Collect the scattered shrine of the Russian national feeling!
The first interim results on the Kholm issue were summed up by the next Special Interdepartmental Meeting, held in 1902 under the chairmanship of K. P. Pobedonostsev. It decided to establish the Orthodox Kholm diocese (1). Minister of Internal Affairs D. S. Sipyagin proposed at the same time as soon as possible to introduce on the lands of the future province the practice of prohibiting the Poles from buying land, supplementing this with the forced eviction of especially zealous Catholics from the Kholmsk region.
However, a more balanced point of view was voiced at the meeting - from the lips of the Minister of Finance S. Yu. Witte, who insisted on measures of a purely economic nature in relation to the Poles in the Kholmshchyna region. Witte added that if one does not mean to resort to such measures, then the selection of Kholm loses all meaning. One and the same central authority operates in Warsaw and will operate in Kholm, the authority that has the authority to resort to the same measures in protecting the Russian element of the population (2).
Zupinka near the Kholm: where the Poles used to go on the move
For all the slowness of the Russian bureaucracy, especially in spiritual matters, the establishment of the diocese in Kholm took place rather quickly - just three years later, in fact, at the height of the First Russian Revolution. The diocese was headed by Bishop Eulogius of Lublin, unquestionably a patriot, but an extreme reactionary and supporter of unrestrained Russification. It is not surprising that Ulyanov-Lenin, in his characteristic manner, bitingly called him the embodiment of all the "disgusting hypocrisy of a fanatic" (3).
But the very idea of separating the region as a province was rejected by the meeting, and another Special Meeting on the Kholmshchyna issues was convened only four years later. It was attended by Bishop Eulogius, the governors of Lublin and Siedlec, the chairman of the chancellery of the Warsaw General Government, and a number of lower-level officials. The chairmanship was S. E. Kryzhanovsky, at that time Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Secretary of State.
Without waiting for the red tape, traditional for the Russian bureaucracy, Suvorin's Novoye Vremya, already on the opening day of the meeting on November 23, 1906, spoke out extremely categorically. "If this stupidly inhibited question does not get a quick and clear solution in St. Petersburg, then the Russian people in the Kholmsk region will finally perish." It is unlikely that this was a reaction to the speeches in the press, but the Special Meeting quite quickly made a compromise decision: to “single out” the Kholmsk province without changes in economic, civil and legal relations.
From a military-strategic point of view, it was decided to leave the allocated land under the jurisdiction of the Warsaw Military District. In case of difficulties, it was proposed to transfer part of the counties directly to the Volyn and Grodno provinces. Nicholas II approved the decisions of the meeting as a whole and set the deadline for November 1907. Metropolitan Evlogiy testifies that the struggle in the Duma commission around the Kholm question was stubborn and active afterwards. The Poles slowed down the discussion through endless debates, the left-wing members of the commission always voted against Metropolitan Eulogius, according to him, regardless of whether he defended a right or wrong cause (4).
The loyal Octobrists, who actually did not care much about the "Kholmshchyna affair", tried to keep the nationalists "in check" by trading in votes: they promised support in the Kholm issue in exchange for return support in other matters. The rightists were also indifferent to the problem of Kholmshchina and were dissatisfied with the transition of Eulogius from them to the nationalists. In the latter case, class egoism also manifested itself: "the Polish landowner is closer to us than the Russian peasant", many monarchists from the nobility believed (5).
The Kholmsk question was also worthy of consideration at the Slavic conferences, which caused a wide international resonance. The participants of Prazhsky, 1908, having spoken out for the equality of peoples, burst out with a declaration that was rather vague in form, but anti-Russian in essence. The Russian press in response was not shy in expressions.
“No matter how different Slavic congresses decide the Polish question, no matter what resolutions they pass on the Kholmshchyna region, this cannot have absolutely no significance in resolving this issue. Kholmskaya Rus is a Russian land. The Orthodox and Catholic Russian people live there, and they cannot be sacrificed to the Poles, even if Austria sent all its Kramarzhes there (6). Czech politician Karel Kramarz, Doctor of Law, neo-Slavist, and in the near future the leader of the Young Bohemian Party, was at that time vice-president of the Austrian Chamber of Deputies. Already in 1918 he became the first prime minister of Czechoslovakia. It's a paradox, but unlike President Tomas Masaryk, he envisioned independent Czechoslovakia not as a republic, but as a monarchy, possibly headed by one of the Russian grand dukes.
But the strengthening of the anti-Polish policy in Russia (first of all, the discussion in the Duma of the law on the separation of the Kholmsk region from the Kingdom of Poland) led to a sharp increase in the contradictions between the Russian and Polish supporters of neo-Slavism. The next meeting of the Executive Committee in St. Petersburg in January-February 1910 resulted in a real scandal. The liberals were especially alarmed by the deliberately active participation in the movement of "sincere supporters of Slavic unity", who, as a rule, adhered to unifying tendencies.
