Why is everything so complicated in Russian-Polish relations?
The issue of relations between Russians and Poles is historically complex. So much so that almost any topic related to the two nations can escalate into a quarrel, full of mutual reproaches and listing of sins. There is something in this acuteness of mutual affection that is different from the carefully hidden, alienated hostility of the Germans and the French, the Spaniards and the English, even the Walloons and the Flemings. In relations between Russians and Poles, there will probably never be a sobering coldness and averted glances. Lenta.ru tried to figure out the reason for this state of affairs.
Since the Middle Ages in Poland, all Orthodox Christians living in the former territory Kievan Rus, were called Russians, without making distinctions for Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians. Even in the 20th century, in the documents of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the definition of identity, as a rule, went according to religious affiliation- Catholic, Orthodox or Uniate. At the time when Prince Kurbsky sought refuge in Lithuania, and Prince Belsky in Moscow, the mutual connection was already quite strong, the differences were obvious, but there was no mutual perception through the prism of “friend or foe”. Perhaps this is a normal property of the feudal era, when it is too early to talk about national identity.
Any self-awareness is formed in times of crisis. For Russia in the 17th century it was the era of the Troubles, for Poland - the Swedish Flood (the Swedish invasion of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1655-1660). One of the most important results"Flood" - the expulsion of Protestants from Poland and the subsequent strengthening of the influence of the Catholic Church. Catholicism became the blessing and curse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Following the Protestants, the Orthodox Christians, who made up a large part of the country's population, came under attack, and a mechanism of self-destruction was launched in the state. The former Polish-Lithuanian state was distinguished by a fairly high national and religious tolerance- Polish Catholics, Muslims, Karaites, Orthodox and pagans, Lithuanians who worshiped Perkūnas coexisted successfully together. No wonder the crisis state power, which began under the most prominent of the Polish kings, John III Sobieski, led to a catastrophic contraction and then the death of the Polish state, which had lost its internal consensus. The system of state power opened up too many opportunities for conflicts, giving them legitimacy. The work of the Sejm was paralyzed by the right of liberum veto, which allowed any deputy to cancel all decisions made with his vote, and the royal power was forced to reckon with the confederations of the nobility. The latter were an armed association of the gentry, which had every right, if necessary, to oppose the king.
At the same time, to the east of Poland the final formation of Russian absolutism was underway. Then the Poles will talk about their historical inclination towards freedom, and the Russians will be simultaneously proud and embarrassed of the autocratic nature of their statehood. Subsequent conflicts, as usual in history inevitable for neighboring peoples, acquired an almost metaphysical meaning of rivalry between two peoples very different in spirit. However, along with this myth, another will form - about the inability of both Russians and Poles to implement their ideas without violence. The famous Polish public figure, editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wyborcza Adam Michnik writes wonderfully about this: “Every now and then we feel like students of a magician who have freed forces that no one can control from captivity.” The Polish uprisings and the Russian revolution, in the end, the Ukrainian Maidan - a senseless and merciless instinct of self-destruction.
Russian statehood grew stronger, but this was not, as it may seem now, a consequence of territorial and human superiority over its neighbors. Our country at that time was a huge, poorly developed and sparsely populated territory. Someone will say that these problems still exist today, and they will probably be right. At the end of the 17th century, the population of the Muscovite kingdom exceeded 10 million people, which is slightly more than in the neighboring Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, where 8 million lived, and in France - 19 million. In those days, our Polish neighbors did not and could not have the complex of a small people who were threatened from the East.
IN Russian case it was all about the historical ambitions of the people and the authorities. Now it no longer seems at all strange that, having completed the Northern War, Peter I accepted the title of Emperor of All Russia. But let's look at this decision in the context of the era - after all, the Russian Tsar placed himself above all other European monarchs. The Holy Roman Empire of the German nation does not count - it was not an example or a rival and experienced its own worst times. In relations with the Polish king Augustus II the Strong, Peter I undoubtedly dominated, and in terms of development, Russia begins to outstrip its western neighbor. 
In just a century, Poland, which saved Europe from the Turkish invasion in 1683 near Vienna, turned into a completely unviable state. Historians have already concluded the debate about whether internal or external factors became fatal for Polish statehood in the 18th century. Of course, everything was decided by their combination. But as for the moral responsibility for the gradual decline of Poland's power, it can be said quite definitely that the initiative of the first partition belonged to Austria, the second - to Prussia, and the final third - to Russia. Everything is equal, and this is not a childish argument about who started it first.
The response to the crisis of statehood was, although belated, fruitful. The Educational Commission (1773-1794) begins work in the country, which was actually the first ministry of education in Europe. In 1788, the Four-Year Diet met, embodying the ideas of the Enlightenment almost simultaneously with the French revolutionaries, but much more humanely. The first in Europe and the second in the world (after the American) Constitution was adopted on May 3, 1791 in Poland.
It was a wonderful undertaking, but it lacked revolutionary force. The Constitution recognized all Poles as the Polish people, regardless of class (previously only the gentry were considered such), but retained serfdom. The situation in Lithuania was noticeably improving, but no one thought to translate the Constitution itself into Lithuanian. The subsequent reaction to the changes in state system Poland entailed two partitions and the fall of statehood. Poland has become, in the words of British historian Norman Davies, “God’s plaything,” or, to put it simply, an object of rivalry and agreement between neighboring and sometimes distant powers.
