Storming of Warsaw 1831. Historical memory in Poland
Russian Emperor Alexander II.
Portrait from the Military Encyclopedia published by I.D. Sytin
On the night of January 10–11, 1863, bells began to ring throughout Poland. This was the signal for the start of a new uprising against the Russian authorities for the revival of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which had lost its independence and was divided between Russia, Austria and Prussia at the end of the 18th century.
THE STRUGGLE FOR FEUDAL RIGHTS
Then, let us remind you, not an inch of the land of historical Poland itself was given to Russia. Only after the end of the Napoleonic Wars was most of it transferred to the Russian Empire. After which, in November 1815, Alexander I signed the Constitution of the Kingdom of Poland formed within it. The highest legislative power was exercised by the Sejm, which met every two years, and the State Council, which acted constantly. All administrative positions in the Kingdom of Poland could only be held by Poles. The Constitution returned many Polish historical traditions: division into voivodeships, collegiality of ministries (their functions were performed by government commissions) and voivodeship authorities.
According to the Constitution, the Polish army was formed, administrative and judicial paperwork had to be carried out in the Polish language. Personal inviolability, freedom of speech and press were proclaimed. Military service had to be served within the Kingdom of Poland, and the same provision applied to imprisonment.
In the Kingdom of Poland, about one hundred thousand people had the right to vote, that is, more than there were voters in France during the Restoration. The Polish Constitution at that time turned out to be the most liberal in Europe. In 1815–1831, the Kingdom of Poland was a subsidized region of the Russian Empire.
And yet the uprising of 1830–1831 breaks out. What's the matter? Or maybe the lords, out of principle, did not want to be under the rule of the Russian Tsar: they say, give me a Pole king? Alas, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth since the end of the 17th century was ruled by Saxon electors from Dresden, who were also Polish kings.
The real reason is the deprivation of the Polish lords of autocratic, that is, anarchic, freedom. Pan could, with impunity, mint gold coins with the image of the Polish king, where instead of the signature “By the grace of God the king,” there was “By the grace of God the fool.” Pan could appear at the king's ball in a caftan made from sheets of parchment with the text of the verdicts of the royal judges, which promised him prison and exile. Pan could attack and rob his neighbor-landowner, and even his neighbor - he could start his own private war with a neighboring power. Several lords, uniting their private armies, could organize a confederation and declare war on their own king.
Well, there’s no need to talk about such trifles as the execution of peasants. A noble lord could hang his slave, impale him, or flay him alive. A Jewish shinker or artisan was not formally a serf of the lord, but hacking him to death with a saber or drowning him was not only considered not shameful, but, on the contrary, a manifestation of special prowess.
And the damned Muscovites deprived them of all this. Who are they? Having united with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Poles gained power over Little and White Russia. An Orthodox Russian population lived there, ruled by appanage princes - descendants of Rurik and Gediminas. Over the course of half a century, the Poles completely Polonized and Catholicized the local ruling class. And the peasantry fell under the cruel oppression of the landowners - both ethnic Poles and Polonized Russian nobles. His lords not only exploited him, but also despised him; Orthodoxy was called the “peasant faith.” And already from the 14th century, rumors were spread in Europe that the Russians were wild tribes of schismatics who were under the rule of Lithuanian princes and Polish kings.
Even in the 19th century, the famous Polish historian Kazimir Waliszewski, justifying the atrocities of his compatriots in Rus' during the Time of Troubles, wrote that the Poles considered themselves conquistadors, bringing the light of the faith of Christ to the ignorant Indians, that is, to the Orthodox Russian people.
Why did another uprising break out in January 1863? The formal reason was another recruitment drive. But real reasons Privy Councilor V.V. Skripitsyn very clearly formulated in a letter to Minister of War D.A. Milyutin: “The Polish nobility then (during the existence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - A.Sh.) constituted a kind of collective reigning dynasty; and now it represents a collective claimant, who, like all claimants, will never renounce the right he has lost, nor submit sincerely to any supreme power not emanating from himself.”
It is also impossible not to say that the struggle of the lordship with Russian Empire actively supported by the Catholic Church. In Rome, Pope Pius IX knelt for hours with outstretched arms in front of crowds of believers, offering prayers for “unfortunate Poland.” Local priests acted more decisively. Thus, in February 1863, units of the 7th Infantry Division near the town of Kielce defeated the detachment of Pan Marian Langevich, who awarded himself the rank of general. One hundred corpses of the rebels were found, among them four priests with weapons.
PEASANTRY - AGAINST
The Russian command took into account the lessons of 1830, and all the fortresses and large cities of the Kingdom of Poland remained in the hands of government troops throughout the entire uprising of 1863–1864. The organizers of the new performance failed to organize the Polish St. Bartholomew's Night. Even small groups of Russian soldiers and officials defended themselves bravely. The rebels' successes were negligible. For example, in the vicinity of the city of Sedlica they managed to burn alive two dozen soldiers who had locked themselves in wooden house. The uprising turned into a struggle between large and small partisan detachments and regular troops.
Speaking about that uprising, we must not forget that it took place in the midst of the reforms of Alexander II. In 1861, serfdom was ended in Russia (in Poland, by 1863 it had just begun to be abolished), judicial, administrative and other reforms were underway.
Objectively speaking, during the uprising of 1863, it was not the lords and priests who acted as revolutionaries, but Alexander II and his dignitaries. Thus, on March 1, 1863, Alexander II announced a decree to the Senate, which in the provinces of Vilna, Kovno, Grodno, Minsk and in four districts of the province of Vitebsk terminated the mandatory relations of peasants with landowners and began the immediate purchase of their lands with the assistance of the government. Soon this spread to other districts of the Vitebsk province, as well as to the provinces of Mogilev, Kyiv, Volyn and Podolsk. Thus, the tsar sharply accelerated the progress of reforms in the provinces affected by the uprising. The vast majority of Polish peasants remained aloof from the uprising, and many helped the Russian troops.
In addition, the rebels took horses, carts, clothing and food from the Polish population against a “receipt”. Money was acquired by collecting taxes two years in advance, extortion from wealthy individuals, robbery and other similar methods. First, the rebels collected 400 thousand zlotys (1 zloty = 15 kopecks), then, in June 1863, three million rubles were stolen from the main treasury of the Kingdom in Warsaw and about a million more in other places.
The rebels had to fight not only with the royal troops, but also with their own peasants. For example, on April 13, 1863, a transport with weapons was sent from Dinaburg to Disna. The carts were accompanied by a convoy of eight soldiers. Polish landowners gathered servants (over a hundred people) and took possession of transport. Local peasants, having learned about this, attacked the landowners' estates and brought the lords to the authorities. Among the rebels were even two counts - Alexander Mol and Lev Plater (they were hanged on May 27, 1863 in the Dinaburg fortress).
In the region of Vladimir-Volynsky, over one and a half thousand peasants with scythes and spears joined the Russian troops clearing the area of rebels.
The Russian command not only did not force the peasants to beat the lords, but, on the contrary, in every possible way cut them short. Adjutant General I.I. Annenkov frightenedly reported to the Minister of War: “Unfortunately, the people’s hatred of the Poles sometimes goes beyond the limit and, with the legends about the Haidamaks ingrained in the masses, about the bloody struggles with the Poles, it carries them away to the point of self-will, riotousness and disobedience. There have already been examples of this that reached the point of cruelty and atrocity.”
THE WEST DID NOT HELP
On June 30, 1863, in the midst of the uprising, the British newspaper Morning Standard blurted out: “The Polish rebellion would have ended on its own if its leaders had not counted on the military intervention of the Western powers.” Well, the lords in confrontations with Russia were sure every time: “abroad will help us.” They hoped for the king Charles XII, then to Louis XV and Louis XVI, then to Emperor Napoleon I and Napoleon III.
In the end, our generals and admirals were tired of the Western financial and military support for the Polish rebels, as well as the arrogant diplomatic demarches of London and Paris. And while Chancellor Gorchakov answered them with compliant notes, on September 24, 1863, the squadron of Admiral S.S. Lesovsky dropped anchor in the New York port. And three days later, Admiral A.A. Popov’s squadron arrived in San Francisco. In the Mediterranean Sea, the frigate Oleg and the corvette Sokol reached British communications. And even earlier, the Orenburg governor, artillery general A.P. Bezak, began forming an expeditionary force to move to Afghanistan and India. This action was kept secret, but somehow the information was leaked to the British press.
Panic began on Western stock exchanges. Shipping companies sharply raised freight costs, and insurance companies began to change insurance rules. Then the public in England and France stopped calling for an attack on Russia. The violent gentlemen also calmed down. For as long as 50 years.
Entering Poland as a “liberator” in 1807, Napoleon turned it into a French-dependent Duchy of Warsaw. But after his defeat in 1815, at the Congress of Vienna, a new division of Poland was carried out - already the fourth, in which four-fifths of the Duchy of Poland was transferred to Russian citizenship. Russia created the Kingdom of Poland on this territory with its own constitution and Sejm. The rest of Poland was divided between Austria and Prussia.
Russian Emperor Alexander I forgave the Poles for their action against Russia: in 1812, Poland fielded its 80,000-strong army as part of Napoleonic army. Order and calm were restored in the country, the material well-being of the people began to develop rapidly, which gave impetus to the rapid growth of the population. Russia also did not forget about public education and the cultural growth of the Kingdom of Poland - a university was founded in Warsaw, “two military academies, a women’s institute, a school of agriculture and agriculture and others educational institutions" The brother of Emperor Alexander I, Konstantin Pavlovich, loved Poland, knew its language perfectly and, being the commander-in-chief of the Polish army since 1814, strengthened it in every possible way. Later, after the first governor - General Zajonchek, becoming the governor of the Kingdom of Poland himself, he married the Polish Countess I. Grudzinskaya and even stood for the complete independence of Poland. Konstantin was quite satisfied with his fate and, perhaps, that is why in 1823 he abdicated the Russian throne in favor of his younger brother Nikolai Pavlovich.
