Unlike other Western and Eastern European countries, Poland in the XVI-XVII 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 in the evolution of the Polish state were hidden in the peculiarities of the socio-economic development of Poland, in which the weak rudiments of capitalist forms of production were suppressed by the omnipotence of the magnates and gentry, who monopoly owned the land and turned all the benefits of the development of a commodity-money economy into their own favor.

Cities. Development of crafts and trade. At the end of the XV-XVI centuries. Polish cities experienced a significant rise. The urban population increased. In Warsaw, it reached the end XVI in. 20 thousand, in Gdansk - 40 thousand people. This largest port city in Europe possessed 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 the income of the royal treasury.

Workshops were the main form of organization of handicraft production. But in some of its branches, for example, in mining, the embryos of capitalist relations appeared in the form of centralized or scattered manufactory created by commercial capital.

Domestic and foreign trade developed, the domestic market developed. Annual fairs were held in Lublin. AT 60- x years. XVI in. measures and weights were unified, which contributed to the development of domestic trade. Foreign trade with Western countries was conducted 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. A lively trade took place with the Russian lands, from where furs, leather, and wax came from in exchange for imported goods from the West.

Transition to farm-corvee system. AT agriculture to the middle XVII in. there was also a significant increase. Internal colonization continued, crop areas expanded, land cultivation improved, and productivity increased. At the end XVI in. she went up to self-5.

The land in Poland was in the monopoly property of the feudal lords, the townspeople were forbidden to buy land in their ownership.

In the Polish regions, gentry land ownership prevailed, the share of which, however, from the end XVI in. 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 in. there were about 100 cities andcastles and around 1300 villages. His annual income was over 1 million zł.

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

The main form of rent was labor rent, which gave the landowner the opportunity to sharply increase the exploitation of the peasants. The landlord economy was closely connected with the market. Peasant same could only barely maintain its existence and was almost completely pushed aside from the city market. The development of commodity production in agriculture in Poland in the XV-XVI centuries. contributed to the strengthening of the feudal-corvee system of economy. This was due to the political and economic weakness and paucity of Polish cities compared to the advanced countries of Western Europe and to the favorable alignment of social forces in the country for the magnates and gentry, which ensured their undivided political dominance.

Political strengthening of the nobility. Formation of the estate monarchy. Before XVI in. The political development of Poland went in approximately the same direction as in other European countries - from fragmentation to centralization. At the end XV in. royal power has reached a significant increase. She fully controlled the central and provincial administration, held foreign policy and the army in her hands, and dominated the Polish episcopate. The king voluntarily convened the Seimas and established the order of their meetings, possessed the legislative initiative. Waging a struggle with the magnates, the royal government tried to win over to its side the middle-class - the gentry, whose political weight steadily increased with the transition to the farm-corvee system. The king, seeking to weaken the magnates, provided the gentry with ever new privileges. But in fact, this did not so much weaken the position of the magnates as it undermined the basis of state centralization.

Formed at the beginning XVI in. the estate monarchy in Poland did not in any way contribute to political cohesionstate, but, on the contrary, strengthened the centrifugal tendencies in it. AT 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 general (general) Sejm, the highest legislative body in the state, which limited royal power in favor of the feudal lords. The lower chamber of the Sejm - the embassy's hut - consisted of representatives of the gentry (zemstvo ambassadors) who were elected at the sejmiks. The Senate was the upper house. Over time, the embassy hut began to play an increasingly important role in solving state affairs. The peasantry and towns were not represented at all in the diets. The process of centralization of the country was incomplete. He did not go further than creating a single legislative body.

Polish feudal lords acted jointly against peasants and townspeople. AT 1543 the transfer of peasants was prohibited, who were placed under the exclusive jurisdiction of their owners and turned into serfs. Citizens were forbidden to own zemstvo (gentry) estates. AT 1496 The gentry achieved the right of propination (distillation) and the exemption of goods imported and exported by it from duties. Incomes from foreign trade began to play a very significant role in the budget of the pans and gentry. By these measures, the magnate-gentry elite undermined the economic foundations of the Polish city.

The reform movement in Poland in the 30-70s. 16th century

The clash of the magnates and gentry with the Catholic Church on the issue of tithe and on the limitation of church land ownership created fertile ground for the spread of humanistic and reformist teachings among the secular feudal lords. Reformation teachings also penetrated into Polish cities. However, the movement for the Reformation did not acquire a wide national scope in Poland: the ideas of the gentry Reformation were alien to the masses, and the gentry were hostile to the radical trends in the reform movement.

Already in 20- x years. XVI in. Lutheranism spread among the German population of Gdansk and other cities. In the middle XVI in. 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 in their native language.

The weakness of the reform movement in Poland was the presence of many currents and the lack of unity between Protestants of different directions. Attempts were made to unite the 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 a lasting unity.

By the end XVI in. the nobility began to move away from the Reformation. One of the reasons for her return to the bosom of Catholicism was the fear of the spread among the people of radical reformist teachings that opposed serfdom.

Along with the reform movement among the Polish gentry, a struggle for political reforms unfolded. The gentry sought to consolidate state finances and create a permanent army through reduction - the return to the king of the estates he had pledged 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 general (general) Sejm an organ of state unity, eliminating the dependence of its deputies (ambassadors) on local sejmiks, to strengthen the position of the king at the expense of the prerogatives of the Senate. But these demands were rejected by the majority of the Polish gentry, who valued their petty privileges.

The transformation of Poland into a gentry "republic" (the Commonwealth). The peculiarity of the political development of Poland was that the estate 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 between the magnate and the nobility was brewing. The nobility 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 implementation of the reduction (the so-called "execution of rights") met with resolute resistance from the magnate. However, at the Seimas of 1562-1563. magnates were forced to agree to the return of the crown estates received by them after 1504 which was a significant victory for the nobility. At the same time, the gentry sought to subordinate the royal power to their control. She stubbornly refused the king money to form a standing army. The struggle between the magnates, the gentry and the spiritual feudal lords that took place within the ruling class ended in a compromise, which later turned out to be more beneficial to the big feudal lords. The compromise character was formed in 1569-1573. the constitution of the Polish state.

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

confirmed 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 demolition of the Commonwealth (general feudal militia). Under the king, the Senate Rada (council) was to sit. The refusal of the king to fulfill these obligations freed the magnates and the gentry from obedience to him. According to the regulations established later, the Sejm made decisions only if there was unanimity of its “ambassadors”. Frequent breakdowns of the Seimas due to the lack of unanimity eventually led to the fact that the real power in certain parts of the state was assigned to the local Seimiks, where the magnates ruled all affairs. In addition to the usual diets, in the XVI-XVII 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 magnate-gentrygroups fighting for dominance in the country led to feudal anarchy.

Formation of the multinational Commonwealth. Union of Lublin 1569 G. The execution of the gentry constitution coincided in time with the completion of the formation of the multinational Polish state.

In the second half XV- early XVI in. Polish feudal lords did not use the weakening of the Teutonic Order to liquidate it and reunite its western lands with Poland. AT 1525 King Sigismund I and the Polish magnates allowed the master of the Teutonic Order, Albrecht of Brandenburg, to secularize the possessions of the order and become a hereditary duke, continuing, however, to remain a vassal of Poland for some time. Subsequently, the Margraves of Brandenburg were recognized as having the right to inherit the Prussian throne in the event of the termination of the Albrecht line. There was a real threat of 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 from two sides.

The Polish feudal lords sought to strengthen the Polish-Lithuanian union, to include the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in Poland. The gentry of Lithuania also sought to consolidate 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 Seimas in Lublin in 1569 The city imposed an agreement (Union of Lublin) on the Lithuanian pans, according to which Poland and Lithuania were united into one state - the Commonwealth with a common central body - the Sejm. The head of the Commonwealth was at the same time the king of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania and was subject to election at the general diet. Each of the united states - Lithuania (principality) and Poland (crown) - retained its internal autonomy, a separate administration, court, budget and army. Even before the conclusion of the Union of Lublin in the same 1569 year, Polish feudal lords included the Ukrainian lands of Lithuania in the crown. Formed in 1569 The Commonwealth pursued an aggressive policy in the east.

The beginning of the economic decline of Poland at the end XVI- first half XVII in. As a result of a sharp increase in feudal exploitation in XVI in. The feudal lords managed to achieve an increase in the overall productivity of the feudal economy. However, this rise could not last long. The rapid growth of estates and feudal exploitation was accompanied by the decline of the peasant economy, as the farmer was crushed by heavy corvée duties. Signs of regression and the crossJansky, and landowner economy appeared already at the end XVI- early XVII in.

The rise of crafts and trade in the city turned out to be short-lived. The economic stagnation of the Polish city became noticeable from the end XVI in.

The transition to the farm-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 profits partly settled in the pockets of the Gdansk intermediary merchants, partly spent by the feudal lords on the purchase of foreign goods and 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 Commonwealth (Livonian War). It ended with a truce in the Pit Zapolsky (1582), according to which the Russian state was actually cut off from the Baltic Sea, and most of Livonia was captured by the Commonwealth.

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

The 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 cathedral in Brest 1596 A union was adopted with the aim of subordinating the 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 the urban poor responded to the strengthening of feudal and national oppression with a fierce struggle, which increasingly took on a national liberation character. Large peasant-Cossack uprisings took place in Ukraine in 1591-1596. and especially on a large scale 30- x years. XVII in.

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Significant anti-feudal movements took place in the first half XVII in. and in Belarus. In Poland itself, the struggle of the peasant masses against the oppression of the feudal lords was expressed chiefly in mass exodus 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 Commonwealth to protect the Ukrainian lands from the devastating Tatar raids and Turkish aggression threatened the very existence of the Ukrainian people. The broadest strata of Ukrainian society were vitally interested in eliminating the rule of the Polish and Polonized Ukrainian feudal lords. AT 1648 The Ukrainian people, led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky, rose up in a war of liberation against the Commonwealth. The peasantry, the Cossacks, the townspeople, the 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 the serfs. The rebels sought the elimination of the power of the 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 the oppression of the 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 the urban lower classes. AT 1648 About 3,000 rebel peasants were operating in the vicinity of Warsaw, and an uprising of the urban poor was being prepared in the capital itself. AT 1651 The peasant-Janian-plebeian movement covered a significant part of the Polish lands. Peasant uprisings took place in Mazovia and the Sieradz Voivodeship. The peasant movement took on a large scale in Greater Poland. It was headed by a group of Poles - participants in the liberation war of the Ukrainian people. The peasant uprising in the south of the Krakow Voivodeship (in Lesser Poland) especially frightened the Polish feudal lords. At the head of the uprising in Podhale was Kostka Napersky, who, apparently, was associated with Bohdan Khmelnitsky.

The struggle of the Polish people against the Swedish occupation. Andrus truce. The failures of the Commonwealth took advantage of Sweden, which opposed it in 1655 d. Using 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 the intervention of Sweden received a decisive rebuff from the Polish people.

The peasant masses of Podgorye were the first to rise to fight the Swedish armies, then the townspeople andnobility. The Russian state came out against the Swedes, concluding in 1656 with the Commonwealth, the Vilna truce. However, the Polish magnates and gentry did not want to come to terms with the reunification of Ukraine with Russia. In an effort to untie their hands to continue the war with Russia, the Commonwealth in 1660 d. made peace with Sweden in Oliva.

Military operations against Russia developed in the context of a severe crisis in Polish finances, which intensified the disintegration of the army. Campaign of King Jan Casimir to the Left-bank Ukraine in 1664 Mr. failed. In the Commonwealth, the struggle between individual magnate groups intensified. AT 1667 Poland agreed to the Andrusovo truce with the Russian state, recognizing the transition to Russia of the Left-Bank Ukraine and Kyiv (for two years) and returning Smolensk to it.

