B. N. Chicherin and M. N. Katkov about the polish national uprising of 1863-1864 in the period of diplomatic confrontation with Europe

Hegay Victor Klimentovich

In the difficult history of relations between Russia and Poland, complicated by the Three partitions of Poland, (22 September 1772, 23rd January 1793, and 24th October 1795), holds a special place in Polish national uprising that took place in 1863 and 1864 However, some conflicts of insurgents with Imperial troops lasted until 1866 largely because of the division by Russia, Austria and Prussia, Polish lands "... in the early nineteenth century arose the "Polish question" as the main destructive factor in the national sphere of the Russian Empire" (16, p. 151). The hope of most of the leaders of the Polish rebels for European intervention in Russian politics clearly demonstrates their ultimatum-separatist line against St. Petersburg. The work of the revolutionary Democrats and European monarchs was positioned, along with the aggression of the rebels, as the main threat to the territorial integrity of the Empire (1). At the same time, in the USSR, scientists condemned the actions of tsarism against Polish separatists and defended the theory of the Russian-Polish insurgent brotherhood (7; 11). The activities of the Western European allies to protect the interests of the Kingdom of Poland were assessed as selfish, not conducive to the victory of the rebels over Russia. In modern Russian historiography, the analysis of certain aspects of the Polish uprising is characterized, in our opinion, by a kind of "pre-Revolutionary-Communist" symbiosis, diversity of judgments in assessments (12; 13, p. 9 – 32; 14; 15; 17).

Keywords:Polish uprising, B. N. Chicherin, M. N. Katkov, conservatives, liberals, "Polish question", Europe, diplomatic war