination Orthodox Church in Belarus and Ukraine to the Pope. The union led to a sharp aggravation of national and class contradictions here.

The Ukrainian and Belarusian peasantry and urban poor responded to the strengthening of feudal and national oppression with a fierce struggle, which increasingly took on a people's liberation character. Large peasant- Cossack uprisings took place in Ukraine in 1591-1596. and especially on a large scale in 30- x years XVII V.

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Significant anti-feudal movements took place in the first half XVII V. and in Belarus. In Poland itself, the struggle of the peasant masses against the oppression of the serf owners was expressed mainly in mass flight from their landowners, in attacks on the landowners' estates.

Liberation struggle of the Ukrainian people. National, religious and feudal-serf oppression, as well as the inability of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to protect Ukrainian lands from devastating Tatar raids and Turkish aggression, threatened the very existence of the Ukrainian people. The widest strata of Ukrainian society were vitally interested in eliminating the domination of Polish and Polonized Ukrainian feudal lords. IN 1648 The Ukrainian people, led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky, rose up in a war of liberation against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The peasantry, Cossacks, townspeople, clergy and a significant part of the small and medium Ukrainian Orthodox gentry took part in this struggle. The main driving force of the liberation war was serf peasantry. The rebels sought the abolition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in Ukraine and the reunification of Ukraine with Russia. Ukrainian troops inflicted a number of crushing defeats on the Poles.

The Belarusian people also rose up against oppression by Polish and Polonized Lithuanian and Belarusian feudal lords.

Peasant uprisings in Poland. The liberation war of the Ukrainian people found a wide response among the Polish peasantry and urban lower classes. IN 1648 about 3,000 peasant rebels were active in the vicinity of Warsaw, and in the capital itself an uprising of the urban poor was being prepared. IN 1651 The peasant-plebeian movement covered a significant part of Polish lands. Peasant uprisings took place in Masovia and the Sieradz Voivodeship. The peasant movement assumed great scope in Greater Poland. It was led by a group of Poles - participants in the liberation war of the Ukrainian people. Particularly frightened the Polish feudal lords peasant revolt in the south of Krakow Voivodeship (in Lesser Poland). The leader of the uprising in Podhale was Kostka Napierski, who was apparently associated with Bohdan Chmielnicki.

The struggle of the Polish people against the Swedish occupation. An-Drusovo truce. Sweden took advantage of the failures of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, opposing it in 1655 d. Taking advantage of the betrayal of a significant part of the Polish-Lithuanian nobility, who hoped to find an ally against the Russian state in the Swedish feudal lords, the Swedish aggressors wanted to subjugate the entire country. But Sweden's intervention received a decisive rebuff from the Polish people.

The peasant masses of Podgorye were the first to rise up to fight the Swedish armies, then the townspeople andgentry The Russian state came out against the Swedes, concluding a pact 1656 Vilna Truce with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. However, the Polish magnates and gentry did not want to come to terms with the reunification of Ukraine with Russia. In an effort to free its hands to continue the war with Russia, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1660 made peace with Sweden in Oliva.

Military actions against Russia developed in the context of a severe crisis in Polish finances and the increasing decomposition of the army. Campaign of King John Casimir to Left Bank Ukraine in 1664 failed. In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the struggle between individual magnate groups intensified. IN 1667 Poland agreed to the Andrusovo truce with the Russian state, recognizing the transfer of Left Bank Ukraine and Kyiv to Russia (for two years) and returning Smolensk to it.

Decline of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the second half XVII V. The negative consequences of the development of the folk-cooking-corvee system were fully revealed. They were greatly amplified by the detrimental effect they had on National economy countries have almost continuous wars (especially in 50- x years XVII c.), which led to the massive ruin of the peasantry and cities. The peasant economy was in decline. The productivity of the gentry-magnate farms decreased. Moreover, from the second half XVII V. demand for agricultural products in Western Europe has decreased. The feudal lords intensified the exploitation of the peasantry. The main means remained the increase in farms and a significant increase in corvée. In addition to the usual weekly corvee, peasants had a number of other duties. The monopolies (banalities) of the feudal lords had a very serious impact on the position of the peasantry.