The decline of the Commonwealth. In the second half XVII in. the negative consequences of the development of the folk-cooking-corvee system were fully manifested. They were greatly intensified by the detrimental effect that almost continuous wars had on the national economy of the country (especially in 50- x years. XVII c.), which led to the mass ruin of the peasantry and cities. The peasant economy fell into decay. The productivity of the gentry-magnate estates decreased. Moreover, from the second half XVII in. decreased demand for agricultural products in Western Europe. The feudal lords intensified the exploitation of the peasantry. The main means remained to increase farms and a significant increase in corvee. In addition to the usual weekly corvee, the peasants carried a number of other duties. The monopolies (banalities) of the feudal lords had a very hard effect on the position of the peasantry.

Deep economic and political decline in the second half XVII- first quarter XVIII in. survived the Polish cities. The urban craft was degraded, the volume of urban production was reduced. The city could not withstand the competition of foreign goods. The non-guild and patrimonial handicraft supported by the feudal lords undermined guild production, although in the future these forms of handicraft became the basis for a future upsurge in a number of industries.

A lively economic life continued only in cities associated with international transit trade. However, imports grew much faster than exports, from the second half XVII in. the country's trade balance was passive.

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

The foreign policy situation of the Polish state worsened. While the military power of Poland was weakening, the power of the centralized neighboring states - Sweden and Russia - was growing, in the clash with which it invariably suffered defeat.

Unification of Brandenburg and Prussia under Hohenzollern rule in 1618 led to a sharp weakening of the Polish positions in the west. The war for the Baltic States with Sweden, which broke out at the beginning, ended extremely unsuccessfully. XVII in. According to the Shtumdor truce 1635 The Swedes had almost all of Livonia left.

Polish culture in the XV-XVI centuries. Already in XV in. there was a significant upsurge in the development of Polish culture. AT 1474 in Poland, book printing began. This contributed to the spread of education and scientific knowledge, the flourishing of literature. Many poetic works appeared in Polish, and national Polish literature was formed.

The 16th century is the heyday of Polish humanism. Particularly great advances were made 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 justification for the heliocentric system (see Ch. 40). Polish historians Maciej from Mechow, Martin Bielski, Maciej Strechkowski wrote a number of works on the history of Poland and general history. The well-known Polish publicist Andrzej Modzhevsky (1503-1572) in his work "On the Correction of the Commonwealth" boldly criticized the feudal-serf orders that existed in Poland.

Polish humanistic literature in XVI in. characterized by realism and critical orientation. The largest representative of Polish humanism, Nikolai Rey (1505-1569), denounced the papacy and the Catholic hierarchy. In his essay "The Life of an Honest Man" a sharp criticism of the feudal system is given. The outstanding Polish poet Jan Kochanowski (1530-1584) widely used folk motifs in his work. His writings are imbued with the spirit of the people.

National self-consciousness has increased not only in the circles of the gentry, but also among the townspeople and peasants. Local linguistic differences were erased and a single Polish language was formed, which forced Latin out of socio-political and cultural life. From the end XV in. learning in one's own language has become commonplace. Secular city schools - gymnasiums - were opened. The center of culture and education was Krakow University,the bearers of which were mainly at 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 (XVI century).

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

The first known ruler of Poland was the Prince of Greater Poland Mieszko I from the Piast family (960-992); in 966 he accepts Christianity according to the Western rite. With his son Boleslav the Brave- The Polish principality reached the pinnacle of power.

In 999, Boleslav the Brave takes away the future Lesser Poland with Krakow from the Czech Republic; he was a Czech prince from 1003 to 1004, after a long war with the Holy Roman Empire he annexed Lusatia and Milsko. Boleslav became related to the Kyiv prince Svyatopolk the Accursed and, supporting him against his brother Yaroslav the Wise, in 1018 took Kyiv; in 1025 he takes the title of king.

His son Mieszko II Sluggish, forced to fight simultaneously with Germany, the Czech Republic and Russia, lost almost all of his father's conquests, including the royal title, which he renounced in 1033. After his death, a period of chaos and anarchy began, and his son Casimir I the Restorer, expelled from Poland by the rebels, restored his power with difficulty and losses. But the son of the latter, Boleslav II the Bold (1058-1079), completely revived the former power of Poland and again (1076) took the royal title; in 1068, supporting his relative Izyaslav Yaroslavich, he also seized Kyiv.

In 1384 Jadwiga became the queen of Poland (according to Polish law - the king). The magnates began to look for a husband for Jadwiga, who could be a full-fledged Polish monarch, and found one in the person of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Jagiello (in the Polish pronunciation Jagiello). In 1385, the Polish-Lithuanian union was concluded in Kreva, according to which Jagiello was baptized according to the Catholic rite, introduced Catholicism as the state religion in Lithuania, married Jadwiga and ascended the Polish throne under the name of Vladislav II. Thus, the Polish-Lithuanian state arose in the East of Europe.

Under Jagiello began infringement of the Orthodox population Russian lands occupied by the Poles. Jagiello gave the Catholics the Orthodox Cathedral in Przemysl, built under the Russian prince Volodar Rostislavovich, initiating the Catholicization and Polonization of this city. The Orthodox Metropolitan of Galicia was deprived of all his land holdings in favor of the Catholic Archbishop.

In the reign of the last Jagiellon, Sigismund II Augustus, the Polish-Lithuanian state again had to face the strengthening of the Muscovite state, where Ivan IV the Terrible reigned. Since 1562, Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian state have been drawn into a fierce, long and devastating Livonian war for both sides.

After the death of Sigismund, the era of elective kings began, in accordance with the new constitution. The Frenchman Henry of Valois (1572-1574) appeared on the throne and soon fled back to France, while Ivan the Terrible again went on the offensive in Livonia. The election in 1576 of the Transylvanian Prince Stefan Batory turned the situation in favor of Poland: he returned the lost Polotsk to Poland (1579), then, in turn, he invaded Russia and laid siege to Pskov. Peace in Yama-Zapolsky (1582) restored the old border.

After the death of Bathory in 1586, the Poles elected the Swedish king Sigismund III Vasa; however, he soon lost the Swedish throne because of his Catholic fanaticism. Important events associated with his reign:

transfer in 1596 of the capital from Krakow to Warsaw (coronations were still held in Krakow);

the Brest union of the Orthodox and Catholic churches (1596), which put an end to traditional Polish religious tolerance and created the prerequisites for the Khmelnitsky uprising;

Poland's intervention in Russia during the Time of Troubles.

The Polish magnates Mniszeki supported the impostor False Dmitry and equipped him with an army consisting of Zaporozhye Cossacks and Polish volunteers. In 1604, the army of the impostor invaded Russia, the cities and the armies sent to meet him swore allegiance to the new tsar. In 1605, the impostor entered Moscow and was crowned, but was soon killed.

The impostor promised the Polish king Sigismund III to return Smolensk in payment for help. Under the pretext of these promises, Sigismund in 1610 begins the siege of Smolensk. The army sent to the rescue by the new Tsar Vasily Shuisky was defeated by Hetman Zholkievsky in the Battle of Klushino, after which the Poles approached Moscow, while the troops of the new impostor False Dmitry II besieged it from the other side.

Shuisky was overthrown and subsequently extradited to Zholkevsky. The Moscow boyars swore allegiance to the young son of Sgizmund Vladislav, and then let the Polish garrison into Moscow. Sigismund did not want to let his son go to Moscow and baptize him into Orthodoxy (as was supposed under the terms of the agreement), but tried to rule Moscow personally through Alexander Gonsevsky, who led the Polish garrison in Moscow after Zholkievsky left. The result was the unification of the former "Tushino thieves" - the Cossacks with the nobles of Shuisky against the Poles (early 1611) and their joint campaign against Moscow, supported by an uprising in Moscow itself, which the Poles were able to suppress only by setting fire to the city.

The siege of Moscow by the first militia was unsuccessful due to contradictions in its ranks. The campaign of the second militia, led by Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky, put the Poles in a critical situation. Sigismund, who took Smolensk, disbanded his army, unable to support it.

On November 1, 1612 (according to the new style), the militia took Kitay-gorod, the Poles took refuge in the Kremlin. On November 5, the Poles signed a capitulation, releasing the Moscow boyars and other nobles from the Kremlin, and surrendered the next day.

In 1617, Vladislav, who continued to bear the title of Grand Duke of Moscow, invaded Russia, trying to seize the "legitimate" throne, reached Moscow, but could not take it. According to the Truce of Deulino, Poland received Smolensk and Seversk land. Vladislav retained the title of Grand Duke of Moscow. After the truce expired, Russia unsuccessfully tried to return Smolensk, but after the defeat under its walls in 1633, according to the Polyanovsky peace, Smolensk was recognized by Poland, and Vladislav refused the Moscow title.

By the end of the 16th century, the Ukrainian-Belarusian Orthodox peasantry was under the rule of the Catholic Polonized nobility. This situation, along with the strengthening of the counter-reformation and the influence of the Jesuits, gave rise to the desire to convert to Catholicism and “claps”. The result of the oppression of the Orthodox is the growth of tension and, in the end, the uprising of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, which began in 1648, was catastrophic for the Commonwealth. In 1654, Russian troops invaded Poland; next year - the Swedes, who occupy Warsaw, King Jan II Casimir flees to Silesia - anarchy begins, which received the name "Flood" in Poland. In 1657, Poland renounced sovereign rights to East Prussia. The Swedes were never able to stay in Poland because of the outbreak of guerrilla warfare.

On the other hand, part of the Cossack foremen, frightened by the influence of the Moscow governors, recoiled from Moscow and tried to re-establish relations with the Commonwealth, thanks to which the Poles returned Belarus and Right-Bank Ukraine. According to the Andrusovo truce (1667), Poland lost Kyiv and all areas east of the Dnieper.

In 1709, Peter I expelled the Swedes and their protege from Poland and restored Augustus the Strong. A country devoid of internal resources, having neither a tax service, nor a customs office, nor a regular army, nor any capable central government, is henceforth doomed to serve as a toy for strong neighbors. After the death of Augustus the Strong in 1733, the “War for the Polish Succession” flared up, during which the Saxons and Russians expelled Stanislav Leshchinsky, supported by the French, from the country and planted the new Saxon elector Augustus III (1734-1763) as king.

At the end of the reign of August III, the era of the Seven Years' War falls, when Poland becomes a battlefield between the Prussians and their opponents. Frederick II of Prussia even then carried the idea of ​​partitioning Poland, but his defeat in the war put aside this prospect. In 1764, under Russian pressure, the little-known and uninfluential Stanislaw August Poniatowski was elected king of Poland. In fact, a Russian protectorate is being established over Poland. Personally, Poniatowski was an educated and intelligent person, but he lacked the political will sufficient to act in such a difficult environment.

The actual protectorate of Russia was expressed, in particular, in the fact that Russia, with the support of Prussia, forced Stanislav to equalize the rights of "dissidents" (Orthodox and Protestants) with the Catholics, and also forced the king to cancel the reforms that had begun to be carried out; Catherine proclaimed herself the guarantor of the "liberum veto". The answer of the gentry was the "Bar Confederation" (1768), which launched a guerrilla war against the Russian troops. Soon the uprising was crushed and the rebels were exiled to Siberia; for their part, Austria and Prussia, jealously watching the establishment of Russia in Poland and taking advantage of her difficulties in the war with Turkey, demanded their share.

