<Articles>Poland and Lithuaniain the Napoleonic Era : Conceptions of the State in the General Confederation of the Polish Kingdom in 1812

KAJI Sayaka

doi:10.14989/shirin_86_721

At the time of Napoleon's Russian Campaign in 1812, the former Polish-Lithuanian state attained the opportunity to regain its independence. On June 28th the General Confederation of the Polish Kingdom was organized in Warsaw and declared the restoration of the Polish Kingdom, although before its collapse (1795), the Polish-Lithuanian state had been a dual, multiethnic state called "the Republic of the Two Nations." In the Republic the nobility had sovereignty, and, whatever their ethnicity, all the nobility considered themselves Poles, while the nobility in Lithuania on the other hand had maintained Lithuanian national consciousness. The purpose of this article is to consider how the nobility of Poland and Lithuania viewed their new state. Therefore I have investigated not only the documents of the General Confederation of the Polish Kingdom, but also the Lithuanian nobility's attitudes toward the General Confederation. The following points have been revealed. First, at the beginning of the 19th century, unlike the period prior to its collapse, the nobility in both Poland and Lithuania referred to the unified state as Poland or the Polish Kingdom, not as the Republic. They avoided the terms, such as "the Republic, " that were reminiscent of the anarchy that had led their fatherland to ruin. On the other hand, the nobility often invoked memories of the greatness of the fatherland, that is to say, the Republic, and referred to their own class's honor and solidarity. Furthermore, when the Provisional Government in Lithuania organized by Napoleon joined the General Confederation of the Polish Kingdom, it reiterated the historical separateness of the Lithuanian state and the Lithuanian Rational consciousness, as they had done before the partitions of the state. Thus, although the Republic had perished, the new state remained based on the notion of "a political nation" composed solely of the nobility, which allowed the nob-ty to retain multidimensional national consciousness, and not based on that of "an ethno-linguistic nation" embracing all social classes, a concept which had already appeared in some writings of their contemporaries. Within the territory of the former Republic, ethno-linguistic nationalism of various peoples began to appear during the second half of the 19th century. However, the multidimensional national consciousness of the nobility also continued to exist, and the framework of the ancient Republic continued to have political and historical significance until the 20th century.

<Articles>Poland and Lithuaniain the Napoleonic Era : Conceptions of the State in the General Confederation of the Polish Kingdom in 1812

Bibliographic Information

Search this article

Description

Journal

Keywords

Details 詳細情報について

Export

Report a problem