Deep economic and political decline in the second half XVII- first quarter XVIII V. experienced Polish cities. Urban crafts degraded, the volume of urban production declined. The city could not withstand the competition of foreign goods. Non-guild and patrimonial craft, supported by the feudal lords, undermined guild production, although in the future these forms of craft became the basis for future growth in a number of industries.

Busy economic life continued only in cities associated with international transit trade. However, imports grew significantly faster than exports, from the second half XVII V. The country's trade balance was negative.

The dominance of the magnates, for whom the state system of the gentry republic opened up wide scope, had a detrimental effect on the economic, cultural and political development of the country. Feudal anarchy, internecine struggle between large magnate families, and armed clashes between the gentry brought ruin to peasants and townspeople. Violence and robbery of feudal lords on roads, in cities and on fairs torus molested the development of trade. Surrounded by a large armed retinue, the magnates directed the activities of the sejmiks in their own interests, interfered with the normal work of the sejm, and ignored the decisions of the king. The country was increasingly losing political stability.

The foreign policy situation of the Polish state has worsened. While Poland's military power weakened, the power of centralized neighboring states - Sweden and Russia - increased, in clashes with which it invariably suffered defeat.

The unification of Brandenburg and Prussia under the rule of the Gauguin-Zollerns 1618 led to a sharp weakening of Polish positions in the west. The war for the Baltics with Sweden, which broke out at the beginning, ended extremely unsuccessfully XVII V. According to the Shtumdor truce 1635 The Swedes retained almost all of Livonia.

Polish culture in the XV-XVI centuries. Already in XV V. There was a significant rise in the development of Polish culture. IN 1474 Printing began in Poland. This contributed to the spread of education and scientific knowledge, and the flourishing of literature. Many poetic works appeared in Polish, and national Polish literature was formed.

The 16th century was the heyday of Polish humanism. Particularly great successes were achieved in mathematics and astronomy. The brilliant Polish thinker Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) in his work “On the Rotation of the Celestial Spheres” gave a scientific basis for the heliocentric system (see Chapter 40). Polish historians Maciej from Miechow, Martin Bielski, Maciej Streczkowski wrote a number of works on the history of Poland and general history. The famous Polish publicist Andrzej Modrzewski (1503-1572), in his work “On the Correction of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth,” boldly criticized the feudal-serf system that existed in Poland.

Polish humanistic literature in XVI V. characterized by realism and a critical orientation. The largest representative of Polish humanism, Nicholas Rey (1505-1569), denounced the papacy and the Catholic hierarchy. His essay “The Life of an Honest Man” provides a sharp critique of the serfdom system. The outstanding Polish poet Jan Kochanowski (1530-1584) widely used in his work folk motifs. His works are imbued with the spirit of the people.

National self-awareness increased not only among the gentry, but also among townspeople and peasants. Local linguistic differences were erased and a single Polish language, which ousted Latin from socio-political and cultural life. From the end XV V. education in the native language has become common. Secular city schools - gymnasiums - were opened. The center of culture and education was the University of Krakow,the presenters of which stood mainly in the forefront of humanistic positions.

Great achievements were observed in architecture and sculpture. Masterpieces of Polish architecture are the Royal Palace in Krakow and the Sigismund Chapel (16th century).

In the first half XVII V. There was a decline in the development of Polish culture, which was associated with the general economic and political decline of the feudal Polish state.

3.4 Partitions of Poland

The Russian-Turkish war gave matters a wider course. The idea of ​​dividing Poland had been floating around in diplomatic circles since the 17th century. Under the grandfather and father of Frederick II, Peter I was offered the division of Poland three times. The war between Russia and Turkey gave Frederick II the desired opportunity. According to his plan, Austria, hostile to both of them, was involved in the alliance between Russia and Prussia, for diplomatic assistance to Russia in the war with Turkey, and all three powers received land compensation not from Turkey, but from Poland, which gave the reason for the war. Three years of negotiations! In 1772 (July 25), an agreement followed between the three powers - shareholders. Russia has made poor use of its rights in both Turkey and Poland. The French minister maliciously warned the Russian commissioner that Russia would eventually regret the strengthening of Prussia, to which it had contributed so much. In Russia, Panin was also blamed for the excessive strengthening of Prussia, and he himself admitted that he had gone further than he wanted, and Grigory Orlov considered the treaty on the division of Poland, which so strengthened Prussia and Austria, a crime worthy of the death penalty. Be that as it may, a rare factor in European history There will remain the case when the Slavic-Russian state, during its reign with a national direction, helped the German electorate with a scattered territory to turn into a great power, a continuous wide strip stretching across the ruins of the Slavic state from the Elbe to the Neman. Thanks to Frederick, the victories of 1770 brought Russia more glory than benefit. Catherine emerged from the first Turkish war and from the first partition of Poland with independent Tatars, with Belarus and with great moral defeat, having raised and not justified so many hopes in Poland, in Western Russia, in Moldavia and Wallachia, in Montenegro, in Morea.

