The issue of the status of the kingdom of Poland, Lithuania and the Western Region and Russian liberalism of the 1860s

Gusman L.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the ideological positions of Russian liberal constitutionalists on the Polish question in the 1860s. The author comes to the conclusion that the mutual misunderstanding between Russian and Polish publicists consisted in a different perception of the Polish problem. If the Polish side believed that it was necessary to restore “historical Poland” within the borders of the Commonwealth before its first partition in 1772, then Russian liberals and, in part, radicals were ready to consider only the possibility of autonomy or independence of “ethnographic Poland”, allowing the possibility of a nationwide referendum on the nationality of disputed territories. Depending on the events in Russia and Poland, the views on acute problems of Russian-Polish coexistence also changed. By the end of the 1860s. it became clear that, despite all the differences between the “whites” and “reds” in the Polish national movement, there is a question on which among the politically active Poles there was an undeniable unanimity: “The Commonwealth from sea to sea”. But this position was absolutely unacceptable for Russian liberals and even revolutionaries, not to mention conservatives. Such maximalism delayed Poland’s return to the political maps of Europe for a long time, not only as an independent state, but also as political autonomy, following the model of Finland in the 19th century.

Keywords:Russia, Poland, liberalism, maximalism, independence