The Poles responded with uprisings, mainly in the territory of the Kingdom of Poland, which became part of the Russian Empire in 1815 following the results of the Congress of Vienna. It was in the 19th century that the two peoples truly got to know each other, and then mutual attraction, sometimes hostility, and often non-recognition formed. Nikolai Danilevsky considered the Poles to be an alien part of the Slavs, and a similar approach would later appear among the Poles in relation to the Russians.
Polish rebels and Russian autocrats saw the future differently: some dreamed of reviving statehood by any means, others thought in terms of an imperial house in which there would be a place for everyone, including the Poles. The context of the era cannot be underestimated - in the first half of the 19th century, the Russians were the only Slavic people who had statehood, and a great one at that. Ottoman domination in the Balkans was seen as enslavement, and Russian power - as deliverance from suffering (from the same Turks or Persians, Germans or Swedes, or simply from native savagery). This view was actually not without reason - the imperial authorities were very loyal to traditional beliefs and the customs of the subject peoples, they did not try to achieve their Russification, and in many cases the transition to the rule of the Russian Empire was a real deliverance from destruction. 
Following their usual policy, Russian autocrats willingly integrated local elites. But if we talk about Poland and Finland, then the system was failing. We can only remember Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, who held the post of Russian minister foreign affairs, but thought more about the interests of Poland.
Contradictions accumulated gradually. If in 1830 the Polish rebels came out with the words “For our freedom and yours,” then in 1863, in addition to the slogan “Freedom, equality, brotherhood,” completely bloodthirsty calls were heard. Methods guerrilla warfare brought bitterness, and even the liberal-minded public, who initially sympathized with the rebels, quickly changed their opinion about them. In addition, the rebels thought not only about national liberation, but also about the restoration of statehood within the borders that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had before the partitions. And the slogan “For our and your freedom” practically lost its previous meaning and was now more associated with the hope that other peoples of the empire would rise, and then it would inevitably collapse. On the other hand, when assessing such aspirations, we must not forget that the Russian Narodnaya Volya and anarchists hatched no less destructive plans.
The close but somewhat squeamish neighborhood of the two peoples in the 19th century gave rise to mainly negative stereotypes. During the St. Petersburg fires of 1862, there was even a belief among the people that “students and Poles” were to blame for everything. This was a consequence of the circumstances under which the peoples met. A considerable part of the Poles with whom the Russians dealt were political exiles, often rebels. Their fate in Russia is constant wandering, need, outcast, the need to adapt. Hence the ideas about Polish thievery, cunning, flattery and painful arrogance. The latter is also understandable - these people tried to preserve human dignity. On the Polish side, an equally unpleasant opinion was formed about the Russians. Rudeness, cruelty, uncouthness, servility to the authorities - that’s what these Russians are. 
Among the rebels there were many representatives of the gentry, usually well educated. Their exile to Siberia and the Urals, willy-nilly, had a positive cultural significance for remote regions. In Perm, for example, the architect Alexander Turchevich and the founder of the first bookstore, Jozef Piotrovsky, are still remembered.
After the uprising of 1863-1864, policy regarding Polish lands changed seriously. The authorities sought at all costs to avoid a repetition of the rebellion. However, what is striking is a complete lack of understanding of the national psychology of the Poles. Russian gendarmes supported the type of behavior of the population of the Kingdom of Poland that best suited their own myth about the inflexibility of the Polish spirit. Public executions and persecution of Catholic priests only contributed to the formation of the cult of martyrs. Attempts at Russification, in particular in the education system, were extremely unsuccessful.
Even before the uprising of 1863, the opinion had become established in Polish society that to “divorce” eastern neighbor it would not succeed anyway, and through the efforts of the Marquis of Wielepolsky, a policy of consensus was pursued in exchange for reforms. This yielded results - Warsaw became the third most populous city in the Russian Empire, and reforms began in the Kingdom of Poland itself, bringing it to the forefront of the empire. To economically link Polish lands with others Russian provinces, in 1851 a decision was made to build the St. Petersburg - Warsaw railway. This was the fourth Railway Russia (after Tsarskoye Selo, St. Petersburg-Moscow, and Warsaw-Vienna). At the same time, the policy of the Russian authorities was aimed at eliminating autonomy and separation from the Kingdom of Poland eastern territories, no time former part historical speech Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1866, ten provinces of the Kingdom of Poland were directly annexed to Russian lands, and the following year they introduced a ban on the use Polish language in the administrative field. The logical result of this policy was the abolition of the post of governor in 1874 and the introduction of the post of Warsaw governor-general. The Polish lands themselves were called the Vistula region, which the Poles still remember.
This approach cannot be called fully meaningful, since it actualized the rejection of everything Russian and, moreover, contributed to the migration of the Polish resistance to neighboring Austria-Hungary. Somewhat earlier, Russian Tsar Nicholas I joked bitterly: “The stupidest of the Polish kings was Jan Sobieski, and the stupidest of the Russian emperors was me. Sobieski - because he saved Austria in 1683, and I - because I saved it in 1848.” It was in Austria-Hungary at the beginning of the 20th century that Polish extremists, including the future national leader of Poland, Jozef Pilsudski, received refuge. 
On the fronts of World War I, Poles fought on both sides in the hope that the conflict would weaken the Great Powers and Poland would eventually gain independence. At the same time, Krakow conservatives were considering the option of a triune monarchy of Austria-Hungary-Poland, and pro-Russian nationalists such as Roman Dmowski saw the greatest threat to the Polish national spirit in Germanism.