The documents on this case were prepared in advance by Alexander I and kept secretly in one copy each in the Synod, the Senate, the State Council and the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin; the sealed envelopes had the royal signature: “...keep until my demand, and in the event of my death reveal, before any action, in an emergency meeting.” So Constantine finally broke with the succession to the throne and devoted himself to Poland. The Poles themselves spoke about their well-being with great satisfaction: “...Poland has never been as happy as in the time of Alexander I, and if it had continued on this path, it would soon have forgotten 200 years of its anarchy and would have become, along with the most educated states of Europe "
Even after Congress of Vienna in 1815, Alexander I granted the Poles a constitution. The manifestation of the opposition began with the fact that Poland, having, thanks to the efforts of Constantine, its own national army, began to strive for separation from Russia and even intended to annex a huge part of the territory of Russian lands that made up Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania. Such a statement at the Sejm outraged the Russian emperor, and he began to limit its activities, stretch the time between its meetings, and then the publicity of the Sejm gathering was canceled, and basically its meetings began to be held at behind closed doors. Such a violation of the constitution led to the organization of a network of secret societies, which took on the special education of growing youth and preparation for a future uprising.
Over time, two main parties were formed: the aristocratic one, led by Prince Adam Chertoryski, and the democratic one, led by Lelevel, a professor of history at Vilna University. They were separated by plans for the future reorganization of Poland, but were united by the current ones - to prepare as quickly as possible for an uprising to fight for the national independence of Poland. They even tried to contact the Decembrists in Russia, but the negotiations did not lead to the desired results.
By this time, the flames of revolution began to flare up in the West. In France, the Bourbon dynasty was swept away, Belgium was indignant, and the wind of unrest of the Russian peasantry blew from the east. Preparations for the uprising in Poland began to become overripe - denunciations and arrests began. It was impossible to postpone the performance any further. The final, decisive impetus for the uprising was the inclusion of Polish troops in the Russian army for the campaign in Belgium to suppress the revolutionary movement.
On the cold autumn night of November 17, a group of conspirators from young officers and students of military schools, led by Nabelyak, Trzhaskovsky and Goschinsky, burst into the Belvedere country palace shouting: “Death to the tyrant!” The sleepy Konstantin was pushed aside by the valet, and he managed to hide and then go to the Russian army. But many Russian generals, officers, Constantine’s associates and servants, along with Poles loyal to Russia, were killed.
The conspirators broke down the doors of the arsenal and began to arm the army of rebels, who incited anger with provocative cries, “... that the Russians are slaughtering the Poles and burning the city.” At this time, another group tried to capture the barracks, but the firefight dragged on and the matter failed. There were clearly not enough military forces for the coup, since a small number of units were involved. Then the organizers rushed with a call to the working-class neighborhoods, and the entire population of the city was raised. Crowds of people rushed to the arsenal. In a short time the uprising spread throughout Warsaw. At this time, Constantine, having released the Polish troops loyal to him, retreated with his Russian troops from the city, giving the Poles the opportunity to understand that the Russians were peaceful. He considered the moment the uprising began to be a small outbreak and expected it to go out by itself. But as a result of such inaction, the uprising spread throughout Poland. The rapidly developing events frightened the top of the Polish aristocracy. An interim government was urgently created, headed by the former minister and friend of Emperor Alexander I, Adam Chertoryski. He persuaded General Khlopitsky, who once served in Napoleonic army, to take over the leadership of the uprising in order to prevent it from developing spontaneously. And then the new government and the Sejm sent their demands to St. Petersburg to comply with the constitution and restore Poland to the borders before its first partition, that is, with the annexation of the “Western Russian regions” to it. In response to the “bold” statement, Nicholas I did not negotiate, but stated: “... that he promises amnesty to the Poles if they immediately submit; but if they dare to raise arms against Russia and their legitimate sovereign, then they themselves and their cannon shots will overthrow Poland.”
But the rebels did not lay down their arms. Then the Russian emperor sent his troops to tame the “rebels” under the command of Field Marshal Johann Diebitsch-Zabalkansky. But since the uprising in Poland was unexpected for Russia, it took about 3.5 months to prepare the army for military action. In the meantime, only one corps of Baron Rosen was operating there, which, under the pressure of the Poles, was gradually losing its positions.
The new year 1831 has arrived. The Russian emperor in Poland was declared deposed, the people took to the streets and demanded the complete separation of Poland from Russia. As a sign of solidarity with the Russian revolutionaries of 1825, they demonstratively served a memorial service for the executed Decembrists and “... put forward a slogan addressed to the Russian people - “For our and your freedom.”
Russian punitive troops were on the way. Poland was intensively preparing for military action. Its initial army of 35 thousand grew to 130, but barely half was suitable for real action. In Warsaw itself there were up to four thousand national guardsmen under arms. Having extensive experience, General Khlopitsky already foresaw the outcome of the uprising. From the very beginning, he did not want to take on leadership and refused the role of dictator. He pursued a wait-and-see policy in order to get out of the game if necessary. Khlopitsky did not even take advantage of the absence of the main forces of the Russian army to defeat the 6th Lithuanian corps of General Rosen. He was eventually replaced by Prince Mikhail Radziwill.
The Russian army of 125.5 thousand entered Poland. On January 24, Diebich wedged it in several columns between the Narev and the Bug in order to cut the Polish army and break it piece by piece with one decisive blow. But the mud thawed his plans. In order not to get stuck in the swamps of the interfluve, he went out onto the Brest Highway. On February 13, Diebich defeated the Polish army near Grochow, but did not finish them off when crossing the Vistula and gave them the opportunity to leave for Prague. The next day, approaching the fortress that Suvorov had once taken, he became convinced that it was impossible to take it without special siege weapons.
Having secured the base and strengthened the rear, on April 12, Dibich launched a decisive offensive. Having learned about this, the commander-in-chief of the Polish forces Skrzhinetsky began to leave with his troops from under attack, but on May 14 he was overtaken and defeated at Ostroleka. After the defeat, the Polish army concentrated near Prague. Diebitsch moved towards her, but on the way he died of cholera, which was rampant not only in Poland, but also in the central regions of Russia.
On June 13, General I. F. Paskevich-Erivansky took command of the Russian troops. General N.N. Muravyov was moving with his army to the Brest Highway. The Poles pulled an army of 40 thousand people to Warsaw, in addition, a general conscription into the militia was announced. But it was all in vain. By August 1, Skrzhinetsky resigned from the post of commander-in-chief. He was replaced by Dembinski, the fourth leader of the Polish army. All three previous commanders-in-chief - Khlopnitsky, Radziwill and Skrzynetsky were accused of treason and imprisoned. The Poles demanded their execution, but the government remained silent. Then a crowd of angry townspeople forced their way into the prison and executed the arrested generals by lynching. Popular uprisings began against the government, which in turn became confused. Adam Chertoryski left the post of chief ruler and fled from Warsaw to Paris. The Sejm urgently appointed General Krukovetsky in his place, and the crackdown on popular protests began. Some participants in the demonstrations against the Polish government and the most ardent participants in the massacre of former commanders in prison were executed. There were attempts to start new negotiations with Paskevich, but he did not accept any conditions, categorically declaring that the rebels should lay down their arms and stop resistance. The Russian commander's statement was rejected. The Poles decided to fight to the end.
On September 25, Paskevich, with decisive army actions, struck the western suburbs of Warsaw and captured its suburban part - Wola, and the next day all of Warsaw was surrendered. Part of the Polish troops under the command of Rybinsky, who did not want to lay down their arms, retreated to the north of Poland. Pursued by Paskevich's army, Polish troops crossed the Prussian border on September 20 and were disarmed there. Soon the military garrison of Medlin surrendered, followed by Zamość on October 9. The instigators and active participants were exiled to Siberia, the Polish Sejm was dispersed, and the constitution was abolished. It was replaced by the “Organic Statute”, according to which from now on and forever Poland was to be an integral part of the Russian Empire. The name Kingdom of Poland was retained, but it ceased to exist as an independent state. General Paskevich was appointed governor of this Russian province, receiving the title of Prince of Warsaw. Under him, a council was established of the main officials of the region, replacing the previous ministers. Instead of the Sejm, the State Council of the Kingdom of Poland was established, consisting of dignitaries appointed by Emperor Nicholas I himself. The Russian language was mandatory in all official spheres of activity.
Three years later, the Russian emperor himself showed up in Warsaw and, at the reception of a delegation from the population, directly stated: “...By my order, a citadel was erected here (Alexandrovskaya fortress for the Russian garrison), and I announce to you that at the slightest indignation I will order the destruction of your city...” .
In order to prevent the future organization of Polish secret societies and the ideological influence of the Poles in the western regions of Russia, universities in Warsaw, Vilna, as well as the Krmenets Lyceum were closed, and instead of them the University of St. Vladimir.
The Russian Synod received with great sympathy the petition of Uniate Bishop Joseph Semashko for reunification with the Russian Orthodox Church Uniate churches of the Russian population western regions influenced by Polish Catholicism. The highest hierarch and outstanding theologian of that time, Moscow Metropolitan Philaret, played a significant role in this matter.
An event such as the defeat of the Polish uprising did not go unnoticed in the history of awards. All participants in hostilities against the Polish rebels were given a special award - a special cross, minted in the manner of the Polish military order “Virtuti Militari”. This Russian sign - “werewolf” - of the Polish Order of Distinction for Military Merit was specifically introduced by Emperor Nicholas I to insult the national dignity of the Polish people. Like the Polish order, it has widened ends and an image in a rosette of the front side of a Polish single-headed eagle, around which a continuous wreath of laurel leaves is placed around its circumference. At the ends of the cross there are inscriptions: “VIR” on the left, “TUTI” on the right, “MILI” on the top, “TARI” on the bottom. On the reverse side, in exactly the same rosette with a wreath, there is a three-line inscription: “REX - ET - PATRIA” (Ruler and Fatherland); Below, under the spherical line, the date is “1831”. At the ends of the cross there is an image of monograms of the initial letters - SAPR ( Stanislav August Rex Polonia), but the order of their arrangement is unusual: on the top - “S”, on the left - “A”, on the right - “R” and on the bottom - “P”. This inscription recalls the last Polish king, Stanisław August Poniatowski, who reigned at one time with the support of the Russian Empress Catherine II and was oriented toward Russia in Polish politics. He died in St. Petersburg in 1798 after abdicating the Polish crown.