In 1772, the first division of the Commonwealth between Prussia, Austria and Russia took place, according to which Galicia went to Austria, West Prussia to Prussia, and the eastern part of Belarus (Gomel, Mogilev, Vitebsk, Dvinsk) to Russia.

In 1787, a new Russian-Turkish war began, the Russian occupation troops were withdrawn from Poland. The magnates, dissatisfied with the abolition of the "golden liberties", went to St. Petersburg in search of support and agreed on Russian intervention.

Empress Catherine II moved troops to Poland. A fierce struggle began between the adherents of the new constitution against the Confederates and the Russian interventionists. After the victory of the Russian troops, the constitution was abolished, and the dictatorship of the Targovitsky confederates was established; at the same time, Prussian troops entered Poland, and the Commonwealth was divided between Prussia and Russia (1793). A Sejm was convened in Grodno, at which the restoration of the former constitution was proclaimed; Warsaw and several other cities were occupied by Russian garrisons; the Polish army has been drastically reduced.

In March 1794, the Kosciuszko national liberation uprising began. Kosciuszko, proclaimed in Krakow "the head of the uprising", defeated the Russian detachment at Raclawice and moved to Warsaw, where the Russian garrison was destroyed as a result of the uprising of the population; busy Vilna. In the summer, the rebels withstood the siege of Warsaw by Russian-Prussian troops. However, in the autumn the rebels suffered a series of crushing defeats. The lack of support for the uprising by the Belarusian and Ukrainian population was revealed. Kosciuszko was defeated at Maciejovice and taken prisoner, the Warsaw suburb of Prague was taken by storm by Suvorov; Warsaw capitulated. After that, the third partition took place (according to an agreement concluded between Russia, Prussia and Austria in 1795) and Poland ceased to exist as a state.

Napoleon, having defeated Prussia, created the Duchy of Warsaw, vassal to France, from part of the Polish lands that belonged to her. Russia recognized this principality, headed by the Saxon king Friedrich August, loyal to Napoleon, and received the Bialystok region.

The next partition of Poland took place in 1814-1815 at the Congress of Vienna between Austria, Prussia and Russia. Most of the former Duchy of Warsaw was transferred to Russia, Poznanshchina went to Prussia, Krakow was declared a "free city". The Congress of Vienna declared the granting of autonomy to the Polish lands in all three parts, but in fact this was carried out only in Russia; however, the constitutional Kingdom of Poland was formed on a large scale, which is largely due to the personal liberal aspirations of Alexander I.

On November 27, 1815, Poland, as part of Russia, received its own constitution, which bound Poland and Russia with a personal union and allowed Poland to choose the Sejm, its own government and have its own army. First, Kosciuszko's old colleague, General Joseph Zayonchek, was appointed governor of Poland, then the tsar's brother, Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich. The constitution, relatively liberal at the beginning, later became restrictive. Legal opposition appeared in the Polish Sejm, and secret political societies arose.

In November 1830, the November Uprising broke out in Warsaw, suppressing which in 1831, Nicholas I canceled the constitution granted to Poland in 1815. National liberation uprisings took place in 1846 in Poznań (suppressed by Prussia). In the same year, there was an uprising in Krakow, as a result of which (with the consent of Nicholas I) the city went to Austria.

After the death of Nicholas I, the liberation movement rises with renewed vigor, which is now divided into two hostile camps: "red" (democrats and socialists) and "white" (aristocrats). The general demand is the restoration of the constitution of 1815. In the autumn of 1861, martial law was introduced in Poland to stop the "unrest". The liberal Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich, who was appointed viceroy, could not cope with the situation. It was decided to announce a recruitment and send pre-selected "unreliable" young people to the soldiers on special lists. The set, in turn, served as the signal for the mass "January Uprising" of 1863. The uprising was suppressed, and a military regime of government was established in the Kingdom of Poland. The January uprising led Alexander II to the idea of ​​depriving the rebellious gentry of social support and in order to carry out a peasant reform - in 1864, a Decree was adopted on the organization of the peasants of the Kingdom of Poland, which eliminated the remnants of serfdom and widely endowed the peasants with land. The suppression of the January Uprising gave impetus to the deployment of a policy of eliminating the autonomy of the Kingdom of Poland and closer integration of Poland into the Russian Empire.

Intensive Germanization was carried out on the Polish lands as part of Prussia, Polish schools were closed. In 1848, Russia helped Prussia put down the Poznań uprising. In 1863, both powers concluded the Alvensleben Convention to help each other in the fight against the Polish national movement.

The accession to the Russian throne of Nicholas II revived hopes for the liberalization of Russia's policy towards Poland. In 1897, the emperor visited Warsaw, where he agreed to the establishment of the Polytechnic University and the erection of a monument to Mickiewicz. Although the government refused to further deepen the policy of Russification, there were no real shifts towards the liberalization of the situation in the country.

In 1897, on the basis of the People's League, the National Democratic Party of Poland was created, which, although it had as its strategic goal the restoration of Poland's independence, fought primarily against Russification laws and for the restoration of Poland's autonomy. The National Democratic Party soon became the leading political force in the Kingdom of Poland and took part in the activities of the Russian State Duma (Polish Kolo faction).

During the Revolution of 1905-1907 in Russia, revolutionary uprisings also took place in the Kingdom of Poland. The Polish Socialist Party of Jozef Pilsudski gained more and more influence, which organized a number of strikes and strikes at the industrial enterprises of the Kingdom of Poland. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, Piłsudski visited Japan, where he tried to obtain funding for the uprising in Poland and the organization of Polish legions to participate in the war against Russia. This was opposed by the National Democrats of Roman Dmovsky. Nevertheless, Piłsudski managed to enlist the support of Japan in the purchase of weapons, and in 1904 he created the Fighting Organization of the Polish Socialist Party, which over the next years carried out several dozen terrorist attacks and attacks on Russian institutions and organizations, of which the Bezdan robbery of 1908 is most famous. of the year. In 1906 alone, 336 Russian officials and servicemen were killed by Pilsudski's militants.

After the outbreak of the First World War on August 14, 1914, Nicholas II promised, after winning the war, to unite the Kingdom of Poland with the Polish lands that would be taken from Germany and Austria-Hungary into an autonomous state within the Russian Empire.

The war created a situation in which Poles, Russian subjects, fought against Poles who served in the Austro-Hungarian and German armies. The pro-Russian National Democratic Party of Poland, headed by Roman Dmowski, considered Germany the main enemy of Poland, its supporters considered it necessary to unite all Polish lands under Russian control with obtaining the status of autonomy within the Russian Empire. The anti-Russian supporters of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) believed that the path to Poland's independence lay through the defeat of Russia in the war. A few years before the outbreak of World War I, PPS leader Józef Piłsudski began military training for Polish youth in Austro-Hungarian Galicia. After the outbreak of the war, he formed the Polish legions as part of the Austro-Hungarian army.

In 1915, the territory of Russian Poland was occupied by Germany and Austria-Hungary. On November 5, 1916, the German and Austro-Hungarian emperors published a manifesto on the creation of an independent Kingdom of Poland in the Russian part of Poland. In connection with the absence of the king, his powers were performed by the Regency Council.

After the February Revolution in Russia, the Provisional Government of Russia on March 16 (29), 1917 announced that it would contribute to the creation of the Polish state on all lands inhabited mostly by Poles, subject to the conclusion of a “free military alliance” with Russia.

In France, in August 1917, the Polish National Committee (PNC) was created, headed by Roman Dmowski and Ignacy Paderewski; the Polish "blue army" was formed there, led by Jozef Haller.

On October 6, 1918, the Regency Council of Poland announced the creation of an independent Polish state, and on November 14, after the surrender of Germany and the collapse of Austria-Hungary, it transferred Jozef Pilsudski full power in the country.

At this time, an armed conflict arose between the Polish formations and the forces of another newly formed state - the Western Ukrainian People's Republic (ZUNR) on the territory of Galicia, which resulted in large-scale hostilities that lasted from November 1, 1918 to July 17, 1919. The Polish-Ukrainian war ended with the complete defeat of the ZUNR.

On January 26, 1919, elections were held to the Sejm, the new composition of which approved Piłsudski as head of state.

The Treaty of Versailles in 1919 transferred to Poland most of the German province of Posen, as well as part of Pomerania, which gave the country access to the Baltic Sea; Danzig (Gdansk) received the status of a "free city".

During the war, the troops of both countries carried out executions of the civilian population, while the Polish troops carried out ethnic cleansing, the object of which was mainly Jews. The leadership of both the Red Army and the Polish Army initiated official investigations on the results of such actions and tried to prevent them.

In 1919, the Soviet-Polish war began, which went on with varying success. In the beginning, the Poles advanced deep into Belarus and Ukraine and captured Minsk and Kyiv. Then the Soviet troops under the command of Tukhachevsky launched a counteroffensive and reached the Vistula, but they failed to take the well-fortified Lvov and Warsaw.

In total, up to 200 thousand Red Army soldiers were captured by the Polish during the war, of which, according to various estimates, they were deliberately destroyed, up to 80 thousand died from starvation, bullying by guards and diseases. Polish sources give figures of 85 thousand prisoners (at least that many people were in Polish camps by the end of the war), of which about 20 thousand died.

In the note of G. V. Chicherin dated September 9, 1921, we are already talking about 130 thousand prisoners and 60 thousand dead.

“According to reports, the fronts do not adhere to the procedure for transporting, registering and sending prisoners of war to the camp ... Prisoners of war are often not sent to collection points, but immediately after being taken prisoner they are detained at the fronts and used at work, because of this, it is impossible to accurately record prisoners of war. Due to the poor condition of clothing and food ... epidemic diseases spread among them in a frightening way, bringing a huge percentage of mortality due to the general exhaustion of the body. .

By order of the Polish command, 300 captured Red Army soldiers were mowed down by machine-gun bursts in the area of ​​\u200b\u200boperation of the army of General Sikorsky.

Switalski, one of Piłsudski's closest collaborators, writes in his diary about the systematic reprisals of Poles against prisoners on the front line: “An obstacle to the demoralization of the Bolshevik army by deserting from it and going over to our side is the fierce and merciless destruction of prisoners by our soldiers”. .

In March 1919, after the occupation of Pinsk by the Polish army, the Polish commandant ordered the execution of 40 Jews who had gathered for prayer, who were mistaken for a meeting of Bolsheviks. Part of the hospital staff was also shot. In April of the same year, the capture of Vilnius by the Poles was accompanied by massacres of captured Red Army soldiers, Jews and people who sympathized with the Soviet regime.

The offensive of the Polish troops in Ukraine in the spring of 1920 was accompanied by Jewish pogroms and mass executions: in the city of Rivne, the Poles shot more than 3 thousand civilians, about 4 thousand Jews were killed in the town of Tetiev, for resistance during the requisitions of food, the villages of Ivanovtsy, Kucha, Sobachy were completely burned, Yablunovka, Novaya Greblya, Melnichi, Kirillovka and others, their inhabitants were shot. Polish historians question these data; according to the Concise Jewish Encyclopedia, the massacre in Tetiev was committed not by the Poles, but by the Ukrainians - a detachment of Ataman Kurovsky (Petliurite, former Red commander) on March 24, 1920. The representative of the Polish Civil Administration of the Eastern Lands (the Polish administration in the occupied territories) M. Kossakowski testified that the Polish military killed people only because they "looked like Bolsheviks".

The Polish officers taken prisoner by the Red Army were shot on the spot, unconditionally, as were the Bolshevik commissars taken prisoner by the Poles.

There is also numerous other evidence of the inhumane attitude of the Poles towards captured Red Army soldiers, local residents and Jews.