The end of the First World War did not mean for the Poles, unlike other peoples of Eastern Europe, the end of the twists and turns state building. In 1918, the Poles suppressed the Western Ukrainian people's republic, in 1919 they annexed Vilna (Vilnius), and in 1920 they committed Kyiv campaign. In Soviet textbooks, Pilsudski’s soldiers were called White Poles, but this is not entirely true. During the heaviest battles between the Red Army and Denikin’s army, Polish troops not only stopped advancing east, but also made it clear to the Bolsheviks that they were suspending active operations, thereby allowing the Reds to complete the defeat Volunteer Army. Among the Russian emigration, for a long time this was perceived as a betrayal. Next is Mikhail Tukhachevsky’s campaign against Warsaw and the “miracle on the Vistula,” the author of which was Marshal Jozef Pilsudski himself. The defeat of the Soviet troops and the huge number of prisoners (according to the estimates of the prominent Slavist G.F. Matveev, about 157 thousand people), their inhuman suffering in Polish concentration camps - all this became the source of almost inexhaustible Russian hostility towards the Poles. In turn, the Poles have similar feelings towards the Russians after Katyn.
What cannot be taken away from our neighbors is the ability to preserve the memory of their suffering. In almost every Polish city there is a street named after the victims Katyn executions. And no solution problematic issues will not lead to their renaming, acceptance of historical data and amendments to textbooks. In the same way, in Poland the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the Warsaw Uprising will be remembered for a long time. Few people know that the old corners of the Polish capital are actually rebuilt from paintings and photographs. After the Nazis suppressed the Warsaw Uprising, the city was completely destroyed and looked approximately the same as Soviet Stalingrad. Any rational arguments explaining the impossibility of supporting the rebels Soviet army, will not be taken into account. This is part of the national tradition, which is more important than the dry fact of losing about 20 percent of the population in World War II. In turn, in Russia they will think with sadness about the ingratitude of the Poles, like all other Slavs, for whom we have stood up for the last three centuries.
The reason for mutual misunderstanding between Russia and Poland is that we have different destinies. We measure with different measures and reason using different categories. The powerful Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth turned into a “toy of God,” and Muscovy, which was once on the margins, became a great empire. Even having escaped from the embrace of “big brother,” Poland will never find another destiny than to be a satellite of other powers. And for Russia there is no other destiny than to be an empire or not to be at all.
Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky Associate Professor, National Research University Graduate School Economics
08:23 — REGNUM
Official state relations Poland and Russia remain cool. On state level There is a kind of freezing of contacts. Despite tactful and rare meetings that touch on the most pressing issues, Polish-Russian relations have been poor for many years. This, however, does not mean that such a state should be accepted and left indifferent against the backdrop of the evolution of a ruthless geopolitical conjuncture, the impulses of which are sent by the leading world powers, and sometimes just by ordinary chance. Hence the need to start a discussion and dialogue regarding relationships.
Undoubtedly, cooperation between Poland and Russia in the fields of culture, science and youth exchange should be expanded. This is especially important at a time when Polish and Russian young elites, brought up in completely different political and cultural conditions than their parents and grandparents, lack real knowledge about the neighboring country, the political situation, history or even the society itself. The Poles (despite the circle of numerous experts) are not familiar with Russia, and the Russians are still to a greater extent not familiar with Poland. This does not mean, however, that the latter are particularly prejudiced against the Poles. The multinational Russian Federation, returning to the imperial system (albeit with different results), cannot afford unfounded ethnic chauvinism on a broad political scale.
Currently, there is a Polish-Russian “war” in the economic dimension. The main aspect of this clash, in addition to sanctions, is, first of all, a “war” for the “white man,” that is, workers from Ukraine and Belarus. There is no doubt that without cheap labor from Ukraine it would be very difficult to achieve and maintain the economic growth of the Polish economy that we have been experiencing for two or three years now. For the Russian Federation, a multinational state, a significant part of Ukrainians are culturally, linguistically and mentally close. They are definitely closer than workers from Central Asia or the Caucasus. Their participation in the Russian economy, although not as significant as in Poland, also plays a significant role in the application softpower in relation to Ukraine and allows for rapid Russification.
Thus, Polish-Russian conflicts take on an economic nature, which many experts and observers ignore. Another bone of contention, integrally related to the above topic, is the civilizational and political-cultural affiliation of Belarus and Ukraine. In Warsaw and Moscow, the boundaries of these values are perceived differently, which creates more and more conflicts, misunderstandings and raises questions regarding the intentions of the parties. Especially the question of real intentions and their scale is of serious concern to both sides.
The problems that need to be solved are complex historical issues. For us, the majority of Poles, the Red Army, the NKVD, the USSR security apparatus and the like since 1944 and their presence on Polish lands since then it has been associated with the fight against Catholic Church, landowners, entrepreneurship and a patriotic population. For Poland and most Poles, the most important thing is what happened after 1944, that is, since the appearance of the Red Army on Polish territory. The period after 1944 represented an absolute loss of independence, subjugation and a complete break with the culture of the broadly understood West, of which Polish culture was an integral part. Unfortunately, which is the most tragic feature of long-term and bloody armed conflicts, the soldiers of the Red Army in Poland committed a number of actions that still evoke negative emotions among Poles. Thus, the memory of the soldiers of the Red Army in Poland has many dimensions and is not based only on cooperation with the Guard / People's Army and the so-called “people's army” Polish army».