The cross of Russian coinage was divided into five classes:
1st class badge - gold, with enamel, issued with a shoulder ribbon and star to the army commander and corps commanders;
2nd class badge - gold, with enamel, on a neck ribbon - for generals of lower rank than corps;
3rd class badge - gold, with enamel, to be worn on a chest ribbon - for headquarters officers;
4th class badge - gold, but without enamel - like a soldier's, size 28x28 mm - for chief officers;
5th class badge - silver, size 28x28, intended for awarding lower ranks.
Establishing this cross in 1831, Emperor Nicholas I “...ordered to consider it as a medal...”. The ribbon for all crosses was adopted the same (the colors of the Polish National Order) - blue with black stripes along the edges. After the appearance of the Russian sign, reminiscent in shape of the Polish order, it actually ceased to exist. And only a few decades later it was revived again by the Polish bourgeois government.
In addition to these signs, a special silver medal with a diameter of 26 mm was also established on December 31, 1831. On its front side, in the entire field, there is an image of the Russian State Emblem (double-headed eagle), in the center of which, under the royal crown, is a porphyry depicting the Polish coat of arms (single-headed Lithuanian eagle); on top, along the side of the medal, there is a small inscription: “BENEFIT OF HONOR AND GLORY.”
On the reverse side, inside a wreath of two laurel branches tied at the bottom with a ribbon, there is a four-line inscription: “FOR THE CAPTURE - BY ASSAULT - WARSAW - 25 and 26 Aug.”; below, at the baldric, the year is “1831”. At the very top, between the ends of the branches (above the inscription), there is a radiant six-pointed cross.
The medal was awarded to lower ranks who participated in the assault on the Polish capital, as well as priests and medical personnel who performed their duties in a combat situation.
Such medals were also of smaller diameter - 22 mm. They were intended to reward cavalrymen. This is the latest - the fifth - in a series of similar cavalry awards. They were worn on the same ribbon as the Polish badges - blue with black stripes along the edges.
There is a mint of the medal “For the capture of Warsaw by storm” made of white metal, 26 mm in diameter, somewhat different in image. This is one of the first medals made of white metal.
In 1830 - 1831 The west of the Russian Empire was rocked by an uprising in Poland. The national liberation war began against the backdrop of an ever-increasing infringement of the rights of its inhabitants, as well as revolutions in other countries of the Old World. The speech was suppressed, but its echo echoed throughout Europe for many years and had the most far-reaching consequences for Russia's reputation in the international arena.
Background
Most of Poland was annexed to Russia in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. For the purity of the legal procedure, a new state was created. The newly founded Kingdom of Poland entered into a personal union with Russia. According to the then reigning Emperor Alexander I, this decision was a reasonable compromise. The country retained its constitution, army and diet, which was not the case in other regions of the empire. Now the Russian monarch also bore the title of Polish king. In Warsaw he was represented by a special governor.
Polish uprising It was only a matter of time given the policy that was being pursued in St. Petersburg. Alexander I was known for his liberalism, despite the fact that he could not decide on radical reforms in Russia, where the positions of the conservative nobility were strong. Therefore, the monarch implemented his bold projects on the national margins of the empire - in Poland and Finland. However, even with the most complacent intentions, Alexander I behaved extremely inconsistently. In 1815, he granted the Kingdom of Poland a liberal constitution, but a few years later he began to oppress the rights of its inhabitants when, with the help of their autonomy, they began to put a spoke in the wheels of the policies of the Russian governors. So in 1820 the Sejm did not abolish what Alexander wanted.
Not long before, preliminary censorship was introduced in the kingdom. All this only brought the uprising in Poland closer. The years of the Polish uprising occurred during a period of conservatism in the politics of the empire. Reaction reigned throughout the state. When the struggle for independence flared up in Poland, cholera riots were in full swing in the central provinces of Russia, caused by the epidemic and quarantine.
Storm approaching
The coming to power of Nicholas I did not promise any relief to the Poles. The reign of the new emperor significantly began with the arrest and execution of the Decembrists. In Poland, meanwhile, the patriotic and anti-Russian movement intensified. In 1830, France saw the overthrow of Charles X, which further galvanized supporters of radical change.
Gradually, the nationalists gained the support of many famous tsarist officers (among them was General Joseph Khlopitsky). Revolutionary sentiment also spread to workers and students. For many dissatisfied, the right-bank Ukraine remained a stumbling block. Some Poles believed that these lands belonged to them by right, since they were part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, divided between Russia, Austria and Prussia at the end of the 18th century.
The governor of the kingdom at that time was Konstantin Pavlovich, the elder brother of Nicholas I, who abandoned the throne after the death of Alexander I. The conspirators were going to kill him and thus give a signal to the country about the beginning of the rebellion. However, the uprising in Poland was postponed over and over again. Konstantin Pavlovich knew about the danger and did not leave his residence in Warsaw.
Meanwhile, another revolution broke out in Europe - this time the Belgian one. The French-speaking Catholic part of the Dutch population supported independence. Nicholas I, who was called the "gendarme of Europe", declared his opposition to the Belgian events in his manifesto. Rumors spread across Poland that the Tsar would send her army to suppress the uprising in Western Europe. For the doubting organizers of the armed uprising in Warsaw, this news was the last straw. The uprising was scheduled for November 29, 1830.
The beginning of the riot
At 6 o'clock in the evening of the agreed day, an armed detachment attacked the Warsaw barracks, where the Guards Lancers were quartered. The reprisal began against the officers who remained loyal to the tsarist government. Among those killed was Minister of War Mauricius Gauke. Konstantin Pavlovich considered this Pole his right hand. The governor himself was saved. Warned by the guards, he fled from his palace shortly before a Polish detachment appeared there, demanding his head. After leaving Warsaw, Constantine gathered Russian regiments outside the city. So Warsaw was completely in the hands of the rebels.
The next day, reshuffles began in the Polish government - the Administrative Council. All pro-Russian people left him officials. Gradually, a circle of military leaders of the uprising emerged. One of the main characters was Lieutenant General Joseph Khlopitsky, who was briefly elected dictator. Throughout the entire confrontation, he tried as best he could to come to an agreement with Russia through diplomatic methods, since he understood that the Poles could not cope with all imperial army, in case she is sent to suppress the rebellion. Khlopitsky represented the right wing of the rebels. Their demands amounted to a compromise with Nicholas I, based on the constitution of 1815.
Another leader was Mikhail Radziwill. His position remained exactly the opposite. More radical rebels (including him) planned to retake Poland, divided between Austria, Russia and Prussia. In addition, they viewed their own revolution as part of a pan-European uprising (their main reference point was the July Revolution). That is why the Poles had many connections with the French.
Negotiation
The issue of a new executive power became a priority for Warsaw. On December 4, the uprising in Poland left behind an important milestone - a Provisional Government consisting of seven people was created. Its head was Adam Czartoryski. He had to good friend Alexander I, was a member of his secret committee, and also served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia in 1804 - 1806.
Contrary to this, the very next day Khlopitsky declared himself a dictator. The Sejm opposed him, but the figure of the new leader was extremely popular among the people, so parliament had to retreat. Khlopitsky did not stand on ceremony with his opponents. He concentrated all power in his hands. After the events of November 29, negotiators were sent to St. Petersburg. The Polish side demanded compliance with its constitution, as well as an increase in the form of eight voivodeships in Belarus and Ukraine. Nicholas did not agree to these conditions, promising only an amnesty. This response led to an even greater escalation of the conflict.
On January 25, 1831, a resolution was adopted to dethronize the Russian monarch. According to this document, the Kingdom of Poland no longer belonged to the Nicholas titularity. A few days earlier, Khlopitsky lost power and remained to serve in the army. He understood that Europe would not openly support the Poles, which meant that the defeat of the rebels was inevitable. The Sejm was more radical. Parliament transferred executive power to Prince Mikhail Radziwill. Diplomatic instruments were discarded. Now the Polish uprising of 1830 - 1831. found itself in a situation where the conflict could only be resolved by force of arms.
Balance of power
By February 1831, the rebels managed to draft about 50 thousand people into the army. This figure almost corresponded to the number of military personnel sent to Poland by Russia. However, the quality of the volunteer units was noticeably lower. The situation was especially problematic in the artillery and cavalry. Count Ivan Dibich-Zabalkansky was sent to suppress the November uprising in St. Petersburg. The events in Warsaw came as a surprise to the empire. In order to concentrate all loyal troops in the western provinces, the count needed 2 - 3 months.
This was precious time that the Poles did not have time to take advantage of. Khlopitsky, who was placed at the head of the army, did not attack first, but dispersed his forces along the most important roads in the territories under his control. Meanwhile, Ivan Dibich-Zabalkansky was recruiting more and more troops. By February he already had about 125 thousand people under arms. However, he also allowed unforgivable mistakes. In a hurry to strike a decisive blow, the count did not waste time organizing the supply of food and ammunition to the active army, which over time negatively affected its fate.
Battle of Grokhov
The first Russian regiments crossed the Polish border on February 6, 1831. The parts were moving in different directions. The cavalry under the command of Cyprian Kreutz went to the Lublin Voivodeship. The Russian command planned to arrange a diversionary maneuver, which was supposed to completely disperse the enemy forces. The national liberation uprising really began to develop according to a plot convenient for the imperial generals. Several Polish divisions headed towards Serock and Pułtusk, breaking away from the main forces.
However, the weather suddenly interfered with the campaign. A muddy road began, which prevented the main Russian army from following the intended route. Diebitsch had to make a sharp turn. On February 14, a clash occurred between the detachments of Józef Dwernicki and General Fedor Geismar. The Poles won. And although it was not of particular strategic importance, the first success significantly inspired the militia. The Polish uprising took on an uncertain character.
The main army of the rebels stood near the city of Grochowa, defending the approaches to Warsaw. It was here that the first general battle took place on February 25. The Poles were commanded by Radzwill and Khlopitsky, the Russians by Dibich-Zabalkansky, who became a field marshal a year before the start of this campaign. The battle lasted all day and ended only late in the evening. The losses were approximately the same (the Poles had 12 thousand people, the Russians 9 thousand). The rebels had to retreat to Warsaw. Although the Russian army achieved a tactical victory, its losses exceeded all expectations. In addition, ammunition was wasted, and it was not possible to bring in new ones due to bad roads and disorganized communications. Under these circumstances, Diebitsch did not dare to storm Warsaw.