Tukhachevsky harbored a grudge against Poland for a long time. A detailed transcript of the meeting of the high command of the Red Army in 1935 has been preserved, where Tukhachevsky, like a shamanic spell, repeats: “All evil is from Poland, if someone attacks us, then it will undoubtedly be Poland ...”

On June 15, 1931, the USSR and Poland signed a Treaty of Friendship and Trade Cooperation. On January 25, 1932, the USSR and Poland signed a non-aggression pact.

On March 21, 1939, Germany demanded that Poland transfer the free city of Danzig to it, join the Anti-Comintern Pact and open the “Polish Corridor” for it (created after the First World War to ensure Poland's access to the Baltic Sea). Poland rejected all German demands.

On August 23, 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact. According to the secret additional protocol to the agreement on the delimitation of spheres of mutual interests in Eastern Europe in the event of "territorial and political reorganization", it was envisaged that Eastern Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Finland and Bessarabia be included in the sphere of interests of the USSR, Lithuania and western Poland - in the sphere of interests of Germany . On September 1, 1939, the troops of the Third Reich invade Poland. By September 16, the Germans reach the line Osovets - Bialystok - Belsk - Kamenetz-Litovsk - Vlodava - Vladimir-Volynsky - Zamosc - Lvov - Sambir and are located 150-200 km from the Soviet border. Warsaw is surrounded. On September 3, about 2,000 citizens of the Polish city of Bydgoszcz, Germans by nationality, were killed. It has not yet been clarified who fired on civilians. On September 17, 1939, Soviet troops invaded Poland and occupied Western Belarus and Ukraine. In an official note, Moscow explained these actions by the collapse of the Polish state and the need to protect the Ukrainian and Belarusian population that prevailed in these areas. On September 27, Warsaw fell and the Polish army actually stopped resisting. On October 5, the last major Polish unit of General Kleeberg capitulates. The territorial division of Poland between the USSR and Germany was completed on September 28, 1939 with the signing of the Treaty of Friendship and Border between the USSR and Germany. As a result of the division of Polish territory between Germany and the USSR, the Soviet borders moved far to the west, and the USSR began to border on Lithuania. Initially, Germany intended to turn Lithuania into its protectorate, but on September 25, during the Soviet-German contacts on the settlement of the Polish problem, the USSR proposed to start negotiations on Germany's renunciation of claims to Lithuania in exchange for the territories of the Warsaw and Lublin provinces of Poland. On this day, the German ambassador to the USSR, Count Schulenburg, sent a telegram to the German Foreign Ministry, in which he said that he had been summoned to the Kremlin, where Stalin pointed to this proposal as a subject for future negotiations and added that if Germany agreed, "the Soviet Union immediately will take up the solution of the problem of the Baltic states in accordance with the protocol of August 23 and expect the full support of the German government in this matter. During the next partition of Poland, the ethnically predominantly non-Polish territories of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus were annexed to the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR. Germany received ethnically Polish territory, and parts that were previously part of Prussia (Poznanshchina, Pomerania) were directly annexed to Germany, a significant part of the Polish population was expelled. In the rest of the territories, which received the name "governor-generalship", an occupation administration was organized. In the former territories of Poland, completely occupied by the Germans, the Polish language was banned, the Polish press was closed, almost all the clergy were arrested, all Polish universities and secondary schools were closed, Polish cultural institutions were liquidated, the Polish intelligentsia and civil servants were systematically destroyed. The Poles lost about 2 million people who were not military personnel, as well as 45% of doctors, 57% of lawyers, 40% of university professors, 30% of engineers, 18% of priests, almost all journalists. It is believed that during the Second World War, Poland lost more than 20% of its population - about 6 million people.

In the spring of 1940, employees of the NKVD of the USSR carried out mass executions of Polish citizens (mostly captured officers of the Polish army). The executions were carried out by decision of the troika of the NKVD of the USSR in accordance with the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of March 5, 1940. According to published archival documents, a total of 21,857 Polish prisoners were shot. On November 26, 2010, the State Duma of Russia adopted a statement “On the Katyn tragedy and its victims”, in which it recognizes the mass execution of Polish citizens in Katyn as a crime of the Stalinist regime.

However, a number of Russian politicians, publicists, lawyers and historians currently adhere to the official Soviet version - the execution of Polish officers near Katyn was a systematic action of the destruction of the Polish aristocracy and Jews by the Germans in 1941.

On July 30, 1941, after the German attack, the USSR recognized the "London" government in exile; on Soviet territory, military units subordinate to him were formed from Polish citizens, which were withdrawn from the USSR in 1942 and subsequently distinguished themselves in battles in Italy.

On April 25, 1943, the USSR broke off relations with the "London" government because of its anti-Soviet position in connection with the execution of Polish officers. After that, Stalin creates the 1st Infantry Division of the Polish Army named after him from the Polish citizens remaining in the USSR. Tadeusz Kosciuszko under the command of Colonel Sigmund Berling, who had deserted from the Polish army of Anders.

Together with units of the Soviet army, Berling's division also advanced to the borders of Poland. On July 20, 1944, the Red Army crossed the "Curzon Line", and the very next day the "Polish Committee of National Liberation" was created, led by the Communists (Lublin Committee), which took over the functions of the interim government with Soviet support. At the end of July, the question arose, whose power - London or Lublin (that is, Moscow) would be established on the territory of Poland. Parts of the Red Army approached Warsaw. On August 1, in Warsaw, on the orders of the "London government", an uprising began, led by the Home Army and led by General Bur-Komorowski, with the aim of liberating Warsaw before the arrival of Soviet troops. Meanwhile, the Germans launched a counterattack near Warsaw, and Rokossovsky (a few hours before the start of the uprising in Warsaw) was forced to order the 2nd Panzer Division advancing on the city to go on the defensive.

Stalin disregarded the Zhukov-Rokossovsky plan, which assumed the resumption of the offensive after the regrouping, and after an appeal from Winston Churchill, who supported the "London government", did not allow the use of Soviet airfields to help the rebels. The Germans brutally suppressed the uprising, destroying 70% of the city and its inhabitants. The offensive of the Red Army resumed on January 12, 1945.

On January 17, 1945, Warsaw was liberated by the Red Army, and by the beginning of February, almost all of Poland had been liberated from the Germans. The Polish Workers' Party was finally confirmed in power, although for this it was necessary to break the strong resistance of the insurgent groups, which consisted mainly of former soldiers and officers of the Home Army, reaching the level of guerrilla warfare.

During the war in Poland there were mass murders of the Jewish population by the Germans and members of the Polish nationalist underground. The last major Jewish pogrom took place in 1946 in Kielce and involved Polish police and military. The Holocaust and the anti-Semitic atmosphere of the post-war years caused a new round of emigration from Poland.

By decision of the Berlin Conference of 1945, the western border of Poland was established along the rivers Odra (Oder) and Nysa-Luzhitskaya (Neisse), two-thirds of eastern Prussia departed for Poland. During the demarcation of the Soviet-Polish post-war border, Poland departs the Bialystok region (from the BSSR) and the city of Przemysl (from the Ukrainian SSR). Poland returns to Czechoslovakia the Teszyn region, captured in 1938.

The extermination of Jews, the post-war eviction of Germans from German lands annexed to Poland, as well as the establishment of new borders with the USSR and the exchange of population with it, made Poland practically a mono-ethnic state.

In 1999, Poland joined the NATO bloc and supported the bombing of Yugoslavia (1999), the bloc's intervention in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003).

On April 10, 2010, the plane of Polish President Lech Kaczynski, en route to Smolensk to participate in events dedicated to the anniversary of the Katyn tragedy, crashed. All passengers and crew members were killed, including the president and his wife. Marshal of the Sejm Bronisław Komorowski became acting head of state.

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

First, it was necessary to urgently 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 Kievan Rus. Of course, in many respects they were guided not only by the ideas of reunification of once divided peoples, but also by the desire to increase the share of arable land and the number of taxpayers. Simply put, the foreign policy of Russia in the 17th century was aimed at restoring the integrity of the country. The turmoil had an extremely hard impact on the country: the treasury was empty, many peasants became so impoverished that it was simply impossible to take taxes from them. The acquisition of new lands, not plundered by the Poles, would not only restore the political prestige of Russia, 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 was formed - the Zaporizhzhya Sich. There was no feudal dependence in Zaporozhye. The Cossacks had their own self-government, an elected hetman and "ataman".

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. The strengthening of religious, national and social oppression leads to the beginning of the liberation war.

In 1648 it was headed by Bogdan Khmelnitsky. He expels the Polish garrison from the Sich, is elected hetman and appeals to the Cossacks with a call for an uprising. Having entered into a military alliance with the Crimean Tatars, Khmelnitsky inflicted defeat on the Poles near Zhovti Vody, Korsun and Pylyavtsy.

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

In 1650, the Polish troops launched a new campaign against Khmelnitsky, and in 1651, as a result of the betrayal of the Crimean Khan Islam Giray (who led the troops away from the battlefield), they managed to win near Berestechko. The Poles restored their power over Ukraine, limiting the number of Cossacks to 20,000.

B. Khmelnitsky, realizing the impossibility of confronting Poland alone, repeatedly raises 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 the hetman Khmelnitsky. On January 8, 1654, the Pereyaslav Rada decided to accept citizenship and took an oath of allegiance to the tsar, confirming their consent to the entry of Ukraine into Russia.

This caused the war of 1654-1667. between the Commonwealth and Russia. The war was protracted and ended with the Andrusovo truce of 1667. Smolensk region, Left-Bank Ukraine and Kyiv were ceded to Russia. In 1686, an "eternal peace" was concluded with Poland, which fixed the terms of the Attdrus truce. Belarus remained part of Poland.

The reunification of Ukraine and Russia strengthened the Russian state economically, politically and militarily, 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 Cardis, Russia was forced to return its lands in Livonia to Sweden, and found itself without access to the sea.

In 1677 the war with Turkey for Ukraine began. 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 (1681) on a truce for 20 years in Bakhchisarai. Turkey recognized the left bank and Kyiv for Russia. The lands between the Dnieper and Kyiv remained neutral.

Many Poles dislike Russia and Russians. Today is a national holiday - National Unity Day. It is connected with the Polish intervention. But the attitude of Russians towards Poles is traditionally positive. I decided that it would be useful to know everything about Russian-Polish relations.

In the XVI-XVII centuries. Russia and Poland waged numerous wars among themselves. The Livonian War (1558-1583) was fought by Moscow Rus against the Livonian Order, the Polish-Lithuanian state, Sweden and Denmark for hegemony in the Baltic states. In addition to Livonia, the Russian Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible hoped to conquer the East Slavic lands that were part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. For Russian-Polish relations, the unification of Lithuania and Poland during the war into a single state - the Commonwealth (Unia of Lublin in 1569) became important.

The confrontation between Russia and Lithuania was replaced by the confrontation between Russia and Poland. King Stefan Batory inflicted a number of defeats on the Russian army and was stopped only under the walls of Pskov. According to the Yam Zapolsky (1582) peace treaty with Poland, Russia renounced its conquests in Lithuania and lost access to the Baltic.

During the Time of Troubles, the Poles invaded Russia three times.

For the first time, under the pretext of helping the supposedly legitimate Tsar Dmitry - False Dmitry I. In 1610, the Moscow government, the so-called Seven Boyars, itself called the Polish prince Vladislav IV to the Russian throne and let the Polish troops into the city. In 1612, the Poles were expelled from Moscow by the people's militia under the command of Minin and Pozharsky. In 1617, Prince Vladislav made a campaign against Moscow. After an unsuccessful assault, he entered into negotiations and signed the Deulin truce. The Poles got Smolensk, Chernigov and Seversk lands.