In my opinion, the liberation of Polish territories by the Red Army (both those that remained within Poland's borders in 1945 and those that were taken from us as a result of Stalin's political decision) and its fight against the forces of the Third Reich remain an indisputable fact. No one should make arguments to deny this. Due to the fact that this is an integral element of Christian civilization, the cemeteries of Soviet soldiers in Poland must be preserved and cared for. At the same time, everyone should remember that one side should not try to impose its perception of history on the other side. In the speeches of the current authorities, both Poland and Russia, one can feel that only their vision remains the only correct one, and the other side must not only accept it, but also implement it. That is why the Poles must abandon the fact of imposing on the Russians how the role of the Red Army and communism in general should be understood, and the Russians must refuse to impose their military mythology on the Poles, the apogee of which falls on May 9.
Both Polish and Russian authorities, wishing to begin work on rapprochement, must recognize the fact of completely different national and social features residents of Poland and Russia. Post-Soviet nostalgia, which is an expression of various trends in Russia, will most likely never be accepted in Poland and in in full. Of course, the fact remains clear that it is necessary to form foreign policy from the authorities and individuals political forces Poland and Russia as an important element of influencing the domestic electorate, but this must have certain boundaries. Both sides should try to find elements connecting Poles and Russians in history.
The authorities in Warsaw, namely political classes who rule Poland must look at Russia as a state, perhaps a rival at certain levels, but not as a “mystical enemy.” On the other hand, the authorities in Moscow should consider Poland as an independent entity international law having strong connections with the EU and NATO, and not as “a passive executor of the orders of these entities.” Unacceptable mutual generalizations and slander further intensify hostility. The Polish authorities should stop using the crash near Smolensk in 2010 for internal influence, and the Kremlin should return the remains of the presidential plane. The details of the implementation of this latest project will be left to the discretion of the authorities of the Kremlin and Warsaw.
About the author: Michal Patrick Sadlowski (Michał PatrykSadł owski) - specializes in studying the history of the Russian Empire, security post-Soviet space. Member of the Board of the Shersheniewicz Institute of Oriental Law Foundation, postgraduate student at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Warsaw. Collaborates with the military-political magazine RAPORT: Wojsko-Technika-Obronność.
Madmen pave the way for the sensible to follow.
Fedor Dostoevsky
After an alliance concluded with the Cossack hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky in 1654, Russia began a war with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The purpose of this war was the desire to protect the Ukrainian people from the atrocities of Poland, and to return Ukraine to Russia. Russok- Polish war 1654-1667, briefly described in this article, took place in several stages and ended with the victory of Russia and the annexation of part of Cossack Ukraine. In this article we will look at the main causes of the Russian-Polish war, its stages, as well as the results and historical meaning for Russia and Ukraine.
Causes of the war between Russia and Poland
In 1648, the Ukrainian hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky began a war against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. After repeated appeals to the Moscow Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich with the aim of concluding an alliance against Poland, in 1653 the Zemsky Sobor gave a positive response to the hetman’s proposals. In January 1654, in Pereyaslav, near Kiev, the parties negotiated the terms of the future union, and in March they signed an agreement on “the transfer of the Cossacks to the tsar’s hand.” Let me remind you that Alexei Romanov did not agree for a long time to Ukraine’s pleas to join Russia, because he understood that this would mean war with Poland. Nevertheless, this “annexation” was carried out because Khmelnitsky began to threaten that if Russia did not accept Ukraine, then Turkey would do so.
Since the Ukrainian lands were part of Poland, this automatically meant the beginning of the Russian-Polish war. For Russia there were several goals in this war:
- Return of Smolensk and the lands around it lost during the Time of Troubles.
- Helping the Cossacks liberate Ukraine from Polish gentry, and the establishment of Russian patronage over Ukraine.
Khmelnitsky turned to Alexei Mikhailovich with a request for help in 1648, 1649 and 1651, but the requests were rejected due to the fact that Russia established normal relations with Poland in the first half of the 17th century and did not want to spoil them with another war. In 1653, Russia decided to help Ukraine, which means another war with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. One of the reasons why Russia went to war with Poland was the weakness of the Polish army, caused by participation in long and endless wars (with Russia, the Thirty Years in Europe, with the Cossacks). Considering this fact, as well as Khmelnitsky’s views on Turkey, the Russian kingdom counted on success. As a result, the Russian-Polish War of 1654 - 1667 began, a very successful war for Russia.
Map of the Russian-Polish War 1654-1667
Progress of the war and main companies
The war with Poland itself 1654-1667 can be divided into 3 military companies, which were interrupted by truces, as well as the war with Sweden. Let's take a closer look at each of these stages.
Company 1654-1656
The campaign of the Russian state in 1654 was called the “sovereign campaign.” It was with this campaign that the Russian-Polish war began. In May Russian troops moved in the direction of Smolensk. On June 11, troops captured Polotsk, and in August the army of Matvey Sheremetyev entered the important Belarusian-Lithuanian fortress of Orsha. The assault on Smolensk was unsuccessful, however, after a two-month siege, Gomel was captured at the end of August.
The second attempt to storm Smolensk began at the end of August, and already on September 10, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich received information about the capture of Smolensk. In November, another important city was captured - Vitebsk. Especially for this war, a separate Belarusian army was formed on the territory of Belarus. Cossack regiment. Also participating in this campaign were Zaporozhye Cossacks and Astrakhan Tatars. In total, the Russian army numbered about 13.5 thousand soldiers.