Polish maneuvers
Over the next two months the armies barely moved. Everyday clashes broke out on the outskirts of Warsaw. An epidemic of cholera began in the Russian army due to poor hygienic conditions. At the same time, a guerrilla war was going on throughout the country. In the main Polish army, command from Mikhail Radzwill passed to General Jan Skrzyniecki. He decided to attack a detachment under the command of the Emperor's brother Mikhail Pavlovich and General Karl Bistrom, who was located in the vicinity of Ostroleka.
At the same time, an 8,000-strong regiment was sent to meet Diebitsch. He was supposed to distract the main forces of the Russians. The Poles' bold maneuver came as a surprise to the enemy. Mikhail Pavlovich and Bistrom with their guard retreated. Diebitsch did not believe for a long time that the Poles had decided to attack, until he finally learned that they had captured Nur.
Battle at Ostroleka
On May 12, the main Russian army left its quarters to overtake the Poles who had fled Warsaw. The persecution lasted for two weeks. Finally the vanguard overtook the Polish rear. Thus, on the 26th, the battle of Ostrolenka began, which became the most important episode of the campaign. The Poles were separated by the Narew River. The detachment on the left bank was the first to be attacked by superior Russian forces. The rebels began to hastily retreat. Diebitsch's forces crossed the Narev in Ostrolenka itself, after finally clearing the city of rebels. They made several attempts to attack the attackers, but their efforts ended in nothing. The Poles moving forward were repulsed time after time by a detachment under the command of General Karl Manderstern.
As the afternoon approached, reinforcements joined the Russians, which finally decided the outcome of the battle. Of the 30 thousand Poles, about 9 thousand died. Among those killed were generals Heinrich Kamensky and Ludvik Katsky. The ensuing darkness helped the remnants of the defeated rebels flee back to the capital.
Fall of Warsaw
On June 25, Count Ivan Paskevich became the new commander-in-chief of the Russian army in Poland. He had 50 thousand people at his disposal. In St. Petersburg, the count was demanded to complete the defeat of the Poles and recapture Warsaw from them. The rebels had about 40 thousand people left in the capital. The first serious test for Paskevich was the crossing of the river. It was decided to cross the water line not far from the border with Prussia. By July 8, the crossing was completed. At the same time, the rebels did not pose any obstacles to the advancing Russians, relying on the concentration of their own forces in Warsaw.
At the beginning of August, another castling took place in the Polish capital. This time, instead of Skrzynceki, who was defeated at Osterlenka, Henryk Dembinski became the commander-in-chief. However, he also resigned after news arrived that the Russian army had already crossed the Vistula. Anarchy and anarchy reigned in Warsaw. Pogroms began, perpetrated by an angry crowd demanding the extradition of the military personnel responsible for the fatal defeats.
On August 19, Paskevich approached the city. The next two weeks passed in preparation for the assault. Separate detachments captured nearby cities in order to completely surround the capital. The assault on Warsaw began on September 6, when Russian infantry attacked a line of fortifications erected to delay the attackers. In the ensuing battle, Commander-in-Chief Paskevich was wounded. Nevertheless, the Russian victory was obvious. On the 7th, General Krukovetsky withdrew a 32,000-strong army from the city, with which he fled to the west. On September 8, Paskevich entered Warsaw. The capital was captured. The defeat of the remaining scattered rebel detachments became a matter of time.
Results
The last armed Polish units fled to Prussia. On October 21, Zamość surrendered, and the rebels lost their last stronghold. Even before this, a massive and hasty emigration of rebel officers, soldiers and their families began. Thousands of families settled in France and England. Many, like Jan Skrzyniecki, fled to Austria. In Europe, Poland was greeted with sympathy and sympathy by society.
Polish uprising 1830 - 1831 led to its abolition. The authorities carried out administrative reform in the Kingdom. Voivodeships were replaced by regions. Also in Poland a common system of weights and measures appeared with the rest of Russia, as well as the same money. Before this, right-bank Ukraine was under the strong cultural and religious influence of its western neighbor. Now in St. Petersburg they decided to dissolve the Greek Catholic Church. The “wrong” Ukrainian parishes were either closed or became Orthodox.
For residents of Western states, Nicholas I became even more consistent with the image of a dictator and despot. And although not a single state officially stood up for the rebels, the echo of the Polish events was heard throughout the Old World for many years. The escaped emigrants did a lot to ensure that public opinion about Russia allowed European countries freely start the Crimean War against Nicholas.
In 1830-31, an uprising took place on the territory of the Kingdom of Poland, directed against the authorities of St. Petersburg. A whole range of reasons led to the start of the uprising:
- Poles' disappointment in Alexander's liberal policies Residents of the Kingdom of Poland hoped that the Constitution of 1815 would become an impetus for further expansion of the independence of local authorities, and would sooner or later lead to the reunification of Poland with Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus. However, the Russian emperor had no such plans and in 1820, at the next Sejm, he made it clear to the Poles that previous promises would not be fulfilled;
- The idea of reviving the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth within its former borders is still popular among Poles;
- Violation by the Russian emperor of certain points of the Polish constitution;
- Revolutionary sentiments were in the air throughout Europe. Riots and isolated terrorist attacks occurred in Spain, France and Italy. In the Russian Empire itself, in 1825, there was a Decembrist uprising directed against the new ruler, Nicholas.
Events preceding the uprising
At the Sejm of 1820, the Kalisz Party, representing the liberal gentry opposition, spoke for the first time. The Kalisians soon began to play a key role at the sessions of the Sejm. Through their efforts, the new criminal procedure code, which limited judicial transparency and eliminated the jury, and the Organic Statute, which made ministers immune from jurisdiction, were rejected. The Russian government responded to this by persecuting oppositionists and attacking the Catholic clergy, however, this only contributed to a surge in national liberation sentiments. Student circles, Masonic lodges and other secret organizations arose everywhere, collaborating closely with Russian revolutionaries. However, the Polish oppositionists still lacked experience, so they could not present a united front and were often arrested by the police.
By the beginning of the Sejm of 1825, the Russian government was thoroughly prepared. On the one hand, many influential Kaliszans were not allowed to attend the meetings, and on the other, Polish landowners learned about innovations that were very beneficial for themselves (cheap loans, low duties on the export of Polish grain to Prussia, increased serfdom). Due to these changes, the Russian government achieved the reign of the most loyal sentiments among Polish landowners. Although the idea of restoring the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was attractive to many Poles, being part of Russia (at that time one of the most powerful European powers) meant economic prosperity - Polish goods were sold on a huge all-Russian market, and duties were very low.
However, secret organizations have not disappeared anywhere. After the Decembrist uprising in St. Petersburg, it became known about the connection between Russian revolutionaries and the Poles. Mass searches and arrests began. In order not to come into conflict with the Poles, Nicholas I allowed the Seim Court to try the rebels. The sentences were very lenient, and the main charge of treason was completely dropped against the defendants. Against the backdrop of worsening relations with Turkey, the emperor did not want to cause confusion in the internal affairs of the state and resigned himself to the verdict.
In 1829, Nicholas I was crowned with the Polish crown and left, having signed several decrees that were contrary to the constitution. Another reason for the future uprising was the emperor’s decisive reluctance to annex the Lithuanian, Belarusian and Ukrainian provinces to the Kingdom of Poland. These two occasions became the impetus for the activation of the Warsaw circle of under-counsel, which arose in 1828. Members of the circle put forward the most decisive slogans, including the murder of the Russian emperor and the creation of a republic in Poland. Contrary to the expectations of the servants, the Polish Sejm did not accept their proposals. Even the most opposition-minded deputies were not ready for the revolution.
But Polish students actively joined the Warsaw circle. As their numbers increased, calls for the establishment of universal equality and the elimination of class differences were increasingly heard. This did not meet with sympathy among the more moderate members of the circle, who imagined the future government consisting of large magnates, gentry and generals. Many of the “moderates” became opponents of the uprising, fearing that it would develop into a riot of the mob.
Progress of the uprising
On the evening of November 29, 1830, a group of revolutionaries attacked Belvedere Castle, where the Polish governor was located - Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich. The goal of the rebels was the emperor's brother himself; it was planned that the revolution would begin with reprisals against him. However, not only the Russian soldiers guarding the castle, but also the Poles themselves took up arms against the rebels. The rebels in vain asked the Polish generals who were under Constantine to come over to their side. Only junior officers responded to their requests, leading their companies out of the barracks. The urban lower classes learned about the uprising. So artisans, students, the poor and workers joined the rebels.
The Polish aristocracy was forced to balance between rebellious compatriots and the tsarist administration. At the same time, the gentry was strongly against further development riot. General Khlopitsky eventually became the dictator of the uprising. He stated that he supported the rebels in every possible way, but his real goal was to quickly establish relations with St. Petersburg. Instead of starting military operations against the tsarist army, Khlopitsky began to arrest the rebels themselves and write letters of loyalty to Nicholas I. The only demand of Khlopitsky and his supporters was the accession of Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine to the Kingdom of Poland. To this the emperor responded with a decisive refusal. The “moderates” found themselves at an impasse and were ready to capitulate. Khlopitsky resigned. The Sejm, which was meeting at that time, under pressure from the rebellious youth and the poor, was forced to approve the act of deposing Nicholas I. At this time, the army of General Diebitsch was moving towards Poland, the situation was heated to the limit.
The frightened gentry preferred to oppose the Russian emperor rather than incur the wrath of the peasantry, and therefore began to prepare for war with Russia. The gathering of troops proceeded slowly and with constant delays. The first battles took place in February 1831. Despite the small number of the Polish army and the lack of agreement between its commanders, the Poles managed to repel Diebitsch’s attacks for some time. But the new commander of the Polish rebel army, Skrzynetski, immediately entered into secret negotiations with Diebitsch. In the spring, Skrzynetsky missed several opportunities to launch a counterattack.
Meanwhile, peasant unrest began throughout Poland. For the peasants, the uprising was not so much a struggle against St. Petersburg as a way to resist feudal oppression. In exchange for social reforms, they were ready to follow their lords into war with Russia, but the overly conservative policy of the Sejm led to the fact that by the summer of 1831 the peasants finally refused to support the uprising and went against the landowners.