In June 1632, after the Deulino truce, Russia tried to recapture Smolensk from Poland, but was defeated (Smolensk War, 1632-1634). The Poles failed to build on the success, the borders remained unchanged. However, for the Russian government, the most important condition was the official renunciation of the Polish king Vladislav IV from his claims to the Russian throne.

The new Russian-Polish war (1654-1667) began after the acceptance of the Hetmanate of Bohdan Khmelnitsky into Russia under the Pereyaslav agreements. According to the peace treaty of Andrusovo, the Smolensk and Chernihiv lands and the Left-bank Ukraine passed to Russia, and Zaporozhye was declared under a joint Russian-Polish protectorate. Kyiv was declared a temporary possession of Russia, but according to the "Eternal Peace" on May 16, 1686, it finally passed to it.

Ukrainian and Belarusian lands became a “bone of contention” for Poland and Russia until the middle of the 20th century.

The end of the Russian-Polish wars was facilitated by the threat to both states from Turkey and its vassal, the Crimean Khanate.

In the Northern War against Sweden 1700-1721. Poland was an ally of Russia.

In the 2nd half of the XVIII century. the gentry of the Commonwealth, torn apart by internal contradictions, was in a state of deep crisis and decline, which made it possible for Prussia and Russia to interfere in its affairs. Russia participated in the War of the Polish Succession 1733-1735.
Sections of the Commonwealth in 1772-1795 between Russia, Prussia and Austria took place without major wars, because the state, weakened due to internal turmoil, could no longer offer serious resistance to more powerful neighbors.

As a result of the three sections of the Commonwealth and the redistribution at the Vienna Congress of 1814-1815. Tsarist Russia was transferred to most of the Warsaw principality (formed Kingdom of Poland). Polish national liberation uprisings of 1794 (led by Tadeusz Kosciuszko), 1830-1831, 1846, 1848, 1863-1864 were suppressed.

In 1918, the Soviet government annulled all the treaties of the tsarist government on the division of the country.

After the defeat of Germany in the First World War, Poland became an independent state. Its leadership made plans to restore the borders of the Commonwealth in 1772. The Soviet government, on the contrary, intended to establish control over the entire territory of the former Russian Empire, making it, as officially declared, a springboard for world revolution.

The Soviet-Polish war of 1920 began successfully for Russia, Tukhachevsky's troops were near Warsaw, but then the defeat followed. According to various estimates, from 80 to 165 thousand Red Army soldiers were taken prisoner. Polish researchers consider documented the death of 16,000 of them. Russian and Soviet historians put the number at 80,000. According to the Riga Peace Treaty of 1921, Western Ukraine and Western Belarus were ceded to Poland.

On August 23, 1939, a non-aggression pact was concluded between the USSR and Germany, better known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Attached to the treaty was a secret additional protocol defining the delimitation of Soviet and German spheres of influence in Eastern Europe. On August 28, an explanation was signed to the "secret additional protocol", which delimited the spheres of influence "in the event of a territorial and political reorganization of the regions that are part of the Polish State." The zone of influence of the USSR included the territory of Poland to the east of the line of the rivers Pissa, Narew, Bug, Vistula, San. This line roughly corresponded to the so-called "Curzon Line", along which it was supposed to establish the eastern border of Poland after the First World War.

On September 1, 1939, fascist Germany unleashed World War II by attacking Poland. Having defeated the Polish army within a few weeks, she occupied most of the country. On September 17, 1939, in accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Red Army crossed the eastern border of Poland.

Soviet troops captured 240,000 Polish soldiers. More than 14 thousand officers of the Polish army were interned in the fall of 1939 on the territory of the USSR. In 1943, two years after the occupation of the western regions of the USSR by German troops, there were reports that NKVD officers shot Polish officers in the Katyn forest, located 14 kilometers west of Smolensk.
In May 1945, the territory of Poland was completely liberated by units of the Red Army and the Polish Army. Over 600 thousand Soviet soldiers and officers died in the battles for the liberation of Poland.

By the decisions of the Berlin (Potsdam) Conference of 1945, Poland was returned to its western lands, and the border along the Oder-Neisse was established. After the war, the construction of a socialist society was proclaimed in Poland under the leadership of the Polish United Workers' Party (PUWP). The Soviet Union rendered great assistance in the restoration and development of the national economy. In 1945-1993. the Soviet Northern Group of Forces was stationed in Poland; in 1955-1991 Poland was a member of the Warsaw Treaty Organization.

By the manifesto of the Polish Committee of National Liberation of July 22, 1944, Poland was proclaimed the Polish Republic. From July 22, 1952 to December 29, 1989 - the Polish People's Republic. Since December 29, 1989 - the Republic of Poland.

Diplomatic relations between the RSFSR and Poland were established in 1921, between the USSR and Poland - from January 5, 1945, the successor - the Russian Federation.

On May 22, 1992, the Treaty of Friendly and Good Neighborly Relations was signed between Russia and Poland.

The legal foundation of relations forms an array of documents concluded between the former USSR and Poland, as well as over 40 interstate and intergovernmental treaties and agreements signed over the past 18 years.

In the period 2000-2005. political ties between Russia and Poland were maintained quite intensively. President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin had 10 meetings with President of the Republic of Poland Aleksander Kwasniewski. Contacts were regularly made between the heads of government and ministers of foreign affairs, through the parliamentary line. There was a bilateral Committee on the Strategy of Russian-Polish Cooperation, meetings of the Russia-Poland Public Dialogue Forum were held regularly.

After 2005, the intensity and level of political contacts decreased significantly. This was influenced by the confrontational line of the Polish leadership, expressed in maintaining a socio-political atmosphere unfriendly towards our country.

The new Polish government headed by Donald Tusk, formed in November 2007, declares its interest in normalizing Russian-Polish ties and readiness for an open dialogue in order to find solutions to the accumulated problems in bilateral relations.

On August 6, 2010, the inauguration of the elected President of Poland, Bronisław Komorowski, took place. In his solemn speech, Komorowski said that he would support the process of rapprochement with Russia that had begun: "I will contribute to the process of rapprochement and Polish-Russian reconciliation that has begun. This is an important challenge facing both Poland and Russia."

It seems to me that we should not forget both the bad and the good. It is very important to remember that Poland in history was both an ally of Russia and part of the Russian Empire for a century. History teaches us that friends can be traitors, but there are no enemies forever either.

"History of Russian-Polish Relations in the 17th - 19th Centuries"

Content

1. Troubles and Polish intervention

1.1 Pretenders and Poland

1.1.1 False Dmitry I

1.1.2 False Dmitry II

1.1.2.1 Treaty with King Sigismund (4 February 1610)

1.1.2.2 Moscow treaty with Zholkiewski (August 17, 1610)

1.1.2.3 The first militia against the Poles (zemstvo sentence June 30, 1611)

1.1.2.4 The common people and the impostor (Bolotnikov's uprising)

1.2 Second Home Guard against the Poles

2. Foreign policy of Russia at the end of the XVII century.

2.1 A.L. Ordin-Nashchokin and his dreams of a close union with Poland

2.2 Prince V.V. Golitsyn and the Moscow Treaty of Perpetual Peace with Poland

3. Catherine and relations with Poland

3.2 Union with Prussia and the Polish question

3.3 Contradictions of Russian policy in Poland

3.4 Partitions of Poland

4. Russia and the Kingdom of Poland

4.1 Constitution of the Kingdom of Poland

4.2 Failure of Alexander I's reforms

Conclusion

Literature

Introduction

Seven years have passed - seven serene years of Boris' reign. But with the death of Tsar Fedor, the suspicious popular rumor revived. Finally, in 1604, the most terrible rumor spread. For three years already in Moscow they were whispering about an unknown person who called himself Tsarevich Dimitri. The news spread that the real prince was alive and was coming from Lithuania to get the ancestral throne. Tsar Boris died in the spring of 1605, shocked by the successes of the impostor, who, having reigned in Moscow, was soon killed. And the Trouble went...

1.1 Pretenders and Poland

So get ready and start Trouble. The violent and mysterious suppression of the dynasty was the first impetus to the Troubles. The suppression of a dynasty is, of course, a misfortune in the history of a monarchical state; nowhere, however, was it accompanied by such devastating consequences as with us. But neither the suppression of the dynasty, nor the appearance of an impostor are sufficient causes of the Troubles ... These real causes of the Troubles must be sought under the external causes that caused it. The boyars began the Troubles.

In the nest of the boyars most persecuted by Boris, with Romanov at the head, the idea of ​​​​an impostor was most likely hatched. They blamed the Poles, but it was only baked in a Polish oven, and fermented in Moscow.

1.1.1 False Dmitry I

This unknown someone who sat on the Moscow throne after Boris arouses great anecdotal interest. His personality still remains mysterious ... For a long time, the opinion, coming from Boris himself, prevailed that he was the son of a Galician petty nobleman Yuri Otrepyev, monastic Grigory. But what is important for us is not the identity of the impostor, but his identity, the role he played. He was an unprecedented phenomenon on the throne of Moscow sovereigns. Richly gifted, with a lively mind, easily resolving the most difficult issues in the Boyar Duma, with a lively, even ardent temperament, he was a master of speech, and discovered quite a variety of knowledge. By his course of action, he gained wide and strong affection among the people, although some in Moscow suspected and openly denounced him of imposture. But False Dmitry himself looked at himself in a completely different way: he behaved like a legitimate, natural king.

Be that as it may, he did not sit on the throne, because he did not live up to boyar expectations. He acted too independently, developed his own special political plans, even very bold and broad ones in foreign policy, tried to raise all the Catholic powers with Orthodox Russia at the head against the Turks and Tatars. Outraged not only boyars, but all Muscovites willful and reckless Poles with which the new tsar flooded Moscow. However, the main reason for his fall was different. It was expressed by the leader of the boyar conspiracy against the impostor, Prince V.I. Shuisky. At a meeting of conspirators on the eve of the uprising, he frankly stated that he recognized False Dmitry only in order to get rid of Godunov. The boyars saw in the impostor their costumed doll, which they held until the time on the throne, then threw it into the backyards.

Most of all, they grumbled at the impostor because of the Poles; On May 17, 1607, the boyars led the people to the Kremlin, shouting: " The Poles beat the boyars and the sovereign". Their goal was to surround False Dmitry as if for protection and kill him.

1.1.2 False Dmitry II

After the impostor tsar, Prince V.I. Shuisky, conspirator tsar. Few people were pleased with Tsar Vasily. The main reasons for dissatisfaction were the incorrect path of V. Shuisky to the throne and his dependence on the circle of boyars who elected him and played him like a child, in the words of a contemporary. If they are dissatisfied with the present tsar, they need an impostor: impostorism has become a stereotypical form of Russian political thinking, into which all public discontent was molded. And rumors about the salvation of False Dmitry I, i.e. about the second impostor, they went from the first minutes of the reign of Vasily, when the second False Dmitry was not yet at the factory.

False Dmitry II was found and reinforced Polish-Lithuanian and Cossack detachments in the summer of 1608 stood in the village of Tushino near Moscow; since the second impostor, although behind the scenes, but quite clearly supported Polish government, then Tsar Vasily turned to Charles IX for help against the Tushinians (enmity between Sweden and Poland). The negotiations ended with the dispatch of an auxiliary Swedish detachment, for which Tsar Basil was forced to conclude eternal alliance with Sweden against Poland and make other heavy concessions. Sigismund responded to such a direct challenge with an open break with Moscow, and in the fall of 1609 he laid siege to Smolensk.