In December 1648, a counter-offensive of Lithuanian troops began against Mogilev, led by Prince Radziwill. However, thanks to the successful actions of Khmelnitsky and F. Buturlin, part of the Polish-Lithuanian troops was transferred to the territory of Right Bank Ukraine. As a result of successful Ukrainian-Russian actions, by the end of 1655 Minsk and Vilna were captured. However, at this moment Sweden enters the war with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, forcing Poland to negotiate a truce with Russia. The Muscovite kingdom agreed to an alliance because an anti-Russian Polish-Swedish alliance could be formed; in addition, access to the Baltic Sea was a higher priority for Russia than the annexation of Right Bank Ukraine. As a result, in 1656, Poland and Russia signed the Vilna Truce, and a war with Sweden began. The Russian-Polish War of 1654-1667 received a temporary lull.
War with Sweden 1656-1658
The war took place on the territory of Livonia, in 1656 Russia stormed Riga. After Russia's ally Denmark concluded a truce with the Swedes, Alexei Mikhailovich also began negotiations. In December 1658, the parties signed a truce; Russia seized small territories in the Baltic states.
After the truce between Russia and Poland, the latter remained at war with the Cossacks, so the Ukrainian Hetman Khmelnytsky decided to find a new ally. He turned to Sweden and Transylvania for help, but the treaty was never signed because Khmelnytsky died in August 1657. The next hetman, Ivan Vyhovsky, announced a severance of relations with Russia and signed the Gadyatsky Treaty with Poland in 1658. Ukraine returned to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This meant the beginning of a new stage of the war between Russia and Poland. Moreover, in Ukraine itself, many did not support Vygovsky. Counting on this fact, Russia begins to send troops into the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Ukraine.
Military campaign 1658-1662
In October 1658 there were several battles on the territory of Belarus. In the battle near the village of Verki, the army of Prince Yuri Dolgoruky defeated the Polish troops, which prevented the advance of the Lithuanian troops and the opening of a second front.
In 1659, Vygovsky’s troops allied with Crimean Tatars defeated Trubetskoy's army near Konotop. Russia was preparing for a counter-offensive by Ukrainian-Tatar-Polish troops, but Hetman Vygovsky completely lost the trust of the Cossacks, left his post and fled. Historians consider another reason for the loss of the hetmanship to be the fact that Vygovsky, in exchange for an alliance with the Tatars, allowed them to plunder the territory of the Poltava region, which caused outrage among the Cossacks and peasants. As a result, the son of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, Yuri, became the new hetman, who at the end of 1659 signed a new Treaty of Pereyaslav with Moscow.
In 1660, Russian-Ukrainian troops began a joint campaign against Poland, which was called the “Chudnovskaya Company”, since the main battle was in the area of the city of Chudnov. However, the army suffers a number of defeats, Yuri Khmelnitsky signs a truce with the Poles - the Slobodishchensky Treaty. In mid-1662, Russia lost Vilno, as well as control over the territory of Lithuania, Belarus and for the most part Ukraine.
Great influence on failure Russian army had not only the controversial policy of the Cossack hetmans, but also internal problems ( Copper Riot, Bashkir uprising, etc.). However, despite a large number of problems and failures, at the end of 1662, the Russian army led by Romodanovsky was able to inflict a series of defeats on the Polish-Ukrainian army near Kanev and Pereyaslav, which completely undermined the authority of Yuri Khmelnitsky in the eyes of the Cossacks.
Military campaign 1663-1667
In 1663, the Russian-Polish war resumed. In Nizhyn, Ivan Bryukhovetsky, who was an ally of Russia, was elected hetman, and on the right bank of the Dnieper, Teterya, an ally of Poland, became hetman. In the fall of 1663, the Polish king Jan Casimir began a large campaign into the territory left bank Ukraine, as well as to Belarus. However, the successful actions of the Ukrainian-Russian army near Gadyach and Glukhov were able to stop the advance of the Polish army. One of the biggest defeats to the Poles was inflicted by Romodanovsky’s army near the village of Pirogovka at the beginning of 1664. After this, the retreat of the Polish troops and Hetman Teteri began.
In the same 1664, Lithuanian-Polish troops tried to organize a siege of Mogilev, but already at the end of February they were in a devastating situation. In 1665, Russia inflicted several more defeats on the Polish army, the main of which were near Bila Tserkva and Korsun.
In 1666, the new hetman of the Right Bank P. Doroshenko entered into an alliance with the Ottoman Empire, as a result of which the Polish-Turkish war began. This forced Jan Casimir to turn to Russia with a proposal for a truce. The Ruksa-Polish war of 1654-1667 took a pause for the second time. No, this time Russia was not content with a truce, but concluded a peace beneficial to itself.
Peace Treaty and its results
On January 30, 1667, in the village of Andrusovo near Smolensk, an agreement was signed that ended the 13-year Russian-Polish war of 1654-1667. Its main conditions:
- Conclusion of a truce for 13.5 years. In 1678, the parties extended the truce for another 13 years.
- Russia received Smolensk and Chernigov-Seversk land. In addition, control was established over Left Bank Ukraine.
- Kyiv passed to Russia for two years.
- The Zaporozhye Sich became the territory of joint Polish-Russian administration.
Historical significance of the war
In 1686, Russia and Poland signed a peace under the very symbolic name “Eternal”. With this document, the parties finally stopped rivalry, moving from war, which lasted intermittently for part of the 17th century, to cooperation. The result " Eternal peace" was the following:
- Kyiv completely became part of Russia, but Poland received compensation of 146 thousand rubles.
- Poland renounced its claims to Smolensk, Chernigov and the entire Left Bank Ukraine.
- The Sich came under Russian control.
- The Muscovite kingdom renounced its claims to Right Bank Ukraine.