However, in difficult situation Petersburg was also located. Cholera riots began throughout Russia. The disease suffered greatly and Russian army, which stood near Warsaw. Nicholas I demanded that the army immediately suppress the uprising. In early September, troops under the leadership of General Paskevich broke into the suburbs of Warsaw. The Sejm chose to surrender the capital. The Poles also did not find support from foreign powers who were afraid of democratic revolutions at home. At the beginning of October the uprising was finally suppressed.
Results of the uprising
The consequences of the uprising were very disastrous for Poland:
- Poland lost its constitution, diet and army;
- A new administrative system was introduced on its territory, which actually meant the elimination of autonomy;
- The attack on the Catholic Church began.
POLISH UPRISING OF 1794
Background to the Uprising (1791-1794) The Constitution of the Third of May 1791 (see THIRD OF MAY 1791 CONSTITUTION) laid the foundations for the transformation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth into a viable state with a strong central authority.
Beginning of the uprising (March-June 1794) The uprising began on March 12, 1794 in Pułtusk with a mutiny of the cavalry brigade of General Anton Madalinski (Madalinski, d. 1805), which refused to obey the decision to disband. Other units of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth army began to join the rebels. A few days later, Madalinski's cavalry captured Krakow, which became the center of the uprising. On March 16, 1794, the leader of the rebels was chosen - proclaimed dictator Tadeusz Kosciuszko. On March 24, the Act of Uprising was published in Krakow, which proclaimed slogans for the full restoration of the sovereignty of Poland, the return of territories seized in 1773 and 1793 (see Partitions of Poland (see DIVISIONS OF POLAND)), the continuation of the reforms begun by the Four-Year Sejm (see FOUR-YEAR SEIJ ) 1788-1792. The rebels were supported by wide sections of Polish society, and the arming of the population and the formation of rebel groups began everywhere. The Russian Ambassador in Warsaw and the commander of Russian troops on the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, General I. A. Igelstrom, sent a detachment of General A. P. Tormasov to suppress the uprising (see TORMASOV Alexander Petrovich). But on April 4, 1794, in the battle of Roslawice (Raclawice), the Poles managed to defeat a detachment of Russian troops. Following this, uprisings of the townspeople liberated Warsaw (April 17-18) and Vilna (April 22-23). Having accepted the title of Generalissimo, Kosciuszko announced a general mobilization. The number of the rebel army was increased to 70 thousand, but a significant part of it was armed with pikes and scythes. By May, the rebels had established control over most of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The democratically minded leaders of the uprising tried to start reforms in Poland. On May 7, 1793, Tadeusz Kościuszko published the Polaniec Universal, which granted serfs personal freedom, subject to their settlement with the landowners and payment of state taxes, and recognized the hereditary right of peasants to cultivated land. This act was received with hostility by the gentry and the Catholic clergy, who sabotaged its actual implementation. Under the influence of the Great French Revolution (see THE GREAT FRENCH REVOLUTION), the most radical part of the rebels formed into a group of Polish Jacobins (see POLISH JACOBINS) and tried to unleash revolutionary terror in Poland. On May 9 and June 28, 1794, the Jacobins provoked popular unrest in Warsaw, during which leaders of the Targowica Confederation were executed. The extremism of the Jacobins pushed many moderate Poles away from the rebel camp. Russia, Prussia and Austria decided to suppress the uprising by armed means and force the Poles to recognize the partitions of Poland. Russian troops operated in two directions: Warsaw and Lithuania. General Saltykov's 30,000-strong cover corps was deployed in the second echelon of Russian troops. The corps of Chief General A.V. Suvorov was urgently transferred from the Turkish border to Poland (see Alexander Vasilyevich SUVOROV). The Austrians concentrated a 20,000-strong corps on the southern borders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Under the personal command of King Frederick William II, a 54,000-strong Prussian army invaded Poland from the west. Another 11 thousand Prussians remained to cover their borders. The main forces of the Poles - a 23,000-strong corps under the personal command of Kosciuszko - were located in the vicinity of Warsaw. The rebel reserve of seven thousand was stationed in Krakow. Smaller detachments covered the directions to Vilna, Grodno, Lublin, Rava-Russkaya.
Fighting in the summer of 1794 In the summer of 1794, active hostilities broke out between the opponents. Having superior forces, Kosciuszko tried to destroy the Cossack detachment of Ataman Denisov who remained in Poland, near Radom. But the Cossacks avoided the battle and retreated to join the Prussians. In the battle of Szczekocin, Kosciuszko's corps was defeated and was forced to retreat to Warsaw. Developing success, the Prussian general Elsner captured Krakow. In July 1794, Frederick William II began the siege of Warsaw, where he met desperate resistance from its defenders. In the eastern direction, the Russian detachment of General Derfelden operated successfully, which, advancing from the Pripyat River, defeated the Polish corps of General Jozef Zajonczek (Zajaczek, 1752-1826), occupied Lublin and reached Pulawy. Field Marshal Prince Nikolai Repnin (see REPNIN Nikolai Vasilyevich), appointed commander of the Russian troops in Lithuania, waited for the arrival of Suvorov’s corps from the Turkish border and did not take decisive action. Repnin's passivity allowed the Poles to develop successful military activities in Lithuania. While the detachments of Count Grabowski and Jakub Jasinsky (Jasinsky, d. 1794) held Vilna and Grodno, Count Mikhail Oginsky (see OGINSKY Mikhail Kleofas) launched a partisan fight in the rear of the Russian troops, and the 12,000-strong rebel corps entered Courland and occupied Libau. Only the unsuccessful actions of the commander of the Polish troops in Lithuania, Mikhail Vilyegorsky, did not allow the rebels to achieve decisive successes. After a double attack, Russian troops captured Vilna and on August 1, 1794 defeated the main forces of the rebels in Lithuania. After this, the Russians firmly seized the initiative, which was facilitated by a confederation in support of Russia, organized by Count Xavier Branicki from part of the Lithuanian gentry. Meanwhile, in the rear of the Prussian troops, in the previously annexed Greater Poland, an uprising broke out. The rebels managed to occupy several cities. Having failed to achieve success, the Prussians were forced to retreat from Warsaw in September 1794. Kosciuszko pursued the retreating Frederick William II, General Madalinski successfully acted on the Lower Vistula. Taking advantage of the fact that the main forces of the Poles were occupied in other directions, Austrian troops occupied Krakow, Sandomierz and Kholm, and limited their actions there.
Suppression of the uprising (September-November 1794) At the beginning of September 1794, Alexander Suvorov's 10,000-strong corps arrived at the theater of military operations in Belarus. On September 4, he took Kobrin, and on September 8, near Brest, he defeated the rebels under the command of Sierakovsky. On September 28 (October 9), 1794, the Russian corps of General Ivan Ferzen defeated the main forces of the rebel troops in the Battle of Maciejowice near the city of Siedlce in Eastern Poland. Tadeusz Kosciuszko himself was seriously wounded and captured. Of the 10 thousand rebels who took part in the battle, only two thousand managed to escape to Warsaw. The news of the disaster near Maciewice caused panic in Warsaw, which there was no one to protect. The new commander-in-chief of the Polish army, Tomasz Wawrzecki, ordered all rebel troops to hurry to the capital. But the efforts made were in vain. Suvorov, having joined the detachments of Fersen and Derfelden, took Prague, the right bank part of Warsaw, by storm on October 24 (November 4). Under the threat of artillery bombardment, the Warsaw residents decided to capitulate. On October 26 (November 6), 1794, Suvorov’s troops occupied the capital of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. After the fall of the capital, Polish resistance began to fade. Part of the remnants of the Polish army crossed the Prussian border and joined the rebels in Greater Poland. But here, too, the uprising was soon suppressed. Another part of the rebel army tried to break through to the south, across the Austrian border into Galicia. Near Opochno, the rebels were overtaken by the Prussian detachment of General Kleist and the Cossacks of Ataman Denisov. In the battle, the Poles were completely defeated and only a few of them managed to escape to Galicia. The desperate resistance of the rebels absorbed a significant part of the forces of the anti-French coalition and eased the position of revolutionary France in the most tense period. The defeat of the uprising predetermined the third partition of Poland in 1795 and the complete liquidation of Polish statehood.
In September 2009, the 210th anniversary of the famous march of Alexander Suvorov’s army through the Alps was widely celebrated in Switzerland. In a distant mountainous country, several monuments were erected to the Russian commander, including a grandiose memorial cross on the St. Gotthard Pass. Autumn is a memorable time for Suvorov’s epic in Belarus. It was during these months 215 years ago that the final battles of the uprising led by Tadeusz Kosciuszko took place. The main character who achieved a turning point during the hostilities in favor of Russian troops, it was Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov who became. As a result, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ceased to exist, and the lands of Belarus became part of the Russian Empire.
Who is more valuable than mother history?
Recently, in nationalist circles it has become common to overly demonize the figure of the outstanding Russian commander. You won’t hear any kind of epithets addressed to him! He is both a “bloody butcher” and a “strangler of freedom”, he also “brought serfdom to Belarus.”
The peak of anti-Suvorov hysteria (there is no other way to say it) was the campaign launched by some “public representatives” in 2007 against the construction of an Orthodox church in Kobrin, which the local church community dedicated to the memory of A.V. Suvorov. Then Ales Pashkevich, Vladimir Orlov, Oleg Trusov and their comrades literally mixed the name of the commander with mud. There were even leaflets that claimed that Suvorov’s soldiers impaled Belarusian children on pikes and bayonets and walked around towns and villages like that. In the press you can also find statements that Suvorov’s troops marched across Belarus in a bloody march, leaving behind a forest of gallows.
Representatives of the opposition counted how many streets, monuments, collective and state farms there are in Belarus named after A.V. Suvorov. Naturally, everyone is calling for them to be renamed. There are also constant demands to change the name of the Minsk Suvorov Military School.
With Tadeusz Kosciuszko the story is somewhat different. Until the early 90s of the twentieth century, few people on the globe doubted Kosciuszko’s Polish origin. But even in Soviet times, it was no secret that an outstanding Polish military leader was born in Belarus. This was written about in history textbooks and scientific publications. Since 1994, when the 200th anniversary of the uprising under his leadership was celebrated, claims have been increasingly heard that Tadeusz Kosciuszko is in fact a Belarusian and fought for the freedom of our country. Streets named after Kosciuszko began to appear, monuments were erected, and even a commemorative stamp was issued in his honor.