Western Rus' had to be reunited; Instead, Poland was divided by the St. Petersburg Conventions of the 1770-90s, the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was divided (three sections - 1772, 1793, 1795) between Prussia, Austria and Russia. In 1807, Napoleon I created the Duchy of Warsaw from part of the Polish lands. The Congress of Vienna in 1814-1815 redistributed Poland: the Kingdom of Poland was formed from most of the Duchy of Warsaw (transferred to Russia). . Russia annexed not only Western Rus', but also Lithuania and Courland, but not all of Western Rus', losing Galicia into German hands. With the fall of Poland, the clashes between the three powers were not eased by any international buffer. Moreover, “our regiment has disappeared” - there is one less Slavic state; it became part of two German states; this is a major loss for the Slavs; Russia did not appropriate anything originally Polish; it only took away its ancient lands and part of Lithuania, which had once attached them to Poland. Finally, the destruction of the Polish state did not save us from the struggle with the Polish people: 70 years have not passed since the third partition of Poland, and Russia has already fought three times with the Poles (1812, 1831, 1863). Perhaps, in order to avoid hostility with the people, their state should have been preserved.

Biography of P. Sagaidachny

Foreign policy second half of the XVIII V.

Thus, the idea of ​​partition again came closer to its realization. Moreover, the actual division of Poland has already begun. In 1770, Austria captured the Polish regions of Zipse, Novitorg, Czorystan, Wieliczka and Bochnia...

Foreign policy of the second half of the 18th century.

Simultaneously with the events of the Russian-Turkish war, Europe was shocked by the grandiose epic of the French bourgeois revolution. In Russia, as in other European countries...

Already at the beginning of 1933, the situation on the international scene began to change in favor of Germany. In conditions when the Western powers refused to give guarantees of the inviolability of Polish borders...

Polish foreign policy 1937-1939

Since Poland's rebirth in 1918, its relations with Soviet state were very complex and contradictory. The stumbling block was territorial and political issues...

Hetman Sahaidachny

In 1620, the Battle of Tsetsor took place, during which the Polish troops were completely defeated by the Turks. Crown Hetman (Commander-in-Chief) S. Zholkiewski (former winner of the village of Nalivaiko) died, some of the Polish military leaders were captured...

Intervention of Poland and Sweden in Russia. Industrialization and collectivization. Collapse of the USSR

The 17th century brought numerous trials to Russia and its statehood. After the death of Ivan the Terrible in 1584, the weak and sickly Fyodor Ivanovich (1584-1598) became his heir and tsar. A struggle for power within the country has begun...

Formation of the Polish state

After the division of Charlemagne's empire between his grandchildren (Treaty of Verdun 843), in the capital of the Eastern Franks - the city of Regensburg located on the Danube - a “Description of cities and regions north of the Danube” appeared. Its anonymous author...

Polish-Lithuanian period

During the 14th century. a significant part of Rus' came under the rule of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In the 12th-13th centuries, Lithuania was considered the periphery of Europe, formally it was in a state of war with almost all the Catholic states north of the Alps...

Poland in the conditions of the pre-war crisis and the beginning of the Second World War in March - September 1930

After the liquidation of Czechoslovakia, there was no doubt that Hitler would present a “bill” to Poland. After the Treaty of Versailles, not a single German government, not a single party recognized the German-Polish border line drawn by the Entente...