Thus, during the Russian-Polish war, the Muscovite kingdom not only regained the Chernigov and Smolensk lands, but also for the first time established control over part of Ukraine, which was the result of an alliance with Bohdan Khmelnytsky in Pereyaslav in 1654. In addition, the peace between Poland and Russia became the basis for the alliance against Sweden, signed by Peter during the Northern War (1700-1721). But that’s another story, and the Russian-Polish war of 1654-1667 ended in victory for Russia.
The topic of this article is somewhat unusual. As a rule, a lot has been written about the long and uncompromising struggle of Polish patriots against Russia, which they hated. The struggle is protracted and bloody. The purpose of this article is to talk about the Poles, who did not see existential enemies in the Russians.
It was believed that the Poles have an ineradicable antipathy towards everything Russian. This is partly true. Even pardoned or amnestied participants in Polish-Russian battles and Polish uprisings of the 18th-19th centuries. were certainly mistaken locally for anti-Russian propaganda. “So young, and already a Pole!” - this is how the Siberian people reacted in the 19th century. to the appearance of young men in snowy Siberia, who introduced themselves as Poles when meeting the local population. In the Russian consciousness, the words “Pole” and “rebel” were synonymous.
At that time, many hundreds of Poles were sent into exile for anti-government activities. Some of them were pardoned, and, instead of Siberia, they were sent to Kharkov educational institutions, away from the western borders of Russia. But even there, the Polish professors continued to gradually instill in students the idea of Polish nobility, Ukrainian separatism and Russian barbarism. Today, Kharkov is sometimes called the Russian-speaking capital of Ukrainian nationalism. In fact, of all the cities so close to Russian border(only 26 km!), it is in Kharkov that there are, albeit proportionally small in number, aggressive groups of Russian-speaking Ukrainian national-particularists. Idle rumor claims that these are echoes of the propaganda work of the Polish intelligentsia of the 19th century.
Polish journalist Piotr Skwerczynski, examining the problems of Polish-Russian relations, admitted that the Poles would only be satisfied with Russia, which had shrunk to the size of the Garden Ring. But even then, he assured, most Poles would be unhappy. And if the Russians commit collective suicide at once, the Poles would be incredibly happy, although they would still not miss the opportunity to call the Russians “barbarians” for such a strange act. Indeed, Russia and Poland have been linked for centuries by difficult and often extremely conflict relations, which could not but be reflected in the Polish mass consciousness. Polish historical consciousness, unlike Russian, is more emotionally charged. Everything that was tragic in Polish-Russian relations, in the Polish consciousness is absolutized, takes on large-scale forms and constantly dominates our general history. Policy historical memory, considered by other countries as unproductive and overly pessimistic, in Poland it is the dominant form of relations with its largest eastern neighbor.
Ethnosociologist Wilhelm Mühlmann introduced the concept of ethnocentrum. Ethnocentrum is an ethnos’ awareness of itself within the space where this ethnos lives. This is a form of ethnic thinking, where the ethnos includes everything that surrounds it: from the terrain (mountains, rivers, forests) to highly differentiated concepts ( state idea, wars, alliances, economic ties, cultural and diplomatic contacts). Each ethnocentrum strives to remain intact. Ethnocentrum is afraid of conceptual split, bifurcation, because a split in the ethnocentrum would mean a split in ethnic self-awareness and modifications in the internal life of the people. Relations between Poles and Russians can also be described in ethnosociological terms. The Polish ethnocentrum subconsciously feels the power of the Russian ethnocentrum, as a more numerous imperial people, and, moreover, not a Catholic one.
The Polish ethnocentrum is not inclined towards peaceful relations with the Russians for the reason that it is afraid to “let in” someone who is more powerful, more energetic and more numerous. As the ethnocentrum of a less numerous people, the Polish ethnocentrum is afraid of “drowning” and dissolving in the Russian ethnocentrum, afraid of being absorbed by it or split in two, i.e. accept both Catholic and Orthodox identities. Therefore, a considerable number of Orthodox Poles or Poles who served the Russian Empire, and then the USSR, are bracketed out by Polish historiography itself and are considered by it as ideological antibodies, as something that carries the danger of inoculating elements of ethnic consciousness neighboring people(Russians), and contributes to the split of the monopoly-Catholic anti-Russian consciousness characteristic of the Poles. The ethnocentrum of the Poles sees only one salvation - building such relations with the Russians that it would be absolutely impossible for an excessive amount of Russian, non-Catholic influence to penetrate into the Polish ethnocentrum. This is a subconscious mechanism of ethnic defense, under which everything else is already adjusted - politics, culture, religion, the media. The Poles feel safe only if they maintain maximum cultural and political distance from the vast Russian people, and they actively use anti-Russian propaganda to establish and consolidate this paradigm. In fact, the contribution of the Poles, who until 1917 were the second largest people of the empire, after the Russians, to the strengthening and establishment Russian statehood quite significant. It is regrettable that Polish historiography itself is silent about this, lips tightly clenched white with annoyance. Therefore, we will try to tell you about it.
Poles began to appear relatively often in Russia under Tsar Ivan the Terrible. Some Polish soldiers voluntarily came to serve the Russian Tsar. Condottieri were common in that era. The thin “Polish trickle” did not stop later. Jozef Tausch was the name of the Polish diplomat who was at the court of Peter I. Colonel Tausch enjoyed the trust of the Russian monarch and his retinue. Even modern Polish sources barely mention this. Next to Peter the Great, Tausch went through many battles, and in 1709 he was allowed to observe the progress Battle of Poltava, while the ambassadors of other powers were kept away for fear of espionage. But Tausch was not the only Pole in Peter’s circle. Just remember Pavel Yaguzhinsky, who started as a tsar’s orderly and ended as adjutant general, who received from Peter I in eternal possession island on the Yauza River near German settlement in Moscow.