The Belarusian poet Leonid Daineko dedicated a poem to this topic with the eloquent title “Patriotic Test”:
Vyznachim (not required quorum),
Who are you and your people?
Suvorau will patronize you
Is Kastsyushka patrolling?
So let's follow the poet and we will sharpen the question and try to figure out who is more valuable for Belarus: Suvorov or Kosciuszko?
Popular uprising. But what people?
Even supporters of the concept of Litvinism can hardly find arguments to prove that T. Kosciuszko and his associates defended the idea of independence of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. And yet such attempts are being made. In this case, several arguments are usually used. Firstly, the origin of the leader of the uprising himself was from the ancient Belarusian noble family of Kosciuszek-Siechnowitsky. Secondly, his place of birth is the Merechevshchina estate, not far from Kossovo (now Ivatsevichi district). Thirdly, the text of T. Kosciuszko’s address “To Lithuanian citizens and order commissions” dated June 2, 1794. In it, the leader of the uprising wrote: “Lithuania! Glorious in struggle and citizenship, unhappy for a long time through my own sons of treason, I promise to stand among you with gratitude for your trust in me, if military circumstances allow me... who am I if not Litvin, your fellow countryman, chosen by you? On this basis, some publicists conclude that it was about the struggle for the independence of Belarus, identified with Lithuania. But the theory of T. Kosciuszko’s “Belarusianness” does not stand up to criticism. As sad as it sounds, by the end of the 18th century Belarus did not act not only as an independent state, but even in principle as a subject of political relations. After the Union of Lublin in 1569, there was a rapid Polonization of the gentry class and a significant part of the townspeople of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1696, the Old Belarusian language was banned.
Polonization did not spare the Kosciuszko family either. Tadeusz himself, who studied at the PR College, where teaching took place in Latin and Polish, and the Knight School in Warsaw, was a perfect Pole in his self-awareness. In the same address dated June 2, he mentions the Grand Duchy of Lithuania only as his small homeland, somewhat distantly: “Lithuania! My fellow countrymen and compatriots! I was born on your land, and in the zeal of righteousness for my Fatherland, a special affection for those among whom I took root in life resonates in me.” The appeal itself was nothing more than a propaganda proclamation designed to intensify the activities of the rebels in the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. By the way, another Polish “boss”, J. Pilsudski, made a similar appeal “To the citizens of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania” in April 1919. This gentleman also used to call himself a Litvin, since he was born in the Vilna region. For Belarusians, this “Litvinian nostalgia” of another Polish “boss” ended in the closure national schools and newspapers, arrests of the leaders of the liberation movement and massive Polonization.
One of the main goals of T. Kosciuszko's rebels was the restoration of the Constitution of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on May 3, 1791, which actually eliminated even the ghostly autonomy of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, turning it into one of the provinces of the Polish state. The constitution refers exclusively to the Polish people, and the name "Poland" is repeatedly cited as a synonym for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
There could be no talk of any independence of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, much less of Belarus. No one even thought about this! As soon as the main headquarters of T. Kosciuszko suspected Vilna of some kind of illusory separatism, then immediately, on June 4, 1794, J. Yasinsky was removed from the post of commander-in-chief in Lithuania, and the Highest Lithuanian Rada was dissolved, replacing it with the Central Deputation of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, completely subordinate to Warsaw. All povet order commissions were approved in the Polish capital. And the notorious separatism of J. Yasinsky manifested itself, rather, in extreme revolutionary radicalism, like French Jacobinism, in self-will and disobedience to the orders of the leader of the uprising, that is, T. Kosciuszko himself. After all, J. Jasinski, whom some are hastening to list as perhaps the first “Belarusian” revolutionaries, was a Pole not only by identity, but also by origin: he was born in the Poznań voivodeship into a family of Polish gentry.
All documents of the rebels in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were compiled exclusively in Polish; they are literally imbued with the ideas of “Polishness”. Thus, the accusation brought against the last great hetman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Sh.M. Kosakovsky, stated that he used “violence with disgust for all Polish rights.” The leaders of the uprising in the Merech Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (now the territory of the Republic of Lithuania) wrote: “Remember that the average person called to this holy cause is obliged to act as a respectable Pole, a defender of glory, freedom, integrity and independence.” T. Kosciuszko himself did not question the Polish nature of the uprising. On March 25, 1794, in his famous general about the beginning of the uprising, he addressed an appeal to “all voivodeship generals commanding the troops of the Polish Republic.”
To avoid any illusions about what would await Belarus if the uprising were to win, the following fact should be cited. One of the leaders of the rebels in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, M.K. Oginsky, the author of the famous polonaise, in October 1811 submitted a letter to Russian Emperor Alexander I with a draft decree on the new organization of the western provinces of the empire. According to this document, it was intended to restore the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. However, according to M.K. Oginsky’s plan, Polish was to become the official language in this state. In another note addressed to Russian Emperor dated December 1, 1811, as well as during a personal audience with Alexander I at the end of January 1812, M.K. Oginsky clarified that the restoration of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania would be the first step towards the revival of the Polish state and the Constitution on May 3, 1791. At the same time, he suggested that the emperor accept the title of Polish king and conclude a Russian-Polish union. So, whoever now proposed to make Oginsky’s polonaise the Belarusian anthem, Michal Kleofas himself knew exactly the name of his Fatherland, to which he so heartfeltly said goodbye in his work. And the name is not Belarus at all. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania for the rebels of 1794, as well as for the entire numerous gentry of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, seemed to be a vast province of a single Polish state. Yes, with its own regional differences, with its own rich historical past, but just a part of Poland, the same as, say, Mazovia, also a once independent state.
The fight for souls and minds
The elite of Polish society had a pretty good idea of the mood in the lower classes, and even more so among the Belarusian peasants. King Stanisław August Poniatowski, at the Four-Year Sejm, in a speech on November 6, 1788, warned the members of the Sejm that “during the war with Moscow, we may have a worst enemy from our clap.” The same applied to the Orthodox population. Throughout the 18th century, Polish authorities persecuted Orthodox residents, accusing them of sympathizing with Russia. The Belarusian Metropolitan Georgy Konissky was subjected to persecution. The vicar of the Kyiv Metropolitan in Slutsk, Bishop Viktor Sadkovsky, was thrown into prison in 1789. false accusation to prison and kept there without any sentence for three long years, until he was freed by Russian troops.
The situation did not change during the uprising itself. True, some Orthodox Christians, even clergy, joined the rebels. But this is rather an exception that confirms the rule.
During the uprising of 1794 on the territory of Belarus, about 30 thousand people took part in it, of which the majority were gentry, only a third were peasants. The Belarusian historian V.P. Emelyanchik, who had obvious sympathy for the rebels T. Kosciuszko, was forced to admit: “Attempts by part of the leadership of the uprising to limit it only to issues of “Polishness”, as well as unfavorable conditions for a fundamental solution to the “peasant issue” did not lead to his victory. Hence the relative passivity of the Belarusian peasantry.”
In fact, the Belarusian peasants, who made up the overwhelming majority of the population, were not so passive. The sources note repeated cases of active resistance that local residents offered to rebel groups. On May 25, 1794, Russian general V.H. Derfelden wrote to Count Saltykov that he observed among the peasants “more loyalty to us than to the Poles.” Brigadier L.L. Bennigsen reported from Smorgon to his command about mass uprisings of Belarusian peasants against the rebel gentry. According to him, residents of many villages, being confident “that they would remain under the protection of Russia,” pointed out those places “where guns and various military ammunition were buried in the ground, which I received, somehow: in pikes, sabers, a considerable number of rifles, pistols, and bayonets.” Major General B.D. Knorring, one of the Russian military leaders who led the suppression of the uprising, recalled: “... Upon the publication of my generals, the peasants, who were already armed and left alone, attacked their armaments and leaders and could not escape from them were taken by them and delivered to us.” As is clear from the reports of the same general, the rebels were forced to leave the vicinity of Slonim not so much as a result of the actions of Russian troops, but because of complete hostility on the part of the local population.
In August 1794, 170 local Belarusian peasants took an active part in the defense of the Dinaburg fortress by Russian troops. And this is not surprising, since the rebels under the leadership of M.K. Oginsky, who besieged the fortress, burned peasant households, extorted money from local residents, threatening complete ruin. Thus, from the peasants of the landowner Sieberkh, whose estate was located in the vicinity of Dinaburg, the rebels received 50 chervonets as an indemnity, in addition another 45 rubles in the form of taxes, seized 7 landowner and 5 peasant horses. All this was accompanied by mass beatings of local residents. Such actions were common practice. After one of his “partisan” actions, M.K. Oginsky returned with a convoy of 200 peasant carts.
Researcher A. Benzeruk rightly states: “The events of the uprising once again showed that for the Belarusians 1794 acquired the features civil war, since our compatriots fought on both sides of the barricades.” And our fellow countrymen fought in the troops of A.V. Suvorov. One of the most famous formations of his army was the Belarusian Jaeger Corps, which consisted of several battalions. The Belarusian warriors (as they were called in the Russian army) were distinguished by their daring and fearlessness.
The widespread anti-insurgent sentiment in Belarus is evidenced not only by Russian officers, but also by the Polish insurgents themselves. Colonel I. Dzyalinsky later testified: “According to him, Krautner, the excitement supposedly meant that the peasants wanted to rebel against the Russian troops. But Dzyalinsky considers this news to be completely false, knowing the well-known attachment of the peasants to the Russian troops.” M.K. Oginsky, having broken into the territory that went to the Russian Empire after the second partition, was defeated precisely because of the hostility of the local residents. According to his own recollections, he had to abandon the assault on Minsk, since the Russian governor Neplyuev attracted “a large number of armed peasants to the defense of the city in order to expose them for the first attack.”
Even in Vishnevo and Shchorsy, where Count Khreptovich carried out reforms, the peasants refused to give recruits and actively opposed the Kosciuszkoites. Captain I. Goyzhevsky sadly stated: “In Vishnev, with the help of execution, I choose infantrymen... But people are rebelled by Moscow and do not want to be obedient... Likewise, in Smotovshchizna and Shchorsy, the khlops rebelled and do not want to give recruits.”
