Historical events that may seem to have long lost their relevance should not be forgotten because past political, cultural, psychological, and social conflict models tend to repeat themselves in cycles, albeit in a new form, with a regularity not unlike that of tide and ebb. Although such typological situations are separated by decades, even by centuries (historical periods can be extremely long, though the dynamics are becoming increasingly fast), analyzing them is very important. And one must do more than just go over facts, one must rather understand a certain vector in historical development.
In this context, it would seem interesting to analyze the response to the November Uprising in Poland (1830-31, also known as the Cadet Revolution, a spectacularly tragic page in 19th-century European history) on the part of European political and intellectual elite, on the one hand, and the Russian Empire on the other. Here a comparative analysis would seem especially useful: what noted people in the West said, and most importantly did, during that dramatic period from November 1830 to September 1831, when the destiny of Poland — and all of Eastern Europe for that matter — was being decided, compared to what the distinguished subjects of Nicholas I of Russia did. The complete truth is reached not by relying on axioms, but by painful comparisons that give an impetus to profound reflections.
Referring to a hard historical fact, refraining from making superfluous assessments — for hard facts are supposed to speak for themselves — the Polish territory, following the Vienna Congress (1815) after the defeat of Bonaparte, was divided (as in the late 18th century) between the Russian Empire, Austria, and Prussia, with the Russian part being officially known as the Kingdom of Poland (also known as the Congress Kingdom), with its own constitution (reluctantly granted by Alexander I of Russia in 1817) and legislative system. In other words, the Congress Kingdom enjoyed quite a degree of autonomy. Even though that autonomy resembled independence, Poles wanted unfettered freedom. On November 29, 1830, Warsaw’s rebels seized the Belweder Palace, the residence of Russian Grand Duke Constantine, the arsenal, and the local prison. Russian troops beat a hasty retreat.
In mid-December 1830, a Polish delegation (including the rebellious government’s Finance Minister Prince Lubecki and MP [member of the Sejm] Count Jezierski) arrived in St. Petersburg for negotiations. Nicholas I told the Warsaw envoys (who, incidentally, represented the moderate faction) that he hated playing the hangman’s role; that he wanted to be merciful, but if one of the two peoples was to perish, he couldn’t hesitate, not for a moment. He reminded the Polish envoys that they were Slavs, blood brothers of Russia, but that a further shot fired by a Polish artillery piece would kill Poland. He went on to say that Poles [i.e., the Congress Kingdom] had been faring well under the Russian crown, that he had respected their constitution and kept it unchanged; that after his coronation — as King of Poland in 1829 — he had been trying to do his best for the Poles; that Poles should have understood his position and placed their trust in him; that he had meant only good for them and would have translated his best wishes into life, but that now he demanded that Poland surrender to the grace of its emperor because he was hard put to restrain the outrage of his [other] subjects. Unless the Poles agreed to surrender, Nicholas I had only one option that he would have to adopt as Emperor of Russia: a single shot from their side and he would no longer be able to keep the situation under control. He told them to convey this message to Warsaw. The reaction of the Polish people to such reasoning was well to be expected. On January 25, 1831, the Sejm passed the Act of Dethronization of Nicholas I, extending to all heirs to the Russian thrones, and relieving all Poles of the oath of allegiance to Russia. This was the fourth decree produced by the rebellious Polish government. Upon learning this, Nicholas I said so much the better; now he could deal with the Poles as enemies rather than subjects. In fact, he hated Polish guts and would do so until his dying day. In his memorandum on European Affairs (1848), Nicholas wrote that Poland had the nerve of emulating the European conspiracy example, but that, by the grace of the Lord, Russia produced an example of resistance; that Poland had paid with its existence [as a solid political body] for this endeavor, adding that he wished it had been and would be like this, everywhere.
Russia’s response to the Cadet Uprising was ruthless in its resoluteness. On September 6, 1831, Warsaw surrendered to the Russian troops under the command of Field Marshal Ivan Paskevich. In November that same year Nicholas I set up a Polish provisional government that was fully under Russian control, and in February 1832 he adopted the Organic Statute of the Kingdom of Poland, replacing its Constitution, making Poland an inalienable part of the Russian, and the Polish crown that of the Russian crown by hereditary tradition (without separate coronation procedures). The Sejm and the State and Administrative Councils were abolished, with all their functions being transferred to the Russian tsar’s namestnik (viceroy). The Russification campaign received a dramatic impetus. In 1832, the University of Warsaw was closed [by the Russian police – Ed.] on charges of sedition. That of Wilno [currently the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. — Ed.] followed suit the following year. The emperor of Russia personally saw to it that Russians be appointed to most important positions, for he saw them as people genuinely dedicated to the Empire and its interests (“…if not by blood, then by political interest…”). The detached Polish army was disbanded, with some of its units being attached to various Russian commands. In 1833, in conjunction with another rebellious attempt, martial law was enforced on most territories of the former Kingdom of Poland. It would remain effective practically until the death of Nicholas I of Russia, along with death verdicts and executions.