1.1.2.1 Treaty with King Sigismund (4 February 1610)

In the Tushino camp, the impostor had many Poles. Despised and insulted by their own Polish allies, the tsar in a peasant's dress and on a dungeon sleigh barely escaped to Kaluga from the vigilant supervision under which he was kept in Tushino. The Russian Tushians were forced (after the Poles (Tushins) entered into an agreement with the king, who called them to his place near Smolensk) to choose ambassadors for negotiations with Sigismund on the election of his son Vladislav to the throne of Moscow.

Abandoned by personal ambition or general turmoil in the rebellious half-Russian - half-Polish Tushinsky camp, they, however, took on the role of representatives of the Muscovite state, the Russian land. This was a usurpation on their part, which did not give them any right to zemstvo recognition of their fictitious powers. Communication with the Poles, acquaintance with their freedom-loving concepts and customs expanded the political horizons of these Russian adventurers, and they made it a condition for the king to elect his son as king not only to preserve the ancient rights and liberties of the Muscovite people, but also to add new ones, which this people had not yet enjoyed. The Tushino ambassadors tried to protect their fatherland from the power called from the outside, heterodox and foreign (one of the ambassadors, the boyar Saltykov, wept when he spoke to the king about the preservation of Orthodoxy).

This agreement (M. Saltykov and his comrades with King Sigismund), concluded on February 4, 1610 near Smolensk, set out the conditions under which the Tushino representatives recognized Prince Vladislav as Tsar of Moscow.

First of all, the inviolability of the Russian Orthodox faith is ensured, and then the rights of the entire people and its individual classes are determined.

The idea of ​​individual rights, so little noticed among us before, in agreement February 4 appears for the first time with somewhat definite outlines. Everyone is judged according to the law, no one is punished without trial. Completely new two conditions: do not demote high-ranking people without guilt, but raise low-ranking people according to their merits; each of the people of Moscow for the sake of science is free to travel to other Christian states, and the sovereign will not take away property for that. The thought even flashed of religious tolerance, of freedom of conscience. In defining estate rights, the Tushino ambassadors showed less free-thinking and justice. The serfs remain in their former dependence on the masters, and the sovereign will not give them liberties. The sovereign shares his power with two institutions, the Zemsky Sobor and the Boyar Duma.

1.1.2.2 Moscow treaty with Zholkiewski (August 17, 1610)

The February 4 treaty was a matter mainly for the metropolitan nobility and deacon (middle classes). But the course of events has given it a broader meaning. The nephew of Tsar Vasily, Prince M.V. Skopin-Shuisky with a Swedish detachment cleared the northern cities of Tushino and in March 1610 entered Moscow. The young gifted governor was the successor of the old childless uncle, desired by the people. But he suddenly died.

The army of the king, sent against Sigismund to Smolensk, was defeated by the Polish hetman Zolkiewski. Then the nobles, with Zakhar Lyapunov at their head, brought Tsar Vasily down from the throne and tonsured him. Moscow swore allegiance to the Boyar Duma as a provisional government. She had to choose between two applicants for the throne, Vladislav, whose recognition Zholkevsky, who was going to Moscow, demanded, and an impostor, who also approached the capital, counting on the favor of the Moscow common people. Fearing a thief, Moscow boyars entered into an agreement with Zholkevsky on the terms accepted by the king near Smolensk. However, the agreement, on which on August 17, 1610 Moscow swore allegiance to Vladislav, was not a repetition of the act of 4 February. The ruling nobility was at the lowest level of concepts in comparison with the middle service classes. Saltykov and his comrades felt the changes taking place more vividly than the paramount nobility, they suffered more from the lack of a political charter and from the personal arbitrariness of power, and the experienced coups and clashes with foreigners strongly encouraged their thought to seek means against these inconveniences and imparted to their political concepts more breadth and clarity.

1.1.2.3 The first militia against the Poles (zemstvo sentence June 30, 1611)

Following the middle and higher metropolitan nobility, the ordinary, provincial nobility is also drawn into the Time of Troubles.

Having sworn allegiance to Vladislav, the Moscow boyar government sent an embassy to Sigismund to ask his son for the kingdom and, out of fear of the Moscow mob, who sympathized with the second impostor, brought Zholkevsky's detachment into the capital. But the death of the Tushinsky thief at the end of 1610 freed everyone's hands, and a strong popular movement arose against the Poles: the cities united to cleanse the state of foreigners. The first to revolt, of course, was Prokofy Lyapunov with his Ryazan. But, before the assembled militia approached Moscow, the Poles cut themselves with the Muscovites and burned the capital (March 1611). The militia, besieging the surviving Kremlin and Kitay-gorod, where the Poles settled, chose a provisional government of three persons (princes Trubetskoy and Zarutsky, and noble leader P. Lyapunov). The verdict was given to this government on June 30, 1611. Political ideas in the verdict are hardly noticeable, but class claims come out sharply. The militia stood near Moscow for more than two months, had not yet done anything important for its rescue, and was already acting as the all-powerful manager of the land.

1.1.2.4 The common people and the impostor (Bolotnikov's uprising)

Having acted hand in hand with the provincial nobles, the common people then separate from them and act equally hostile both against the boyars and against the nobility. The instigator of a noble uprising in the south, Prince Shakhovskoy, accepts as an employee a businessman of a completely non-noble analysis: it was Bolotnikov, a brave and experienced man, a boyar serf who was captured by the Tatars, who experienced Turkish hard labor and returned to the fatherland as an agent of the second impostor, when he was not yet available, but was only conceived. The movement raised by the nobles, Bolotnikov led into the depths of society, from where he himself emerged, recruited his squads from the layers that lay at the bottom of the social warehouse, and directed them against the governors, gentlemen and all those in power. He and his rabble victoriously reached Moscow itself, more than once beating the tsarist troops (he was supported by the rebellious nobles of the southern counties). From his camp, proclamations were distributed throughout Moscow calling on serfs to beat their masters. Lyapunov and other noble leaders, having looked at who they were dealing with, left the army of Bolotnikov and made it easier for the tsarist army to defeat the rabble detachments. Bolotnikov died, but his attempt resonated everywhere: everywhere peasants, serfs - everything runaway and destitute stood up for an impostor. The action of these classes both prolonged the Time of Troubles and gave it a different character. When the social rank rose, the Troubles turned into a social struggle, into the extermination of the upper classes by the lower ones. Bolotnikov called under his banners everyone who wanted to achieve freedom, honor and wealth. The real king of this people was the thief Tushinsky.

1.2 Second Home Guard against the Poles

At the end of 1611, the Muscovite state presented a spectacle of complete visible destruction. The Poles took Smolensk; the Polish detachment burned Moscow and fortified behind the surviving walls of the Kremlin and Kitay-Gorod; the Swedes occupied Novgorod and put forward one of their princes as a candidate for the throne of Moscow; to replace the murdered second False Dmitry in Pskov, a third, some kind of Sidorka, sat down; the first noble militia near Moscow was upset with the death of Lyapunov.

Meanwhile, the country was left without a government. The Boyar Duma, which became its head after the deposition of V. Shuisky, was abolished by itself when the Poles captured the Kremlin, where some of the boyars sat with their chairman, Prince Mstislavsky. The state was transformed into some formless, restless federation. But from the end of 1611, when the political forces were exhausted, religious and national forces began to awaken, which went to the rescue of the perishing land. The inhabitants of Nizhny Novgorod rose up under the leadership of their headman, the butcher Kuzma Minin. At the call of the Nizhny Novgorod city noblemen, the children of the boyars began to flock, to whom Minin found a leader, Prince Dmitry Pozharsky. So it was the second noble militia against the Poles. For four months, the militia settled down, for six months it moved towards Moscow, replenished along the way by crowds of service people. Near Moscow stood the Cossack detachment of Prince Trubetskoy, remnant of the first militia. The Cossacks were more terrible for the zemstvo noble rati than the Poles themselves, and to the proposal of Prince Trubetskoy she answered: "We must not stand together with the Cossacks." But it soon became clear that nothing could be done without the support of the Cossacks. In October 1612, the Cossacks stormed Kitay-gorod. But the Zemstvo militia did not dare to storm the Kremlin; sitting there a handful of Poles surrendered themselves, driven by hunger to cannibalism. The Cossack chieftains, and not the Moscow governors, recaptured King Sigismund from Volokolamsk, who was heading towards Moscow in order to return it to Polish hands, and forced him to return home. The noble militia here once again showed in the Time of Troubles its little suitability for work, which was its class craft and state duty.

The soil for the Time of Troubles was the painful mood of the people, the general feeling of discontent carried by the people from the reign of Ivan the Terrible and strengthened by the reign of B. Godunov. The reason for the Troubles was given by the suppression of the dynasty, followed by attempts to artificially restore it in the person of impostors, who were supported by the ruling circles of the Commonwealth ...

Open aggression under the leadership of Sigismund III into the Russian state at the beginning of the 17th century. ended in failure.

The Troubles were put to an end by the accession to the throne of the king, who became the ancestor of new dynasty: This was the first immediate consequence of the Troubles.

Foreign policy of Russia at the end of the 17th century.

At the end of the XVII century. in Russia there is a general feeling of the severity of the situation! The court, the personnel of the dynasty and foreign policy brought this feeling to a deep popular dissatisfaction with the course of affairs in the state.

Foreign policy most of all created the financial difficulties of the government. The diplomacy of Tsar Michael, especially after the poorly calculated and ineptly executed Smolensk campaign, was still distinguished by the usual caution of the beaten. Under Tsar Alexei, the shocks received by his father began to be forgotten. Against their will, involved in the struggle for Little Russia after a long hesitation, in Moscow they were inspired by the brilliant campaign of 1654-1655, when not only the Smolensk region, but all of Belarus and Lithuania were immediately conquered. The Moscow imagination ran far ahead of prudence: they did not think that such successes were due not to themselves, but to the Swedes, who at the same time attacked the Poles from the west and diverted the best Polish forces.

Moscow policy took an unusually large course: they spared neither people nor money in order to defeat Poland, and put the Moscow Tsar on the Polish throne, and drive the Swedes out of Poland, and repel the Crimeans and the Turks themselves from Little Russia, and capture not only both sides of the Dnieper region , but also Galicia itself, where in 1660 Sheremetev's army was sent. And with all these intertwined plans, they so confused and weakened themselves that after 21 years of exhausting struggle on three fronts and a series of unprecedented defeats, they abandoned Lithuania, and Belarus, and the right-bank Ukraine, content with the Smolensk and Seversk lands and Little Russia on the left bank with Kyiv on the right. Even the Crimean Tatars in the Treaty of Bakhchisaray in 1681 could not draw out either a convenient steppe border, or the abolition of the shameful annual tribute to the khan, or the recognition of Moscow citizenship of Zaporozhye.

2.1 A.L. Ordin-Nashchokin and his dreams of a close union with Poland

The most remarkable of the Moscow statesmen of the XVII century. Tsar Alexei created in the Russian society of the XVII century. transformative mood.

Ordin - Nashchokin - the most brilliant of the employees of Tsar Alexei. He led the double preparation of the reform of Peter the Great. He expressed many transformative ideas and plans, which were later carried out by Peter the Great. Then, Ordin-Nashchokin had to not only act in a new way, but also create the environment for his activities himself. He was perhaps the first provincial nobleman who made his way into the circle of this arrogant nobility (the old well-born boyars). Afanasy Lavrentievich was the son of a very modest Pskov landowner. He became famous even under Tsar Michael: he was repeatedly appointed to the embassy commissions to demarcate the borders with Sweden. In January 1667, in Andrusov, he concluded a truce with Poland, which put an end to the devastating thirteen-year war for both sides.. He pulled from the Poles not only Smolensk and Seversk lands and eastern Little Russia, but also from the west - Kyiv with the district. He was granted a boyar and appointed state chancellor.