Development of bilateral cooperation between Poland and Belarus

Reforms of Catherine II the Great

St. Petersburg Convention of 1772 This convention was one of three that laid the foundation for the dismemberment of Poland and its transformation from an independent state into an appendage of Russia, Austria and Prussia...

USSR and Poland in 1939

For the Polish operation, a fairly large group of Soviet troops was created. By the evening of September 16, the troops of the Belorussian and Ukrainian fronts were deployed in the initial areas for the offensive...

Tragic pages of the History of Ukraine in the 30s of the 20th century

Particularly difficult was the political and socio-economic situation of the Ukrainian lands, which in the 20s-30s were part of Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia (approximately 7 million Ukrainians). The largest number of Ukrainians (5 million...

If the Poles want to remain a great people, they need military-economic integration with the Russians

A frenzied crowd, as if electrified by demonic energy, faces distorted with anger. No, this is not the Middle East with the eternal confrontation between Israelis and Arabs, Egypt is not blazing with the fire of street clashes and Iraq and Libya are not drowning in the maelstrom of civil wars - “thanks” to American “democracy”. This is the center of Eastern Europe and outwardly respectable Warsaw. And the genie of hatred that has broken out is aimed at Russia, which once liberated Poland from fascism. And sometimes it seems that our Slavic brothers are diligently trying to forget about it.

However, the penultimate sentence will cause malicious comments: how, how, who liberated... Only five years earlier, the Red Army plunged a knife into the back of the heroically - without irony - Polish Army that fought the Wehrmacht. And in 1944, she allegedly deliberately did not provide assistance to the anti-Hitler uprising in Warsaw; finally, the liberators did not want to leave the country after the end of the war, essentially occupying it, destroying the underground Home Army.

Yes, I don’t argue, that happened. It is also difficult to disagree with the fact that the centuries-old and blood-darkened pages of Russian-Polish relations are perhaps the most bitter in the two Slavic peoples. Fraternal. There's no getting around this either.

And what’s amazing: the Poles also had a difficult time with Germany, to put it mildly, but they don’t burn trash cans near the fence of its embassy. And they don’t feel the same hatred for the Germans as they do for us - at least they don’t express it in such wild forms as they did on November 11 of last year in front of the Russian embassy. Why? Let's try to figure it out.

Where did the hostility come from?

The origins of the antipathy of some Poles towards the Russians can be found in two specific dates: July 15, 1410 and June 28, 1569.

The first of them is associated with the victory of the Polish-Lithuanian troops with the direct help of Russian regiments and Tatar detachments over the army of the Teutonic Order. The second went down in history with the Union of Lublin, which laid the foundation for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - the united Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Why these two dates? Because Grunwald gave impetus to the birth of the imperial idea among the Polish knighthood (gentry), and the Union of Lublin formalized it, one might say, legally. And with the birth of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the gentry felt themselves to be a great, in Hegel’s language, a historical people, however, the philosopher himself did not classify the Poles, as well as the Slavs in general, as such. But this is true, by the way.

Thus, the formation of Polish imperial consciousness began with the Grunwald victory. What did this mean? In the so-called ideology of Sarmatism. Its founder was the outstanding Polish chronicler and diplomat Jan Dlogusz, who lived in the 15th century. His younger compatriot, Maciej Miechowski, consolidated this idea, or rather, the mythology in the treatise “On Two Sarmatias”.

On its pages, he affirmed the flattering pride of the gentry, the origin of the Poles from the Sarmatians, who roamed in the 6th–4th centuries BC. e. in the Black Sea steppes. Moreover, from the point of view of the gentry, they were the only truly Polish people, descendants of the Sarmatians; the local peasantry was perceived as nothing other than cattle and had nothing to do with the once powerful tribes. So... Slavic commoners...

What we have before us is a bizarre interweaving in the minds of the gentry of a sense of their own superiority over the same “Asian-Russians” and at the same time an internal feeling of inferiority - otherwise how to explain the distancing from their own Slavic origin? It is interesting that in external forms the ideology formulated by Mekhovsky, which dominated among the gentry in the 16th-17th centuries, found expression in the Sarmatian armor of the winged hussars - once the best and most beautifully equipped cavalry in the world.

