‘The trajectory of Europe was changed forever’ | The Partitions of Poland
On 24 October 1795, the trajectory of Europe was changed forever. The Polish Commonwealth – the mighty civilization that had transformed the east of Europe into a multi-national ‘pax Polonia’ – was torn apart in the finale of a 3-part act by Russia, Prussia & Austro-Hungary. Foreshadowing the Nazi-Soviet Pact of much later, this ‘unholy trinity’ signed a secret protocol in St Petersburg to permanently erase the existence of Poland, right down to its name:
‘In view of the necessity to abolish everything which could revive the memory of the existence of the Kingdom of Poland, now that the annulment of this body politic has been effected… the high contracting parties are agreed & undertake never to include in their titles… the name or designation of the Kingdom of Poland, which shall remain suppressed as from the present & forever.’
‘In this spirit,’ writes Adam Zamoyski, ‘the Prussians melted down the Polish crown jewels, the Austrians turned royal palaces into barracks, & the Russians grabbed everything they could lay their hands on & shipped it out. They destroyed books & documents on an industrial scale & rewrote history, seeking to justify their action by explaining to the world that the Poles were so hopeless as to be unable to govern themselves, & that the country had never really been a sovereign state. The Poles refused to be subjugated, & hardly a generation passed without rebellion.’
The effect of the partitions is incalculable. It toppled a bastion of the Enlightenment, giving rise to an uneasy order of absolutist monarchs. For Poland itself, the effects remain to this day in the general vacuum of knowledge about its history – or even worse, falsehoods peddled by the stupid & spiteful about Poland as a ‘new’ country. As Zamoyski put it, ‘the plan to occlude & rewrite Poland’s history has been so successful that many outside central Europe are unaware of Poland ever having been independent, let alone a major power.’
Orwell famously stated that ‘he who controls the present controls the past’… And the fog cast over Polish history from the Partitions to the Cold War is still being slowly cleared, including – I hope – by this humble YouTube channel.
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