By the way, usually modern pseudo-scientific publicists accuse A.V. Suvorov’s troops of “bringing recruiting on their bayonets.” But the recruitment kits were introduced by T. Kosciuszko’s rebels themselves. If they had relied only on volunteers, the uprising would have died out before it even began.
However, the situation was not the same with the recruitment of recruits. in the best possible way. Various layers of society showed indifference towards, if not ideas, then participation in the uprising. Documents from that time are filled with complaints and threats from various rebel representatives caused by the passivity of the residents and their reluctance to fight against Russian troops. The rebel center in Vilna received reports with the following content: “People are running away from Vilna continuously, so that in addition to women) who have panicky souls, and therefore it is reasonable that they leave), this includes many men who are fit for arms and armed.” The representative of the rebels, Y. Garain, wrote to the Brest Commission that he was carrying out a “forcible recruitment” of recruits.
After the defeat in the battle near the village of Perebranovichi in May 1794 from Russian troops, “the Polish nobles, without much resistance, pointed to the place of storage of weapons (pistols, pikes, guns) and declared that they would forever remain under the patronage of Russia.”
The leader of the uprising himself was forced to admit the failure of recruiting in the Belarusian lands. On September 12, 1794, he wrote: “Of the 500 recruits intended for my convoy, only 372 were delivered from the Brest-Litovsk Voivodeship, the rest fled along the road.” At the beginning of August 1794, a riot even broke out in the 3rd regiment of the Lithuanian vanguard of the rebel detachment of Major General P. Grabovsky, after the suppression of which five death sentences were handed down, but not carried out.
The peasants refused to join the rebel army, and the gentry constantly complained that the farmers were getting off the ground. The recruitment kits introduced by the Kosciuszkoites were truly unbearable for Lithuania and western Belarus, since here in 1793 there was a severe famine that occurred as a result of a prolonged drought. The spring crops did not produce any crops; there was no hay at all.
Almost the only evidence of some semblance of broad popular support for the rebels on the territory of Belarus is the often quoted testimony of the Russian military leader N.V. Repnin: “The war here is not against the army, but against the nationwide revolt of the entire nobility and mob, all openly or secretly armed, who, respectively , you can’t drive them away in front of you, but they will always remain in the back of the army, posing as calm ordinary people.” However, these estimates Russian general in principle should be treated with a significant degree of skepticism. Which, by the way, is what his contemporaries did. Nikolai Vasilyevich Repnin was, to put it mildly, a reinsurer. He literally attacked St. Petersburg with panicky reports based on unconfirmed rumors and speculation. After the suppression of the uprising, N.V. Repnin opposed the settlement of the former king Stanislav Augustus in Grodno, arguing that under the overthrown monarch there was a well-armed guard of 300 - 400 people. In the city itself, he imagined a conspiracy to free Poniatowski. Repnin proposed transferring the former king further away, for example, to Riga. None of these fears turned out to be true. Here is the assessment of Repnin himself given by one of the most authoritative researchers of that era, M. de Poulet: “Although Prince Repnin gained fame during the wars with the Turks not only as a military general, but also as an excellent commander, however, one quick glance at his actions in Lithuania is enough , from the first days of April 1794, to be convinced of the insufficiency of his military leadership abilities: he was slow and cautious everywhere, at every step, and to the extreme.” However, even N.V. Repnin eventually admitted that the local population was all it is more pro-Russian than pro-Polish. He also has a statement that for some reason has hardly been quoted lately: “The peasants are more on our side than the rebels.” It is also necessary to discard any speculation regarding serfdom, as if “brought on Suvorov’s bayonets.” Serfdom(prygon) was finally approved in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania under the Statute of 1588, half a century earlier than in Russia. And serfdom in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was no easier than in the Russian Empire, aggravated by the complete self-will of the gentry and magnates, and additional exploitation by tenants. True, in the “Polonets Universal”, published on May 7, 1794, T. Kosciuszko proclaimed that “the personality of every peasant is free,” and the hereditary right to use land was recognized for the peasants. However, this did not mean the abolition of serfdom. A peasant could leave the master provided that all duties were fulfilled and debts were paid, which was an almost impossible requirement. Only participants in the uprising were exempt from corvee, while the rest had to “diligently serve the days of corvee that remained, and be obedient to their superiors.” In addition, in a number of places the gentry who participated in the uprising openly sabotaged the execution of the universal. Contemporaries wrote about this: “The gentry largely declares: let a Muscovite, a Prussian or an Austrian rule us, but we will not free the khlops from citizenship.”
In the literature one can find constant references to the large number of peasant souls granted to Belarus Russian officers and officials. These facts are cited as evidence of the enslavement of the Belarusian peasantry. But Russian landowners were allocated lands with peasants who were not at all free. Before that, they belonged to the Russian treasury, which came into their possession after the confiscation of lands from Polish landowners who refused to swear allegiance to the Russian Empress. On June 1, 1773, in the Mogilev and Pskov provinces, 95,097 peasant souls thus became the property of the state treasury. By the way, not only immigrants from Russia were endowed with lands and estates. Thus, on December 3, 1795, with her rescript, Catherine II ordered the Lithuanian governor-general to return the estates to all relatives of the former Polish king, as well as a number of other prominent figures of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, including the former Lithuanian hetman Michal Kazimir Oginsky.
Not only by force of arms
We should immediately make a reservation: of course, war is war. Always and at all times during military operations, civilians die and war crimes occur. Even in peacetime, military personnel commit offenses; there is enough work for special military prosecutors' offices and courts. What can we say about the hard times of war in the 18th century, when there were no Geneva and Hague conventions prescribing the rules of war. Therefore, when assessing the actions of certain troops the most important criterion the installations and orders given by the military leaders appear. The same N.V. Repnin ordered his officers to first of all strive to protect the peasants. Requisitions of food and fodder were ordered to be made primarily from the gentry. It was recommended that peasants who voluntarily left the rebel groups be rewarded with money and released. Suvorov himself, in his famous “Science of Victory,” taught the soldiers: “Don’t offend the average person, he gives us water and food. A soldier is not a robber.”
All this was completely within the framework of the concept of the policy pursued by the imperial authorities in Belarus and Lithuania. Its foundations were formulated back in the famous “Order” of Catherine II to the Pskov and Mogilev governors on governance in the lands annexed from Poland dated May 28, 1772. All the measures of the new government, in the opinion of the great empress, should have led to “so that not only these provinces would be subjugated to us by force of arms, but that you (the governors - V.G.) would have a kind, decent heart for the people living in them.” , appropriated the just, condescending, meek and philanthropic administration of the Russian Empire, so that they themselves would have a reason to consider their rejection of the anarchic Polish Republic as the first step towards their prosperity.” This document provided for freedom of religion. As is known, the Jesuit Order, banned throughout Europe at that time, continued to operate quietly in only one country - the Russian Empire.
The trial and execution were carried out according to local laws and in the local language. Torture was universally abolished. The population of the former lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, annexed to the Russian Empire under the second partition of 1793, was exempt from taxes for two years.
Naturally, the moratorium on death penalty, introduced in the Russian Empire back in 1744. It was violated only in exceptional cases: after the conspiracy of V.Ya. Mirovich in 1764 and during the suppression of the Pugachev rebellion. The uprising of 1794 was no such exception. Captured rebels, regardless of their rank and nationality, were not executed. A.V. Suvorov often released prisoners altogether, as happened with the 6,000 Polish soldiers he released after the capture of Warsaw.
T. Kosciuszko himself was not executed. After a short imprisonment in the Peter and Paul Fortress, where he enjoyed considerable freedom, the former leader of the uprising was released by Emperor Paul I, who awarded him 12 thousand rubles, a sable fur coat and hat, fur boots and silverware. At the same time, T. Kosciuszko took an oath of loyalty to the Russian autocrat and kept it, never taking up arms against Russia.
Another leader of the uprising, M.K. Oginsky, the same author of the polonaise, not only returned after a short emigration to the Russian Empire, but even became its senator under Emperor Alexander I.
Finally, is it possible to imagine that “brutal occupiers” would consider complaints from residents of the “occupied territory,” including their former opponents, about damage to property during hostilities? Moreover, did they recover the amount of damage from the commander of their own troops? What kind of occupiers are these and what kind of occupation is this?! But this is exactly what happened just a couple of years after the end of the T. Kosciuszko uprising. In June 1797, the former Lithuanian sub-city, Count Worzel, submitted a petition to the Russian authorities to compensate him for damages for timber and potash destroyed as a result of the actions of troops under the command of A.V. Suvorov. Despite the fact that the commander himself had nothing to do with this case, sequestration was imposed on his Kobrin estate to compensate Worzel for damage in the amount of 5,628 chervonets or 28,000 paper rubles. Six months after this incident, the former Polish major Vyganovsky filed a similar petition to recover 36,000 rubles from Suvorov, allegedly for setting fire to the estate during the Krupchitsky battle. Russian authorities conducted a thorough investigation into this incident. Great commander was indignant: “I am not an incendiary or a robber. War or peace? In desperation, he was even ready to start selling jewelry, saying: “In an accident, diamonds. I deserve them. God gave, God will take, and can give again.” However, the investigation concluded that Vyganovsky’s claims were unfounded, and as a result of the fighting on his estate, which was not worth the stated amount of the claim, only one dilapidated barn was damaged.
When did the first “enemies of the people” appear?
But the Polish rebels were not at all so peaceful. In fact, in 1794, revolutionary terror was introduced in the territory covered by the uprising. Already in the “Act of Uprising of the People of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania” itself, a principle was spelled out that opened the way to the widespread use of violence: “whoever is not with us is our enemy.” One of the first victims of the terror was the Great Hetman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania Sh.M. Kosakovsky, a supporter of breaking the union with Poland and concluding an alliance with the Russian Empire. He was hanged on the Market Square in Vilna. During the execution, Y. Yasinsky made a demonstrative speech: “Gracious sirs! A matter will happen here that is forbidden to discuss, and whether any of you like it or not, everyone is obliged to remain silent, and whoever gives his voice will immediately be hanged on this gallows.” J. Yasinsky continued to achieve wide application“reprisals” against their political opponents. The brother of the Great Hetman Yu.K. Kosakovsky, the Inflant bishop, was also hanged.