To be fair, I note that such a sense of self was characteristic not only of our Western Slavic brothers, but also of the Russian elite - how can one not recall Ivan the Terrible’s statement about the origin of the Rurikids from the Roman Augustus Caesar, which he set out in a letter to the Swedish king Johan III.

So, imagining themselves as descendants of the Sarmatians, the gentry took upon themselves the historical mission of bringing civilization barbarian peoples, that is, Russian. The descendants, as the Poles believed, of the “wild” and “ignorant” Scythians. On top of that, in the eyes of the gentry, the Russians were schismatics - schismatics who had once broken away from the Catholic Church. Let me remind you that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth saw itself as an outpost of Catholicism in Eastern Europe. That is, in relation to the “Muscovites”, the gentry felt a sense of both ethnic and religious superiority, which they tried to prove through an expansionist foreign policy, expressed in the desire to conquer the original Russian lands - the siege of Pskov by the Polish king Stefan Batory in 1581-1582. And that was just the beginning. During the Time of Troubles, the Polish king Sigismund III Vasa wished to annex Russia, which was plunging into chaos, into the possessions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

It is noteworthy that at the same time he laid claim to the Swedish throne, a little later the nobles took part in Thirty Years' War, and Polish magnates fought with the Turks and Austrians for dominance in Moldova. Before us is an example of an active expansionist policy characteristic of any empire, and a demonstration at the level of military-political will of imperial consciousness.

After the Time of Troubles, throughout the 17th century, Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth crossed swords more than once: first, the Smolensk War of 1632–1634, and then the Russian-Polish War of 1654–1667. Moreover, given that the gentry saw us as wild Asians, the methods of fighting the “Scythians” were also often appropriate. Suffice it to recall the plunder of Orthodox monasteries and churches by Poles and Lithuanians during the Time of Troubles, and the scorched earth tactics used by Prince Jeremiah Vishnevetsky against Russian villages during the Smolensk War.

In general, Polish expansionism failed, but did not affect the mental attitudes of the gentry. But even then, in the first half of the 17th century, our Western Slavic brothers showed a trait that ultimately led to the collapse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the tragic pages Polish history, namely the incommensurability of the country’s military potential with its geopolitical claims.

Territorially large on a European scale, throughout its history the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth remained essentially a fragmented state with weak royal power and the arbitrariness of the gentry. The magnates who lived in Ukraine, the same Vishnevetskys, were actually independent rulers who had their own armed forces. And at the end of the 18th century, this led to the collapse of the country and its subsequent division between the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and the Habsburg Monarchy.

And most importantly, the loss of independence led to the moral humiliation of the gentry. How - “wild Russian barbarians” rule over “civilized European-Sarmatian Poland”. This hurt the pride of the Polish elite. After all, the imperial consciousness became her flesh and blood. But no empire can be subordinate to anyone. Perish - yes, as the Roman Empire fell under the blows of the Ottoman Turks in 1453. But never be dependent on anyone.

As an example, I will give an episode from national history, namely standing on the Ugra River in 1480. By that time Golden Horde practically disintegrated, but the energetic Khan Akhmat managed to reunite under his rule a significant part of the once powerful state. Akhmat demanded that Muscovite Rus' resume payment of tribute, backing up his arguments with a military campaign. Ivan III came out to meet the Tatars, but on the Ugra he began to hesitate and was ready to admit dependence on Sarai. However, by that time the Russian elite already felt like the heir of the Romans, which was expressed in the ideology of “Moscow – New Jerusalem” and a little later – “Moscow – Third Rome”.

Imperial mentality

As I have already noted, any imperial idea is born first in the mind, and only then finds its embodiment in state building. And it was the “Message to the Ugra” of the Rostov Archbishop John Rylo that changed the mood of Ivan III. In this document, the khan is conceived not as the legitimate ruler of Rus' - the tsar, as it was before, but as a wicked atheist. In turn, Vassian for the first time called Ivan III Tsar.

So Russia became a kingdom at the level of the mental attitudes of the ruling elite, and only then, in 1547, the formal proclamation of the monarchy took place. The same thing happened in Poland: first Grunwald, then the Union of Lublin.