The Pskov region, bordering on Livonia, has long been in close relations with neighboring Germans and Swedes. Careful observation of foreign orders and the habit of comparing them with domestic ones made Nashchokin an ardent admirer of Western Europe and a cruel critic of domestic life.

Foreigners liked his attachment to the Western European order and censure of his own, but this same thing made him many enemies among his own.

Nashchokin had his own diplomatic plans, peculiar views on the tasks of Moscow's foreign policy. He saw that in the situation at that time and with the available funds of the Muscovite state, it was impossible for him to fully resolve the question of the reunification of Southwestern Russia with Great Russia. That is why he leaned towards peace and even towards a close alliance with Poland, and although he knew well "the shaky, soulless and fickle Polish people," he expected various benefits from an alliance with them. By the way, he hoped, the Turkish Christians, Moldavians and Volokhi, having heard about this union, would secede from the Turks, and then all the children of the Eastern Church, living from the Danube right up to the borders of Great Russia and now separated by hostile Poland, would merge into a numerous Christian people, patronized by the Orthodox Tsar of Moscow, and the Swedish intrigues, which are possible only during the Russian-Polish strife, will stop by themselves.

Busy about a close alliance with an age-old enemy and even dreaming of a dynastic union with Poland under the rule of the Muscovite tsar or his son, Nashchokin made an extremely sharp turn in Moscow's foreign policy.

The idea of ​​uniting all the Slavs under the amicable leadership of Moscow and Poland was Nashchokin's political idyll.

As a practical businessman, he was more concerned with interests of a more businesslike nature. He tried to arrange trade relations with Persia and Central Asia, with Khiva and Bukhara, equipped an embassy to India, looked at the Far East, at China, thinking about the arrangement of the Cossack colonization of the Amur region. But in the foreground is the Baltic Sea. He understood the commercial, industrial and cultural significance of this sea for Russia, and therefore Sweden attracted his attention, namely Livonia, which, in his opinion, should be obtained at all costs: from this acquisition he expected enormous benefits for Russian industry and the tsar's treasury . Carried away by the ideas of his businessman, Tsar Alexei looked in the same direction, fussed about the return of the former Russian possessions, about acquiring the harbors of Narva, Ivan-gorod, Oreshka and the entire course of the Neva River with the Swedish fortress Kantsy (Nienschanz), where Petersburg later arose. But Nashchokin took a broader view of the matter: you need to get straight to the sea, acquire Riga, the pier of which opens the nearest direct route to Western Europe. To form a coalition against Sweden in order to take away Livonia from her - this was Nashchokin's cherished thought. To do this, he lobbied for peace with the Crimean Khan, for a close alliance with Poland, sacrificing western Little Russia. This idea was not crowned with success, but Peter the Great completely inherited these thoughts of his father's minister.

Nashchokin did not fully agree with the tsar in his views on the tasks of foreign policy. The culprit of the Andrusov treaty firmly stood for its exact execution, i.e. the possibility of returning Kyiv to Poland. Appointed in 1671 for new negotiations with Poland, in which he was to destroy his own business, violate the agreement with the Poles, Nashchokin refused to fulfill the order.

Ordin-Nashchokin warned Peter in many ways and was the first to express many ideas that the converter implemented.

2.2 Prince V.V. Golitsyn and the Moscow Treaty of Perpetual Peace with Poland

The youngest of Peter's predecessors was Prince V.V. Golitsyn. While still a young man, he was already a prominent person in the government circle under Tsar Fedor and became one of the most influential people under Princess Sophia, when, after the death of her older brother, she became the ruler of the state.

Golitsyn was an ardent admirer of the West. Like Nashchokin, he spoke fluent Latin and Polish. In his vast Moscow house, which foreigners considered one of the most magnificent in Europe, everything was arranged in a European way: mirrors, paintings, portraits, geographical maps; planetary system on ceilings; many clocks and a thermometer of artistic work, a significant and varied library. One of the successors of Ordin - Nashchokin in managing the Ambassadorial order, Prince Golitsyn developed the ideas of his predecessor. With his assistance in 1686, the Moscow Treaty of Eternal Peace with Poland took place, according to which the Muscovite state took part in the coalition struggle with Turkey in alliance with Poland, the German Empire and Venice. Poland forever asserted for Moscow Kyiv and other Moscow acquisitions, temporarily ceded by the Andrusovo truce. Undoubtedly, broad reformative plans swarmed in his head. It is a pity that we know only fragments of them, recorded Polish envoy(Neville), who arrived in Moscow in 1689, shortly before the fall of Sophia and Golitsyn.

3. Catherine and relations with Poland

In the 18th century, during the reign of Catherine, foreign policy towards Poland was dominated by one simple goal, which can be described by the words: "territorial cutting of a hostile neighbor in order to round off its own borders." It was necessary to complete the political unification of the Russian people, reuniting with Russia torn from its western part. This is a Western question or Polish.

3.1 Count Panin N.I. and his system

They were waiting for the imminent death of the Polish king Augustus III. For Russia, it was all the same who would be king, but Catherine had a candidate whom she wanted to hold, no matter what. It was Stanislav Poniatowski, a veil born for the boudoir, not for any throne. This candidacy brought with it a string of temptations and difficulties... Finally, the whole course of foreign policy had to be turned sharply. Until then, Russia had maintained an alliance with Austria, which France had joined in the Seven Years' War.

At first, upon accession, still poorly understanding matters, Catherine asked the opinions of her advisers about the peace with Prussia concluded under Peter III. The advisers did not recognize this peace as useful for Russia and spoke in favor of resuming the alliance with Austria. A.P. also stood for this. Bestuzhev - Ryumin, whose opinion she then especially appreciated. But a diplomat younger than him, a student and opponent of his system, Count N.I., became near him. Panin, tutor of Grand Duke Paul. He was not only for peace, but directly for an alliance with Frederick, proving that without his assistance achieve nothing in Poland. Catherine for some time strengthened herself: she did not want to be an ally of the king, whom she publicly called the villain of Russia in the July manifesto, but Panin overcame and for a long time became Catherine's closest collaborator in foreign policy. The treaty of alliance with Prussia was signed on March 31, 1764, when in Poland, after the death of King August III, there was an election campaign. But this alliance was only an integral part of the planned complex system of international relations.

Panin became the conductor of an international combination unprecedented in Europe. According to his project, the northern non-Catholic states, however, with the inclusion and Catholic Poland, united for mutual support, for the protection of the weak by the strong. Its "active" members are Russia, Prussia and England. "Passive" - ​​Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Saxony and other small states that had a desire to join the union. The combat purpose of the union is direct opposition to the southern union (Austria-Franco-Spanish). All that was required of the "passive" states was that, in the event of clashes between the two alliances, they should not stick to the southern one, but remain neutral. It was sensational in its time northern system. It is easy to see her inconvenience. It was difficult to act together and amicably for states so diversely organized as autocratic Russia, constitutionally aristocratic England, soldierly monarchist Prussia and republican-anarchist Poland. In addition, the members of the union had too few common interests and the northern system was not clothed in any international act ( died before birth, unborn).

3.2 Union with Prussia and the Polish question

The treaty of March 31, 1764 was not needed by Russia. This alliance, whose aim was to ease Russia's tasks in Poland, only made them more difficult. The new king of Poland wanted to bring his fatherland out of anarchy through reforms. These reforms were not dangerous for Russia; it was even beneficial for her that Poland would grow stronger and become a useful ally in the fight against the common enemy, Turkey. But Frederick did not want to hear about the awakening of Poland from political lethargy, and pushed Catherine to an agreement with Poland (February 13, 1768), according to which Russia guaranteed the inviolability of the Polish constitution, undertook not to allow any changes in it. Thus, the Prussian Union armed its long-time ally Austria against Russia, and Austria, on the one hand, together with France, incited Turkey against Russia (1768), and on the other, sounded the European alarm: a unilateral Russian guarantee threatens the independence and existence of Poland, the interests of neighboring with it the powers and the entire political system of Europe.

So Frederick, relying on an alliance with Russia, pulled the Russian-Polish and Russian-Turkish affairs into one knot and removed both cases from the sphere of Russian politics, making them European issues, thereby depriving Russian politics of the means to resolve them historically correctly - separately and without a third party. participation.

3.3 Contradictions of Russian policy in Poland

Fewer political chimeras were allowed in the Polish question, but there were many diplomatic illusions, self-delusion, and most of all, contradictions. The issue was the reunification of Western Russia with the Russian state; so it stood in the 15th century. and a century and a half resolved in the same direction; so it was understood in Western Russia itself in the middle of the 18th century. The Orthodox expected from Russia, first of all, religious equality, freedom of religion. The political equation was even dangerous for them. In the Commonwealth, only the nobility enjoyed political rights.

The upper strata of the Orthodox Russian nobility became Polonized and Catholicized; what survived was poor and uneducated ... The Russian government achieved its goal, held at the Sejm, along with the Russian guarantee of the constitution and freedom of religion for dissidents, and their political equalization with the Catholic gentry. The dissident equation set all of Poland on fire. It was a kind of Polish - gentry Pugachevism, morals and methods are no better than Russian peasants. Although there is the robbery of the oppressors for the right to oppress, here it is the robbery of the oppressed for liberation from oppression.

The Polish government allowed the Russian Empress to put down the rebellion, while she herself remained a curious spectator of the events. There were up to 16,000 Russian troops in Poland. This division fought with half of Poland, as they said then. The Confederates found support everywhere; small and medium gentry secretly supplied them with everything they needed. Catherine was forced to refuse the admission of dissidents to the Senate and the Ministry, and only in 1775, after the first partition of Poland, they were approved the right to be elected to the Sejm, along with access to all positions. The orders of autocratic-noble Russian rule fell so hard on the lower classes that for a long time thousands of people fled to undressed Poland, where life was more tolerable on the lands of the masterful gentry. Panin therefore considered it harmful to give the Orthodox in the Commonwealth too broad rights (the flight from Russia would intensify). With such ambiguity in Russian policy, the Orthodox dissidents (fugitives) of Western Russia could not understand what Russia wanted to do for them, whether she had come to completely liberate them from Poland or only to equalize, whether she wanted to save them from the priest or from the Polish pan.

3.4 Partitions of Poland

The Russo-Turkish war gave matters a wider course. The idea of ​​dividing Poland has been circulating 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 a welcome opportunity. According to his plan, Austria, hostile to both of them, was involved in the alliance of Russia with Prussia, for diplomatic assistance to Russia in the war with Turkey, and all three powers received land rewards not from Turkey, but from Poland, which gave rise to war. Three years of negotiations! In 1772 (July 25), an agreement of three powers followed - shareholders. Russia misused its rights in both Turkey and Poland. The French minister gloatingly warned the Russian plenipotentiary that Russia would eventually regret the strengthening of Prussia, to which she 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 partition of Poland, which so strengthened Prussia and Austria, a crime deserving the death penalty. Be that as it may, a rare factor in European history will remain the case when the Slavic-Russian state in the 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. Through the fault of Friedrich, the victories of 1770 brought Russia more glory than good. Catherine emerged from the first Turkish war and from the first partition of Poland with the independent Tatars, with Belarus, and with a great moral defeat, arousing and not justifying so many hopes in Poland, in Western Russia, in Moldavia and Wallachia, in Montenegro, in the Sea.