Soon there will be “gallows for the enemies of the people” (this is their official name) appeared in other cities and towns that were under the control of the rebels. The resolution of the Grodno Order Commission on this matter stated: “... in the market of Grodno there was a gallows with the inscription on one side - “Death to the traitors of the Fatherland”, and on the other - “Fear, traitor,” recognizing that established instrument of death as an honest one. and a kind way of thinking and loving one’s fatherland during a real uprising from the captivity of our Fatherland.” To ensure that love for the Fatherland does not fade among citizens, the rebels established repressive bodies to organize and carry out terror. The main one was the Deputation of Public Security. A Criminal Court was also established, which was called upon to punish “traitors to the Fatherland, those who are opposed to its uprising, who threaten in some way with advice or conspiracy, and those who are already guilty of their Fatherland.” Moreover, all cases were resolved within 24 hours. There was only one punishment - hanging. The rebel authorities introduced censorship, and freedom of speech was also limited, “so that no one, with frivolous and passionate speeches, would incite, inflame the people, or excite them to any actions that would disturb public peace.” The same security departments were supposed to monitor the observance of “public peace.” The rebels carried out real punitive operations. In the Oshmyany povet, a certain nobleman T. Gorodensky, immediately after the victory of the uprising in Vilna, organized a detachment with which he went to take revenge on his neighbors who refused to join the uprising. Having shed a lot of blood, T. Gorodensky fled to Vilna. Captured Russian soldiers were subjected to cruel reprisals. In Warsaw, the Russian garrison was almost completely slaughtered by the rebels. At the same time, unarmed soldiers who were taking communion in the church, as well as women and small children nearby, were killed.
These are facts confirmed by documents, historical sources, and eyewitness accounts. But the stories that A.V. Suvorov ordered “to shoot the residents of Kobrin and Malorita, to drive them through the gauntlet,” as is sometimes written, have not been confirmed by anything. In publications of this kind you will not find either footnotes or a list of sources - they simply do not exist. The only episode truly confirmed by sources is the destruction by Cossacks from A.V. Suvorov’s corps of the remnants of K. Serakovsky’s detachment in the Krupchitsky Carmelite monastery. Then about four hundred rebels died in the fleeting felling. Moreover, it is not clear who it was. Some write about the cosiners, others about the horsemen under the command of K. Ruszczyc. One way or another, there was no talk of any extermination of civilians. Armed people came to the monastery and refused to surrender. A.V. Suvorov himself wrote about those events: “Those who fled during the battle into the forests, who do not surrender and do not appear themselves, are still shot by huntsmen and other infantry, such as in swamps, who did not drown in them.” War is war: they don’t play tricks on it. A widely propagated “fact of atrocities” by Suvorov’s troops is the storming of the Warsaw suburb of Prague. In this article we will not dwell in detail on this dramatic episode, since it is not directly related to Belarus. Moreover, there are a large number of different publications on this matter, both accusing A.V. Suvorov and his soldiers and justifying their actions. One of the best in recent times is the article “Historical Myth-Making” by E.V. Babenko, director of the Kobrin Military History Museum named after A.V. Suvorov As for civilian casualties, let everyone answer the following question for themselves. Can the civilian population remain unharmed during an assault on a fortress that contains about 17 thousand garrison people, more than 100 guns, and even the residents themselves, who have taken up arms? And all this took place in Prague, which, according to the Poles themselves, was transformed into a first-class fortress. And who is to blame for the deaths of civilians: the attackers or the defense leaders who left ordinary people on the front line? Nevertheless, no matter how anyone describes the “Suvorov atrocities,” most of the population and houses of Prague survived. This is evidenced by the fact that after the battle it was in this suburb that some units of the Russian troops were stationed. Released and most of prisoners. This is such a “savage massacre”!
Not by number, but by skill
You read some publications and you are amazed! Brilliantly educated officers, bearers of progressive ideas, “relying on popular support,” were suddenly defeated by “backward Moscow savages.” How can this be? The explanation is simple - the overwhelming, simply unheard-of numerical superiority of the Russian troops. As always, they were crushed by the masses and filled with corpses. As an example, let us take the Battle of Krupchitsa on September 17, 1794 - the largest military clash during the uprising on the territory of Belarus. Everything is clear with the troops of A.V. Suvorov - according to accurate data, together with reinforcements received on the road to Kobrin, they numbered about 11 thousand people. Confusion arises with the number of troops of the rebel division of K. Sierakovsky. A.V. Suvorov himself wrote about 16 thousand people with 28 guns. The famous Russian historian A.F. Petrushevsky estimates K. Serakovsky’s detachment at 13 thousand. Polish historian S. Herbst already writes about about 5 thousand K. Serakovsky’s troops. The Belarusian historian V.P. Emelyanchik in the monograph “Palanez for Kasiner” wrote about 10 thousand people and 28 guns. In his article about this battle in Encyclopedia VKL, he writes more vaguely that “about 20 thousand people took part on both sides.” But in the same publication, A.P. Gritskevich claims that Suvorov’s corps was more than twice as large as the rebel forces. A. Benzeruk writes that near Krupchitsy K. Serakovsky had only 4 thousand people, that is, 13 squadrons and 5 battalions, as well as 26 guns, and Suvorov outnumbered his forces three times.
Who knows, maybe somewhere an as yet unknown battle painter has already painted a large-scale diorama in which countless Suvorov hordes are pressing on a small handful of K. Serakovsky’s fighters? In fact, the Russian troops did not have any not overwhelming, but even significant or relative superiority in numbers in that war. By the time the armed uprising began, Russian troops on the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania consisted of two detachments: General N.D. Arsenyev in Vilna and General P.D. Tsitsianov in Grodno, Novogrudok and Slonim. The total number of Russian troops was about 11 thousand people, that is, it was equal to the army of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. At the same time, the Russians had superiority in artillery, and the Lithuanian forces had superiority in cavalry. The Polish historian K. Bartoshevich calculated that in the Russian army in the Crown and Lithuania there were only 45 thousand people, in Suvorov’s corps at the time of the assault on Prague - 15 thousand. He estimates the size of Kosciuszko’s army at 64 - 70 thousand people. True, there was also a 50,000-strong Prussian army allied with Russia, operating in Greater Poland. However, another “strange war” took place there, which is proven both by the extremely unsuccessful and passive actions of the Prussians in the Warsaw region, and by the fact that Kosciuszko kept a relatively small detachment in Wielkopolska. The Russian troops won in full accordance with the military teachings of A.V. Suvorov: not in numbers, but in skill. It was achieved thanks to the genius of the great commander himself, as well as the military skill of his students, the generation of “Catherine’s eagles” who went through the school of Ochakov and Focshan, Rymnik and Izmail. The excellent fighting qualities of the Russian troops were then tested on the fields of Italy and in the Swiss mountains in battles with a new type of armed force - the French revolutionary army. And they passed this test successfully.
Not apart, but together
Many of the examples given in this publication are taken from the works of supporters of the theory of “Belarusianness” Kosciuszko and the “bloody executioner” Suvorov. Their authors simply could not ignore documentary sources. However, when drawing conclusions, for some reason they “forgot” entire layers historical facts. As a result, such a chain of “forgotten” facts leads to the distortion and falsification of history. And this is not an accident at all, but a deliberate activity with the goal of changing the national identity of the Belarusian people, their historical memory. We are dealing with another attempt to artificially tear Belarusians out of the area of East Slavic civilization, and for this purpose to denigrate, make hostile all Russian heroes and artificially “Belarusianize” Polish heroes, establishing a synonymous connection between the concepts of “Rzeczpospolita” and “Belarusian state.” Naturally, the ultimate goal is to create a “cultural-historical” basis for a fundamental change in the domestic and foreign policy course of the Belarusian state. This tendency was revealed and shown in facts in his article “The Choice of the Nation” on the pages of “Belarusian Duma” by the domestic historian Ya.I. Treshchenok. A.V. Suvorov wrote: “I forgot myself when it came to the benefit of the Fatherland.” Surely T. Kosciuszko and many of his associates would subscribe to these words. This article was in no way intended to denigrate the rebels of 1794. For the most part, they were sincere, selfless and honest people, selfless patriots, but not of Belarus, but of the country that they considered their Motherland - Poland. After many years of anarchy, national and religious intolerance, the Polish people awakened and took up arms in defense of their Fatherland. In this sense, his fight was fair. It was during that period that the formation of the new Polish nation took place. Unfortunately, this formation came at the expense of the eradication of the ethnic identity of other peoples living on the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, primarily Belarusians, Ukrainians and Lithuanians. The revival of the Polish state in 1918 and the history of the oppression of national minorities during the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth convincingly proved this.
Attempts to juxtapose the images of Suvorov and Kosciuszko in Belarusian history are extremely counterproductive. A careful study of the program of the 1794 uprising shows that its success would have led to the absolute polonization of Belarus and the disappearance of the Belarusian people as an independent ethnic group. The victory of Suvorov's troops changed this logic of events. After all, it was the most acute struggle between two great national ideas - Russian and Polish, the place of collision of which was our land, that led in the middle of the 19th century to the emergence of an independent Belarusian idea. Therefore, it is ugly and ungrateful to spit on the memory of the late great commander, a true military genius, a true Christian, who absorbed all the best features of the Russian character. Who knows, maybe time will pass and we will be able to light a candle in front of the icon of the new Orthodox warrior saint Alexander? After all, the Church recently canonized Suvorov’s contemporary, Admiral Fyodor Ushakov.
But Kosciuszko is also a symbolic and significant figure for our history. Even his very birth and development as a person symbolizes the tragedy of the Belarusian gentry, who were Polished, lost touch with their folk roots, and forgot the customs, language and faith of their ancestors. But we have the right to be proud that a great son and hero of the Polish people was born on our land.
T. Kosciuszko died in Switzerland, the same country where the anniversary of A.V. Suvorov’s Alpine campaign was celebrated this year. In a small European state, two outstanding historical characters are respected: both a Russian and a Pole. Their memory is equally honored and duly perpetuated. So isn’t it time for us, Belarusians, to stop pitting these two great people against each other, disturbing their eternal peace, and start treating them as symbols of our difficult and contradictory history. Moreover, the two military leaders never met on the battlefield, but the places in Belarus associated with their names (Kobrin and Merechevshchina) are so close...
Vadim GIGIN,
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Editor-in-Chief of the Belarusian Duma magazine D