But when discussing the imperial mentality of the Polish elite, one should not forget the bitter truth - the Europeans themselves, who lived west of the Oder, did not and do not consider either the Poles or the Slavs to be their own. Let us remember the story of the election in 1574 to Polish throne Henry of Valois - the future French monarch Henry III. Less than a year had passed before the king fled from his subjects at the first opportunity. There were, of course, many reasons, but not the least of them was the mental incompatibility of the Poles and the French: for Henry, the Poles of the same faith turned out to be strangers.

A similar situation has developed in Russia: I mean the unsuccessful attempts of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich to marry his daughter Irina to the Danish prince Voldemar, the son of King Christian IV.

Perhaps the Polish elite itself in the 19th century was aware of a certain mental incompatibility with the West, but it did not intend to part with its imperial identity. But its vectors were shifted towards the pagan roots of Polish culture, but no longer Sarmatian, but Slavic, and with a sharply negative attitude towards Catholicism. The origins of such views were the outstanding Polish scientist early XIX century 3orian Dolenga Khodakovsky.

But in general, a significant part of the Polish intellectual elite felt and feels itself to be part of European Christian culture. For example, the outstanding Polish essayist Czeslaw Milosz in the mid-50s of the last century published a book with the expressive title “Native Europe”.

Actually, in the above lines the answer to the question about the reasons for the calmer attitude of the Poles towards the Germans than towards the Russians. The first ones for the “descendants” of the Sarmatians are their own, native Europeans. Russians are strangers. Moreover, the “despicable Muscovites” became the masters of Poland for more than a century. This humiliated the gentry and made them hate Russians and at the same time experience a feeling of inferiority towards them, as the famous Polish journalist Jerzy Urban wrote: “The contemptuous attitude of Poles towards Russians stems from the Polish inferiority complex.”

Nevertheless, the imperial idea in the minds of the gentry was never eliminated, because throughout XIX century the Poles sought not only to gain independence, but also to restore the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth within the previous borders in which it existed in the 17th century. I mean the foreign policy of the Kingdom of Poland, formed in 1812, Napoleon’s most loyal ally, as well as the anti-Russian uprisings in the Kingdom of Poland in 1830–1831 and 1863. Let me emphasize once again that these uprisings are not just a struggle for independence, but an attempt to restore the empire - the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, including the non-Polish population.

An interesting detail: precisely by being dependent on Napoleonic France and being part of Russian Empire, the gentry under Alexander I managed to create a regular, well-trained and, most importantly, disciplined army, which the independent Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with its Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (militia), troops of magnates, etc., could not boast of.

Path of Conquest

Finally, in 1918, the age-old dream of the Poles came true - their homeland gained freedom. But the country’s leaders were not busy organizing inner life on their land, shocked by the First World War, and... embarked on the path of conquest, wanting to revive the empire - the second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from “sea to sea.” What did the Poles want? A lot. Namely, to annex Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine to the Dnieper.

The attitude towards the recent masters of Poland, the Russians, has also not changed: “savage barbarians”, unworthy of leniency. This is me about prisoners of war of the Red Army who ended up in Polish concentration camps after the unsuccessful campaign of the troops of the Bolshevik punisher Tukhachevsky against Warsaw. By the way, if the Reds had been led by a truly intelligent military leader, and not an upstart amateur, the history of independent Poland would have ended before it even began. However, Tukhachevsky’s incompetent command allowed the Poles, with the help of French generals, to defeat and capture part of the Belarusian and Ukrainian lands. To be fair, I note that neither the Belarusians nor the Ukrainians, who became Polish citizens, particularly protested, especially when they learned about the creation of collective farms in the USSR. I will add that in 1920 the Poles occupied part of Lithuania with Vilnius.

Considered by the Western powers to be nothing more than a cordon sanitaire on the path of Bolshevism to Europe, Warsaw sought to put its imperial ambitions into practice in the interwar period. Suffice it to recall the occupation of the Cieszyn region, which was part of Czechoslovakia, by the Poles in 1938 and the ultimatum presented to Lithuania demanding the restoration of diplomatic relations broken off in 1920. What's wrong with restoring diplomatic relations? Nothing, except that their conditions should have been de jure recognition of Poland’s occupation of Vilnius. If the Lithuanians are intractable, Warsaw promised to use military force. Well, it’s logical in its own way - any empire is created with iron and blood and does not particularly take into account the sovereignty of weaker countries.