It was necessary to reunite Western Russia; instead partitioned Poland. Russia annexed not only Western Russia, but also Lithuania and Courland, but not all of Western Russia, having ceded Galicia into German hands. With the fall of Poland, the clashes between the three powers were not weakened by any international buffer. Moreover, "our regiment has died" - one Slavic state has become less; it became part of two German states; this is a major loss for the Slavs; Russia did not appropriate anything primordially Polish, it took away only its ancient lands and part of Lithuania, which once attached them to Poland. Finally, the destruction of the Polish state did not save us from the fight against the Polish people: 70 years had not passed since the third partition of Poland, and Russia had already fought the Poles three times (1812, 1831, 1863). Perhaps, in order to avoid enmity with the people, its state should have been preserved.

4. Russia and the Kingdom of Poland

According to the definitions of the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815), Russia, as if as a reward for all that she had done to liberate the European peoples from the French yoke, received the Duchy of Warsaw. This Duchy of Warsaw, as is known, was formed by Napoleon after the war with Prussia in 1806-1807. from those provinces of the former Polish Republic, which, according to three sections, went to Prussia.

The Duchy of Warsaw formed by Napoleon was now renamed into the Kingdom of Poland with the addition of some parts of the Polish state to it, according to the division inherited by Russia, namely Lithuania.

4.1 Constitution of the Kingdom of Poland

The Kingdom of Poland was given to Russia without any conditions, but Alexander I himself insisted at the Congress of Vienna that a resolution be introduced into the international act of the congress obliging the governments of those states within which the former Polish provinces were located to give these provinces a constitutional structure. Alexander accepted this obligation; under this obligation, the Polish regions that were within the borders of Russia were to receive representation and such institutions as the Russian emperor would find useful and decent to give them. Because of this, it was developed the constitution of the Kingdom of Poland, approved by the emperor in 1815

By virtue of this constitution, in 1818 the first Polish Sejm was opened. Poland was ruled under the leadership of the governor, who was Alexander's brother Constantine; Legislative power in Poland belonged to the Sejm, which was divided into two chambers - the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. The Senate consisted of representatives of the church hierarchy and state administration, i.e., representatives of the gentry, urban and free rural communities. The first Diet was opened with a speech by the emperor, in which it was announced that representative institutions were always the subject of the sovereign's caring thoughts and that, applied with good intention and sincerity, they can serve as the basis of true national prosperity. It so happened that the conquered country received institutions freer than those governed by the conquering country. The Warsaw speech of 1818 resonated painfully in the hearts of Russian patriots. There were rumors that a new state system was being developed for the empire; this project was allegedly entrusted to a former employee of the emperor Novosiltsev.

4.2 Failure of Alexander I's reforms

We know the undertakings of Alexander I; they were all unsuccessful. The best of them are those that remained fruitless, others had a worse result, that is, worsened the state of affairs. In fact, dreams of a constitutional order were realized on the western edge of Russia, in the Kingdom of Poland. The operation of this constitution caused incalculable harm to history. This harm had a chance to be felt by the culprit of the Polish constitution himself. The Poles soon repaid the granted constitution with stubborn opposition at the Sejm, which forced them to abolish the publicity of the meetings and establish in Poland, in addition to the constitution, government in a purely Russian spirit.

Conclusion

After the Congress of Vienna in 1814-1815, Poland disappeared from the political map of Europe and was economically drained. 62% of its lands with 45% of the population went to Russia, laws and courts of the empire were introduced on the seized lands.

Polish national liberation uprisings of 1794, 1830-1831, 1846, 1848, 1863-1864 were suppressed. And since these uprisings broke out already on Russian territory, they were considered as riots, rebellions. The rebels were punished by exile, hard labor in Siberia.

The royal treasury received income from the confiscation of landowners' lands, the transfer to the treasury from administrative exiles. 1600 estates were confiscated in the Kingdom of Poland and 1800 estates in the western provinces. They were distributed, like the lands of churches and monasteries, to Russian landowners and participants in the suppression of the uprising.

After 10 years of exile, the Poles were transferred to the class of state peasants. They paid taxes. The Poles were employed in all sectors of the economy of the province: in gold mining, iron ore, timber industry, they built railways, horse-drawn roads, etc. From the end of the XVIII century. Siberian provinces are constantly replenished with thousands of convicts and exiled settlers from among the participants in the Polish uprisings of 1794, 1830-1831, 1846, 1863-1864.

In 1915-1918 the Kingdom of Poland was occupied by the troops of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The victory of the October Revolution in Russia created the prerequisites for the independence of Poland. The Soviet government annulled in August 1918 the treaties of the tsarist government on the divisions of Poland.

In November 1918, Soviets of Workers' Deputies were formed in many industrial centers of independent Poland; in December 1918, the Communist Party of Poland (KPP) was founded. However, power in Poland was seized by the bourgeoisie and landlords, who unleashed a war with Soviet Russia in 1920. According to the Riga Peace Treaty of 1921, the western part of the Ukrainian and Belarusian lands fell under the rule of Poland. The Potsdam Conference of 1945 established the western border of Poland along the river. Odra and Nysa Luzhytska.

Diplomatic relations between Poland and the Soviet state have been established since 1921 (with a break in 1939-1941 and 1943-1945). Poland has been a member of the CMEA since 1949, a member of the Warsaw Pact since 1955.

Relations between Poland and Russia after the collapse of the USSR is a completely different story.

Literature

1. Soviet encyclopedic dictionary. M. Soviet encyclopedia. 1985

2. Klyuchevsky V.O. About Russian history, M.: Enlightenment, 1993. Edited by Bulganov.

3. Nelly Laletina, T. Uleiskaya and others. Poles on the Yenisei. Digest of articles. Issue I Krasnoyarsk 2003 180 p. "Polish House"

Polish and Swedish interventions early 17th century to the Russian state ended in failure. Swedish intervention in the early 17th century. had the goal of tearing away Pskov, Novgorod, northwestern and northern Russian regions from Russia. It began in the summer of 1610 and developed until 1615. It did not achieve its main goals. It ended by February 1617 (Stolbovsky peace).

In the 1st millennium, the territory of Poland was inhabited by Slavic tribes (Polyany, Vistula, Mazowshan, etc.). At the end of the 10th c. the early feudal Polish state arose. Poland has been a kingdom since 1025. According to the Union of Lublin in 1569, Poland formed the state of the Commonwealth with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

In the 17th century Poland also fought with Turkey. Polish-Turkish wars 17th century between the Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire in 1620-21, 1672-76, 1683-99 mainly for the possession of Ukrainian lands. By the decision of the Karlovytsy Congress of 1698-1699, the Commonwealth received the remaining (since 1676) part of the right-bank Ukraine and Podolia from the Ottoman Empire.

Klyuchevsky's "Course of Russian History" depicts the life of Russia in its continuous flow without any stereotyped subdivisions. Klyuchevsky establishes the organic growth of Russia and its people, its inevitability, naturalness, consistency and gradualness, despite the cataclysms that Russia had to endure in the form of revolutionary movements from below or the same actions from above.

April to May 1605 Fedor Borisovich (1589 - 1605). Son of Boris Godunov. When approaching Moscow, False Dmitry I was overthrown and killed.

CMay 1605 to 1606 False Dmitry I (? - 1606). Pretender (presumably G. Otrepyev). In 1601 he appeared in Poland (under the name of the son of Ivan IV Demetrius). In 1604, with the Polish-Lithuanian detachments, he crossed the Russian border, was supported by part of the townspeople, Cossacks and peasants. Having become king, he tried to maneuver between the Polish and Russian feudal lords. Killed by boyars - conspirators

1606 - 1610. Vasily IV Shuisky. (1552 - 1612). Son of Prince I. A. Shuisky. Deposed by Muscovites. Died in Polish captivity. 1610 Moscow swore allegiance to the Boyar Duma as a provisional government. It was abolished when the Poles captured the Kremlin (In March 1611, the Poles burned the capital). From the end of 1611. Without a government. October 1612. The Cossacks took Chinatown.

Vladislav is the son of Sigismund III. Pretender for the Russian throne, king of the Commonwealth (1632 - 1648).

Stanislav Zholknevsky- (1547 - 1620) Polish statesman, commander.

Bolotnikov Ivan Isaevich - leader of the army of False Dmitry II, inflicted a number of defeats on the troops of Vasily Shuisky, besieged Moscow, captured in Tula in 1607, killed in 1608 in Kargopol.

From 1613 to 1645. Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov (1596 - 1645). The first king of the Romanov family. Elected by the Zemsky Sobor (father (Patriarch) Filaret ruled until 1633, then by the boyars).

Russian-Polish (Smolensk) war was conducted 1632-34. was waged by Russia for the return of the Smolensk and Chernigov lands seized during the years of the Polish intervention. It ended with the surrender of the Russian army surrounded near Smolensk and Polyanovsky world.

From 1645 Alexei Mikhailovich (1629-1676). Son of Michael.

In 1654-55. Russian troops defeated the main forces of the Commonwealth, liberated the Smolensk region and most of Belarus. Hostilities resumed in 1658 and went on with varying degrees of success. The Commonwealth returned the Smolensk and Chernihiv lands to Russia, recognized the reunification of Left-Bank Ukraine with Russia.

And in February 1672, Athanasius took the vows as a monk under the name of Anthony. He died in 1680.

Vasily Vasilyevich Golitsyn (1643 - 1714) - statesman and military leader, diplomat, carried out a number of reforms during the reign of Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich and Princess Sophia, died in exile.

From 1762 to 1796 CatherineIIAlekseevna(1729 - 1796). German Princess Sophia Frederica Augusta. She overthrew with the help of the guards of Peter III (husband).

Stanislav Poniatowski (1732 - 1798) - Ambassador of Saxony and the Commonwealth in Russia, lover of Ekaterina Alekseevna, in 1764 - 1795 - King of the Commonwealth, in 1795 abdicated and lived in Russia.

Friedrich Wilhelm II (1744 - 1817) King of Prussia from 1786, patronized mystics and Freemasons.

Joseph II (1741 - 1790) Emperor of Austria and the "Holy Roman Empire" from 1765 to 1790 (from 1765 to 1780 - co-ruler of Maria Theresa, his mother), supporter of an alliance with Russia. He pursued the policy of the so-called. enlightened absolutism.

Petersburg conventions of 1770-90s, the territory of the Commonwealth was divided (three sections - 1772, 1793, 1795) between Prussia, Austria and Russia. In 1807, Napoleon I created the Principality of Warsaw from part of the Polish lands. The Congress of Vienna in 1814-1815 repartitioned Poland: the Kingdom of Poland was formed from most of the Principality of Warsaw (transferred to Russia).

With 1801 AlexanderI.(1777 - 1825). Eldest son of Paul I.

Emperor Alexander I was childless; the throne after him, according to the law on April 5, 1797, was supposed to pass to the next brother, Konstantin, and Konstantin was also unhappy in family life, divorced his first wife and married a Pole; since the children of this marriage could not have the right to the throne, Constantine became indifferent to this right and in 1822 he renounced the throne in a letter to his elder brother. The elder brother accepted the refusal and, in a manifesto of 1823, appointed the next brother after Konstantin, Nikolai, heir to the throne.

From the end of the XVIII century. Siberian provinces are constantly replenished with thousands of convicts and exiled settlers from among the participants in the Polish uprisings of 1794, 1830-1831, 1846, 1863-1864.

Under the leadership of T. Kosciuszko. The suppression of this uprising was followed by the 3rd section (1795) of the Commonwealth.