Patriotic War of 1812. Poles en masse joined the ranks of Napoleonic army to participate in the campaign against Russia. In Napoleon's retinue are Polish generals, waiting only for the command to lead their legions to the east. But at the Russian headquarters the same Polish generals are waiting for them: Field Marshal M. Kamensky, General M. Kakhovsky, Lieutenant General I. Przhibyshevsky, General. from the cavalry A. Ozharovsky, general. from the cavalry N. Raevsky (the same famous Raevsky who walked towards the French cannonballs with his teenage sons, taking them by the hands!) and many others, ready to lead their Russian soldiers against the French regiments. Sometimes entire battles took place between two Polish generals: one led the French into battle, the other led the Russians. By the way, at that time the number of Polish generals in the Russian army was greater than the number of Poles among the French generals. There were even more Poles among the junior officers and enlisted personnel of the Russian army than among the generals. Volunteer lancers are known to history Polish regiment under the command of Lieutenant K. Biskupsky, who partisans together with Russian peasants, attacking Napoleonic warriors, and Poles as part of Cossack formations.
Many Poles converted to Orthodoxy, especially those heading deeper into Russia. There was not a shadow of hatred between the Orthodox Pole and the Russian. This gave the gene. M. Muravyov has a reason to declare that “Orthodox Poles are even more Russian than the Russians themselves.” The history of the Carpatho-Russian movement of Galicia knows the name of Ippolit Terletsky, a Pole who converted to Orthodoxy and advocated the cleansing of not only Western Ukrainian Orthodoxy, but even Greek Catholicism from the stratifications of the Latin faith. And today in Belarus many Poles accept Orthodox baptism. Their Catholic compatriots, by default, no longer consider them Poles, classifying them as Russians.
In subsequent wars, the Poles also not so rarely found themselves on the side of Russia. General Adam Rzhevussky is one of these glorious names. Member of the Turkish (1828-1829) and Crimean War(1853-1856). In 1830, the Pole Rzhewussky, as a supporter of Poland's orientation towards Russia, was an active participant in the suppression of the Polish uprising. Not only Adam, but also many other representatives of this glorious family served Russia faithfully.
In general, the theme of the Polish uprisings runs like a red thread through all official Polish historiography. And undeservedly little attention is paid to the Polish generals and officers who remained faithful to the oath they gave to the Russian Emperor and Polish King Nicholas I. In 1841. In Warsaw, a monument was solemnly opened in honor of the fallen Polish officers who did not violate their oath of loyalty to the Russian sovereign: Count Stanislav Potocki, generals Jozef Nowicki, Thomas Sementkowski, Stanislav Trebitsky, Ignatius Blumer, Maurice Hauke and Colonel Philip Mieczyszewski. By order of Nicholas I, the inscription on the monument read: “To the Poles who died in 1830. for loyalty to your Monarch." Now this monument does not exist. It was destroyed in 1917 because it did not fit in with the official interpretation of Polish history, where “the entire Polish people in one impulse rose up to fight the Russian oppressors.”
During the Caucasian War, many Poles were especially noted state awards for personal courage on the battlefields. Major General Felix Krukovsky is one of them. In the 1840s, he took part in the pacification of the Chechens and in skirmishes with the Kabardians. He commands the Khoper Linear Cossack Regiment, then the Nizhny Novgorod Dragoon Regiment, with which he made a number of dangerous expeditions to Chechnya and Dagestan. In 1848, F. Krukovsky (oh, horror for Polish historiography!) was appointed ataman of the Caucasian Line Army. Being a Catholic, Krukowski (oh, horror for the Polish religious feeling!) went to church every Sunday with the Cossacks. Orthodox Church. Unfortunately, in one of the battles F. Krukovsky received seriously injured. A Cossack orderly (Russian) rushed to his aid. F. Krukovsky ordered the orderly to save himself, but the Cossack disobeyed and was cut down with sabers along with his commander.
Also noteworthy is the story of an entire Polish captive detachment that received freedom from the hands of the highlanders (they thought that the liberated Poles, and even with weapons in their hands, would immediately rush to partisans and shoot Russian soldiers). But the detachment in full force returned to duty and continued to fight so devotedly for Mother Rus' that some of the former captured Poles were awarded the Cross of St. George.
Thousands of Poles shed blood for Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, when Józef Pilsudski was already negotiating with the Japanese government to form combat groups from among Polish soldiers of the Russian army to participate in the war on the side of Japan. Admiral Heinrich Cywinski, a Pole, then lost one of his sons in the battle of Tsushima. The admiral's second son would die later, in World War I, and also for Russia.
By the way, during the First World War there were plenty of generals of Polish origin in the Russian General Staff: Vladislav Klembovsky, Anatoly Kelchevsky, Nikolai Kashtalinsky, Mikhail Kvetsinsky, Kazimir Ketlinsky, Pyotr Kondzerovsky and dozens of others.