Another example of the imperial consciousness of the Polish elite. On the eve of World War II, Hitler made territorial claims to Czechoslovakia and spoke with certain offers to Poland, which in the early 30s he called “the last barrier to civilization in the East” - precisely with proposals, not claims. The reaction of both countries is known.

In 1938, Prague meekly accepted the terms of the Munich Treaty and allowed the country to be occupied without firing a shot. Although the superiority of the Czechoslovak army over the Wehrmacht was unconditionally recognized by the German generals. Warsaw refused any compromises with the Germans on the issue of the so-called Danzig Corridor and the Free City of Danzig. And as I already noted, Hitler’s initial demands to his eastern neighbor were very moderate: to include Danzig, the majority of whose population was already German, into Germany, to give the Third Reich the right to build an extraterritorial railway and highways that would connect Germany proper with East Prussia. In addition, knowing about the hatred of the Polish ruling elite towards Soviet Union, Berlin invited Poland to join the Anti-Comintern Pact directed against the USSR.

Warsaw refused on all counts for a very simple reason: the Polish leadership understood perfectly well that in Berlin they were destined for the role of junior partners. And this contradicted the Polish imperial consciousness. And the Poles were not afraid of the Germans. They reasoned something like this: “Possible aggression from Germany? No problem: Berlin is a hundred kilometers away. We’ll get there if anything happens.” And this was not empty boasting, for the imperial policy of the leadership of the second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was supported by fairly successful military construction.

It is a myth that the Poles had a technically weak army. By 1939, the Polish Army was armed with medium 7TR - one of the best in Europe, superior in tactical and technical data to Wehrmacht combat vehicles. The Polish Air Force had the latest P-37 Losi bombers for its time.

Such a quick victory of the Nazis in September 1939 is explained by the superiority of German military thought over Polish, and over Franco-English and, finally, over Soviet. Suffice it to recall the battles of 1941 - the first half of 1942.

Second World War once again confirmed that the Poles are strangers to Europe. This is evidenced by their losses in the war and the inhumane regime established by the Reich in the conquered Slavic countries, which was very different from that which existed, say, in Denmark, Norway or France. At one time, Hitler directly stated: “Any manifestation of tolerance towards the Poles is inappropriate. Otherwise, we will again have to face the same phenomena that are already known to history and that have always occurred after the partitions of Poland. The Poles survived because they could not help but take the Russians seriously as their overlords... It is necessary, first of all, to ensure that there are no cases of copulation between Germans and Poles, because otherwise fresh German blood will constantly flow into the veins of the Polish ruling layer... ."

Against the background of these inhumane statements of the Fuhrer, attention is drawn to his maxim regarding the Poles’ non-perception of the Russians as their overlords. It's hard to disagree with this.

The fate of post-war Poland was not easy. On the one hand, it did not have freedom in the field of foreign policy, being dependent on the Kremlin, on the other, it achieved certain successes in socio-economic terms without copying the Soviet model of socialism. There were no repressions against the Church in Poland, and Cardinal Karol Wojtyla became Roman Pontiff John Paul II for many years. Finally, with the help of the USSR, the Poles created a combat-ready army equipped with Soviet equipment. This is the undoubted merit of Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, former minister defense of the People's Republic of Poland from 1949 to 1955.

The role of cannon fodder

With the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, as is known, Poland hastened to join NATO, where it was expected with open arms, because the United States and its Western allies urgently needed cannon fodder for the Gulf War in 1991 and for the conquest of Iraq in 2003, and fighters were also needed for the occupation army in Afghanistan. Well-trained Polish soldiers were the best fit here and died heroically on the inhospitable banks of the Tigris and Euphrates and in the harsh mountains of Afghanistan, so far from Poland. However, with accession to NATO, the level of combat training of Polish military personnel cannot be called corresponding to the standards of the North Atlantic Alliance due to lack of funding.

