The election of Stanisław II August Poniatowski as the last king of Poland (reigned 1764–95) was the work of the powerful Familia. Rising from the middle nobility (though his mother was a Czartoryska), the candidate was handpicked by Catherine II (the Great) of Russia not only because he had been her lover but because she felt that he would be completely dependent on her. The Czartoryskis in turn saw him as their puppet. Thus, from the beginning Stanisław II—a highly intelligent man, a patron of the arts, and a reformer in the spirit of the Enlightenment—had to operate under most-difficult conditions. The magnates resented him as an upstart; the conservative szlachta viewed him as Catherine’s tool and as a threat to their liberties. The king’s adroitness and personal charm allowed him in time to win over some of his adversaries, but he lacked a strong will and showed none of the military inclination so cherished by the Poles.
Stanisław II, detail of a painting by M. Bacciarelli, 1783; in the Museum in Toruń, Ratusz, Poland.Courtesy of the Museum in Torun, Ratusz, Pol.
The reforms that accompanied the election were limited. Stanisław sought to reform the state by strengthening the monarchy; the Czartoryskis wished to reform it by strengthening the Sejm. The king embarked on a vast program of modernization, encouraging initiatives in the economic, financial, and military spheres. But above all he waged a nationwide campaign, using the press, literature, and the new National Theatre to change the conservative mentality of the szlachta. In 1765 Stanisław established the Knights’ School—the first truly secular college, which promoted civil virtues and religious toleration—and criticized the treatment of towns and peasantry.
The king’s policies, however, were constantly undermined by neighbouring powers. Frederick II’s view that Poland ought to be kept in lethargy was shared by St. Petersburg, which sought to isolate Stanisław by encouraging both religious dissenters (i.e., non-Catholics) and the conservative circles to form confederations. The presence of Russian troops terrorized the Sejm, and Russia formally guaranteed as immutable such principles of Polish politics as liberum veto, elective monarchy, and dominance of the szlachta. The First Partition
In 1768 the Confederation of Bar was formed. Its antiroyalist and anti-Russian program mingled patriotic and conservative overtones with religious objectives (namely, the defense of the privileged status of Roman Catholicism vis-à-vis the religious and political equality for non-Catholics advocated by Russia). Civil war erupted and lasted until 1772. Royal troops assisted the Russians—at one point the king was kidnapped by the confederates—and France and Turkey helped the confederates. The movement strengthened Polish national consciousness and produced the first martyrs sent to Siberia, but, at the same time, it created such chaotic conditions that St. Petersburg began to listen when Frederick repeatedly proposed partitioning Poland. With Russia and Austria on the brink of war over Turkish matters, Berlin suggested a resolution of the eastern crisis through mutually agreeable compensations at Poland’s expense. Austria, which had opposed the scheme (Maria Theresa had found it immoral), unwittingly created a precedent by annexing some Polish border areas.
Poland, Partitions ofPartitions of Poland, 1772–95.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
As a result of the First Partition (1772), Poland lost almost one-third of its territory and more than one-third of its population. Russia received the largest but least-important area economically, in the northeast. Austria gained the densely populated Little Poland (renamed Galicia). Prussia’s share was the smallest, but the annexation of Eastern Pomerania (although without Gdańsk) cut off Poland from the sea and allowed Frederick to put a veritable stranglehold on the Polish economy. Except for individual protests the helpless Sejm, fearing additional territorial losses, ratified the partition. Despite some British concern about Gdańsk and the Baltic trade, the European powers reacted to the partition with utmost indifference. The British political philosopher Edmund Burke was alone in criticizing the immorality of the act and in recognizing in it the beginning of a revolutionary change in the European balance of power. Social and economic changes
During the two decades that separated the First and Second Partitions, the country experienced a remarkable revival. The dissolution of the Jesuit order in 1773 allowed a complete reorganization of the Polish educational system under the Commission of National Education, one of the first ministries of education in Europe. Cut off from the Baltic, Poland reoriented its trade toward the Black Sea. Producing for the national market, early manufacturing concerns grew on both royal and magnate land. Many estates began to operate with tenant farmers rather than serfs. Banks and joint stock companies appeared, canals were built, and roads improved. The position of the towns began to change, and Warsaw with its 100,000 inhabitants became a centre radiating into the country.
Under the king’s patronage, arts and literature flourished. Learning made important strides. The satiric poet Bishop Ignacy Krasicki headed a long list of important authors. Political literature reached its summit with the writings of Stanisław Staszic (a burgher) and Hugo Kołłątaj. There was discussion of a reform of towns (including a Jewish reform) and changes in the status of the peasantry by extending to them rights and representation as well as state protection.
The newly created Permanent Council, a collegial body composed of five ministries, was the first executive organ for both the Crown and Lithuania. The council achieved progress in financial, police, and administrative fields, although it was seen as a channel for Russian influence and was attacked by the oligarchic opposition, who believed it strengthened the position of the king. However, because Stanisław II was convinced that only close collaboration with St. Petersburg constituted a guarantee against further partitions, reforms had to meet with Russian approval. The failure of a projected new code of laws reforming the social system and state-church relations showed the limits of tolerated reform. St. Petersburg seemed to regard its tutelage as firm enough to withdraw its troops from the country in 1780. The constitution of 1791
A Russo-Turkish war that began in 1787 created a situation that both the king and the magnate opposition tried to exploit. With Prussia proposing an alliance with the Poles (signed in 1790) and Austria becoming preoccupied with the French Revolution, the so-called Great Sejm, which met in 1788, embarked on sweeping reforms. The king aspired to constitutional monarchy, and the “patriots” preferred a republic presided over by a monarch, while the die-hard conservatives (“false patriots”) opposed all modernization and change. It took the Sejm four years of heated debates, in the course of which the example of the American Revolution was frequently invoked, to demolish the old system and enact a new one. The king, although fearful that the Sejm would go too far and antagonize Russia, eventually joined with the patriots in approving, on May 3, 1791, the first modern written constitution in Europe.
The new constitution was a revolutionary document that created a constitutional parliamentary monarchy and gave a new meaning to the term political nation. It combined Polish traditions with the ideas of the Enlightenment. Dynasties, not individuals, would henceforth be elected, beginning with the house of Wettin. The king’s decrees had to be countersigned by ministers responsible to the Sejm, which was partly elected on the basis of property qualifications. Since burghers gained some political rights and the poorest gentry—clients of the magnates—lost some of theirs, birth alone would no longer be a determinant of citizenship. The liberum veto was abolished, as was discrimination on religious grounds. An army 100,000 strong was to be raised. Royal towns recovered their autonomy, but the peasantry was only taken under the protection of the law. Additional laws applying to social and economic problems were to follow.