IN modern Poland They don’t like Felix Dzerzhinsky. His life path does not fit into the narrow framework of official Polish patriotism. Dzerzhinsky was a supporter of the territorial integrity of the Russian state and was categorically against the signing Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the goal of which was the dismemberment of Russia by the countries of the Quadruple Alliance, which included Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria. Coming from an aristocratic family, he studied at the same gymnasium with the famous Russophobe Jozef Pilsudski. When Jozef went to war against Soviet Russia in 1920, Felix was in Russia and was appointed to the post of chief of rear security and order. After the war, in 1921. he took the post of People's Commissar of Railways, where he immediately set about restoring order: “On our roads, in the area of theft and mismanagement, there is sheer horror... Theft from cars, theft from cash registers, theft from warehouses, theft from contracts, theft from procurement. You must have strong nerves and will to overcome this sea of revelry.” Then there was the fight against homelessness, when millions of young citizens were provided with shelter and free food and activities as heads of the Cheka. Therefore, it is Dzerzhinsky who is considered their ancestor Russian intelligence services, as the Soviets had previously believed. Historians give an ambiguous assessment of Dzerzhinsky’s activities in revolutionary Russia, but, abstracting from ideological assessments, one cannot fail to mention his sincere service to the cause that he considered most important for himself. It’s interesting that many years later Dzerzhinsky admitted: “As a child, I dreamed of putting on an invisibility hat, sneaking into Moscow and killing all the Muscovites.” Dzerzhinsky's successor as head of the OGPU was also a Pole - a descendant of an aristocratic family, Vyacheslav Menzhinsky. Being a seriously ill man, with a long list of illnesses and injuries, he continued to work hard, holding meetings of operatives at home, resting on the sofa.
Becoming Soviet power in general, and in the lands that previously belonged to Poland (Western Ukraine, Western Belarus), in particular, is presented by Polish historians as a complete nightmare. Of course, it’s difficult to call those times prosperous days. For some reason, it is forgotten that at the beginning of the 1930s the share of ethnic Poles in the Communist Party of Ukraine was approximately twice as large as among the entire population Soviet Ukraine, A general secretary The Central Committee of the CP(b)U was a Pole, Stanislav Kosior.
There is no place in the modern pantheon of Polish heroes for Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky. In 1914, 18-year-old Konstantin, having added two more years to his age, volunteered to join the 6th squadron of the 5th Kargopol Dragoon Regiment of the 5th cavalry division 12th Army and went to the fronts of the First World War. In battles with the German invaders, he distinguished himself with courage and ingenuity, for which he was awarded St. George's Cross. Then in his life there was the Second World War and service as the Minister of National Defense of Poland. In 1950, Polish nationalists from among the supporters of the Home Army made two attempts on Rokossovsky’s life. During the battles with the Nazis in Poland, executioners from the AK slaughtered a platoon of Soviet women anti-aircraft gunners who served in Rokossovsky’s army. Intelligence revealed that the killers came from a neighboring village, where they fled after committing the crime, enjoying the full support of the local population. Having learned about this, Rokossovsky ordered the guns to be deployed towards the Polish village and cover it with several salvos. It is not surprising that Polish nationalists could not forgive Rokossovsky for faithfully serving not only Poland, but also Russia, which became his second homeland. In 1962, Khrushchev asked Konstantin Rokossovsky to write a “blacker and thicker” article against Joseph Stalin. According to Air Chief Marshal Alexander Golovanov, Rokossovsky replied: “Nikita Sergeevich, Comrade Stalin is a saint to me!” and did not clink glasses with Khrushchev at the banquet.
One could go on and on about those Poles who contributed to the prosperity of Russia and the growth of its power. Polish origin there was Grigory Potemkin (his grandfather had the last name Potempkovsky and spoke Polish), mathematician Nikolai Lobachevsky, classics of Russian literature Nikolai Gogol (real name Gogol-Yanovsky) and Ivan Bunin, poet Robert Rozhdestvensky, artist Kazimir Malevich (“Black Square”), philosophers Nikolai Lossky and Vasily Zenkovsky, travelers and explorers of Central Asia Nikolai Przhevalsky and Leon Barshchevsky, the founder of Russian cosmonautics Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the national idol of the 1930s pilot Sigismund Levanevsky, academician Gleb Krzhizhanovsky. The idols of Soviet children and teenagers, Yanina Zheimo, who played the role of Cinderella, and Vladislav Dvorzhetsky, who played Captain Nemo, are also Poles.
Russian scientist Nikolai Danilevsky noted the amazing “likening power” of Russia. Many foreigners who came here and stayed for a long time, in a short period, stopped hating everything Russian and gradually began to feel sympathy for it. “Digesting” foreign ethnic elements, Russia considered them its own, did not reject them and did not push them to the margins historical science. Unfortunately, in Poland the opposite is true. In Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk there is a monument to the ethnographer Bronislaw Pilsudski, the brother of the odious Jozef Pilsudski, who dreamed of breaking Russia into a dozen small pseudo-state fragments. In Poland there are practically no such monuments erected in honor of Russians. Monuments in memory of those who died in 1944-1945 for the liberation of Poland from Nazism Soviet soldiers are still standing thanks to a small number of activists from among older Poles who remember the feat Soviet soldier. And the Polish elite is still afraid to shamelessly demolish monuments to fighters against Hitlerism. But he tries a little bit.
At one time, there was even a song among the Poles with the words “The Polish Army took Berlin, but the Soviet Army helped.” The innocent children's film “Four Tankmen and a Dog” was even banned from showing in independent Poland, because it promoted unimaginably seditious things - Polish-Soviet friendship. It is difficult for the Polish ethnic consciousness to admit to itself that without the Russian Ivan, Poland would probably not be on the world map. Therefore, the Polish ethnocentrum is “strained”, squeezing out any hint of affection for Russia.
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