As is known, Warsaw actively supports the desire of pro-Western political circles in Ukraine to “drag” it into the European Union. However, it is obvious to any sane person that neither Poland nor Ukraine will ever become full members European Community. I do not mean the declarative statements of certain politicians, but rather the mental attitudes of Western society. For for him, the countries of the former socialist camp, including Poland, are nothing more than a source of raw materials and cheap labor, as well as cannon fodder in modern and future wars.

Poland can avoid such a humiliating position only through military-economic integration with Russia, forgetting old grievances. There is no other way for her. If the Poles, of course, want to remain a great people.

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In the history of our country, the 17th century is a very significant milestone, since at that time many events took place that influenced the entire subsequent development of the state. Was especially important foreign policy Russia in the 17th century, since at that time it was very difficult to fight off numerous enemies, while at the same time maintaining strength for domestic work.

Firstly, it was urgent to return all the lands that were lost as a result of the Troubles. Secondly, the rulers of the country were faced with the task of annexing back all those territories that were once part of the Kievan Rus. Of course, they were largely guided not only by the ideas of reuniting once divided peoples, but also by the desire to increase the share of arable land and the number of taxpayers. Simply put, Russian foreign policy in the 17th century was aimed at restoring the country's integrity. The Troubles had an extremely difficult impact on the country: the treasury was empty, many peasants became so impoverished that it was simply impossible to collect taxes from them. Obtaining new lands that were not plundered by the Poles would not only restore Russia's political prestige, but also replenish its treasury. In general, this was the main foreign policy of Russia in the 17th century.

At the beginning of the 16th century. At the Dnieper rapids, a free Cossack republic emerged - the Zaporozhye Sich. There was no feudal dependence in Zaporozhye. The Cossacks had their own self-government, an elected hetman and a “kosh chieftain”.

The Polish government is trying to take control of the Ukrainian Cossacks and recruit them into service. From the 16th century Cossack uprisings against the Poles begin. Strengthening religious, national and social oppression leads to the outbreak of a liberation war.

In 1648 it was headed by Bogdan Khmelnytsky. He expels the Polish garrison from the Sich, is elected hetman and appeals to the Cossacks for an uprising. Having concluded a military alliance with Crimean Tatars, Khmelnitsky inflicted defeats on the Poles at Zheltye Vody, Korsun and Pilyavtsy.

In August 1649, the Cossack-Tatar army won a victory near Zborov. A peace treaty was concluded, according to which Poland recognized the autonomy of Right-Bank Ukraine.

In 1650, Polish troops began a new campaign against Khmelnytsky and in 1651, as a result of the betrayal of the Crimean Khan Islam-Girey (who withdrew his troops from the battlefield), they managed to win a victory near Berestechko. The Poles restored their power over Ukraine, limiting the number of Cossacks to 20 thousand.

B. Khmelnitsky, realizing the impossibility of confronting Poland alone, repeatedly raised the question of the reunification of Ukraine with Russia before Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. On October 1, 1653, the Zemsky Sobor decided to accept Ukraine into Russian citizenship. The royal ambassadors went to Hetman Khmelnitsky. January 8, 1654 Pereyaslavl Rada decided to accept citizenship and took the oath of allegiance to the Tsar, confirming her consent to Ukraine’s entry into Russia.

This caused the war of 1654-1667. between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russia. The war was protracted and ended with the Truce of Andrusovo in 1667. The Smolensk region, Left Bank Ukraine and Kyiv went to Russia. In 1686, an “eternal peace” was concluded with Poland, which consolidated the terms of the Attdrus truce. Belarus remained part of Poland.

The reunification of Ukraine and Russia economically, politically and militarily strengthened the Russian state, preventing the destruction of Ukraine as a result of Polish or Turkish intervention.

At the same time, Russia was at war with Sweden. In 1661, according to the Treaty of Kardis, Russia was forced to return its lands in Livonia to Sweden, and found itself without access to the sea.

In 1677, a war began with Turkey over Ukraine. Turkish troops planned to capture Kyiv and the entire Left Bank Ukraine. But, faced with the heroic resistance of the Russian-Ukrainian army during the defense of the Chigerin fortress, the exhausted Turks signed an agreement in Bakhchisarai (1681) on a truce for 20 years. Türkiye recognized Russia's left bank and Kyiv. The lands between the Dnieper and Kiev remained neutral.