How did the European democratic public opinion (most of which was in opposition to the ruling regimes of their respective states) respond to the suppression of the Polish struggle for freedom? There were big rallies of protest, mostly in France. The liberal Le Constitutionnel wrote: “The peoples and friends of universal freedom must support the cause of the Polish patriots, because this is also their cause. The defeat of the Warsaw fighters against despotism will inevitably lead to the fiasco of all who are championing human rights, rule of the law, constitutionality; this must concern every Frenchman.” Another opposition newspaper, Le Quotidien urged all friends of Poland in France to unite, but then asked the rhetorical question, “Unite around the Russian emperor’s aggressive decree? This would depend on the degree of resistance he would encounter in French public opinion and that in the neighboring European countries (an interesting statement, considering the date: August 12, 1831. – Author). The lesser the response, the harsher the manner in which this tsar will proceed to subjugate other countries that are situated further from Russia. This is how all tsars have acted, starting with Peter I.” (In fact, the process began considerably earlier – Author.) Members of the French Parliament General Bernard Foix, Jean Casimir-Perier, Andre Villele, and Francois Guizot (the historian who would become Prime Minister of France, in 1847-48) addressed angry words [to the Russian emperor] in support of Poland. In February 1831, the liberal public of Paris established the Polish Committee that was actually led by General Lafayette, the legendary veteran of the French Revolution and the American Revolutionary War. Impassioned speeches were made about the need to aid the Polish rebels in both political and military terms.
However, those in power (Louis-Philippe of France and the governments of Great Britain and Prussia) were adamantly against any interference [in Russia’s internal affairs]. The French Foreign Minister declared in parliament that he was opposed to “intervention” because France was a very long way from Poland. The British Secretary of State, Lord Palmerston, went even further, declaring there could be no interference, not even on the diplomatic level — in other words, no French-British demarche in regard to the Polish issue. Prime Minister Lord Grey emphasized the economic factors (i.e., doing business with Russia), and made it perfectly clear that he would permit no confrontation with the emperor of Russia. He told the Polish emissary, politely but firmly, that the British side would adhere to the terms and conditions of the agreements/treaties thus far concluded; that if Russia had in any way broached the Treaty of Vienna, the UK would have been in a position to express its protest, but that there was no reason for such acts of protest, given the circumstances. Therefore, the British side couldn’t possibly help the cause of Polish [national] independence, for any step taken in this direction would run counter to the Treaty of Vienna.
It should be noted that most of the Cadet Revolution’s leaders — among them Joachim Lelewel, Adam Czartoryski, Jan Skrzynecki, and Jozef Chlopicki — sincerely and naively counted on armed aid from the West. This was a case study in realpolitik (to be followed by the 1938 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the 2008 Medvedev-Sarkozy Plan).
During that stormy period a convinced imperial monarchist and Russian patriot (albeit liberal-minded as a youth), namely Alexander Pushkin, wrote to one of his good friends, Yelizaveta (Elizabeth) Khitrovo: “Europe is both inexperienced and ungrateful, insofar as Russia is concerned.” He then published the Literaturnaya gazeta and lashed out at Nikolai Polevoy’s [six-volume] History of the Russian People: “Russia has never had anything to do with the other Europe; its history demands a concept and formula other than those generated from the history of the Christian West.” In fact, this formula doesn’t seem to contradict Sergei Uvarov’s well-known one — “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality” — that was willingly supported by the court of Nicholas I, and which is still supported by some of the Russian nationalist elite. I might as well add that Pushkin actually paid with his life for his sincere alliance with the Russian emperor, after he found himself with a noose slipped round his neck by Nicholas I, without realizing what that man was all about.
In a letter to Pyotr Vyazemsky, Pushkin described the valor of Korzenecki’s rebellious detachment and added: “All this is good in the poetic sense, but they have to be strangled (sic) anyway, so our procrastination is painful. For us, the Polish revolt is a family affair (Pushkin believed that the Poles and Russians were members of “one Slavic family,” if not a single people — a concept strongly reminiscent of today’s “Eastern Slavic civilization” and “Russian World,” although Poland has endured and survived this “family affiliation” – Author), an old hereditary squabble; we can’t judge it relying on European impressions, regardless of our own train of thought. Of course, it benefits almost all (European – Author) governments to adhere to the non-interference rule… but the peoples (sic) are barking, straining at their leash. Europe could be upon us before we know it.”
Such was the political credo of the celebrated Russian poet, albeit expressed in prose. His well-known odes “To the Slanderers of Russia” and “Borodino Anniversary” are similarly patriotic. Pushkin then declared that Western European public opinion had no right to pass judgment on “A dispute amongst the Slavs,/ Whose outcome is predetermined, / An issue you shall never solve…”
After reading Pushkin’s odes, Vyazemsky wrote in his diary: “The Polish campaign is a matter of quite some political importance, but here you can’t find a cent’s worth of poetry; here you find no poetic inspiration.” He went on to say that Pushkin, in this sense, was no better than a muzhik yelling at another one to move to let him have a seat during a village council session, or else… “Why should one keep talking such nonsense, speaking against one’s conscience, above all doing so to no avail? I’m sick and tired of our geographical fanfaronades: from Perm to Taurica, toward the end of the world, and so on. Is there anything good about the whole idea? Is there any reason to brag about our being stretched over such vast expanses, about our ideas having to reach others over 3,000 miles?…”
All I can say in conclusion is that history, including that of the free Poland, has dotted all I’s and crossed all T’s.