However, they could not resist the onslaught of these new Slavophiles. The majority in the Russian delegation (it included about 70 people) was the right wing of the "Slav-lovers". In such conditions, the same Kramarzh, treated kindly by the Russian press, set a goal for the Austrian participants "to make sure that no hostile (to Russia - AP) resolutions were adopted." “We cannot go into conflict with the state in which we live. Not to engage in politics is the motto of neo-Slavism,”said the Czech politician on the eve of his departure for Sofia.
This seemed not enough to the Poles, and, despite the post-revolutionary thaw in Russian-Polish relations, they defiantly did not go to the next Slavic congress in Sofia. Warsaw essayist Anton Zhvan noted on this occasion with the publication in the Sofia newspaper "Vecherna Poscha", and … immediately rushed to Grunwald to the pompous celebration of the 500th anniversary of the legendary battle, where the Russians and Poles fought almost the only time in history side by side with the crusaders Of the Teutonic Order.
As always, keeping a sober head Korvin-Milevsky, in response to the deliberately anti-German character of the celebration, hastened to speak "soberingly" in the liberal press, but received in response from almost his own people from the Black Hundred accusations of "joining a manifestation hostile to Russia." The Black Hundreds dispersed so much that they were ready to publicly, through the Duma, express their mistrust of the loyalty of an authoritative member of the State Council.
By that time, the national-religious struggle in the Kholmsh region had penetrated the "lower classes" - into the very depths of people's life. "Soul-holding", in which the Russian priests invariably accused the priests, and on the part of the Orthodox, at times acquired a truly massive character. As soon as two or three “gentlemen in robes” settled in one or another Polish town, almost daily christenings began there.
Russian nationalists did not hesitate in expressions: "The Poles are not a nation, but only an instrument of struggle against the Russian nation … we (Russians) should not put up with any autonomy for Poland, no concessions …" the Russian people, eternally suffering from the rage of the Polish traitorous hand”(7). “The local clergy from both sides poison their“flock”on each other. Enmity is a fact, not a fiction,”admitted the Ukrainian nationalist weekly (8).
The separation of Kholmshchyna was unequivocally supported by a few Ukrainian politicians, and Stolypin enjoyed this support to the full. With great difficulty settling in the Kholmsk region, the Ukrainian "enlighteners" have always acted from anti-Polish positions, but, nevertheless, in the struggle for the "Slavic (read: Ukrainian) Kholm" they preferred to rely on their own forces, and not on the newcomers - Great Russians. They were clearly inferior in activity to the Polish "Matica", which promoted Polish schools - for example, it was not even possible to organize Ukrainian schools in every Ukrainian village. Is it any wonder that in 1910, when the official solution of the Kholmsk question "in the Stolypin style" could be considered a foregone conclusion, the only Ukrainian rural reading room named after Taras Shevchenko in the region was closed in the village of Kobylaki.
Antipancy of Mikhail Hrushevsky
The nationalist Mykhailo Hrushevsky, advertised in modern Ukraine, who was aptly called “antipan” by one of the journalists, immediately reminded the Catholics of his predictions that had not yet been forgotten. They said that "trying to play the Ukrainians against the Great Russians, they will never get real friends in their face." How relevant are the words of this native of the Hill today, more than a hundred years later! And in turbulent revolutionary days, this bright polemicist tirelessly argued that "the decree on faith was not used by Polish society in the spirit of national justice" (9).
For decades, influencing the union, instead of rebuilding the "popular" church, the priests stubbornly pulled Ukrainians to Catholicism. " And in 1907, when the first revolutionary wave came to naught, Hrushevsky, in response to the reanimation of the idea of Polish autonomy, exclaimed that “the conclusion of Kholmshchyna in autonomous Poland would be a flagrant injustice to the Ukrainian people” (10).
The logical pinnacle of the struggle of Ukrainian nationalists and personally of Hrushevsky for the "Slavic Hill" was the demand to distinguish it as a Ukrainian land. However, for the Ukrainian "maslak" (bone) Hrushevsky, as a very authoritative historian, advocated in the days of the first Russian revolution. Responding to Tyshkevich's article in the cadet "Rech" (well, of course, where else can the Polish gentry speak), Hrushevsky attacked Polish politicians for discrediting the issue of Kholmshchyna, presenting it as an undertaking of "true Russians" (11).
Two years later, Hrushevsky managed to dispel the firm conviction of the Cadets that the separation of Kholmshchina would upset the Russian-Polish rapprochement, weakening the external positions of the empire. The nationalist responded to the "bourgeois opposition" (by the way, this is how both the left and the right called the party of constitutional democrats, which had already lost its revolutionary ardor) with accusations that "they are building a rebuff to Germany on polishing the Ukrainians" (12).
But before that, Hrushevsky decided to use the opposition of the Slavs to the Germans, rightly noting that the peasants of the Kholmshchyna would not cease to be Slavs, even if they became polarized. Trying to promote his dubious idea that, in fact, the plan for separating Kholmshchyna was the fruit of German intrigues, he successfully used the Polish press (13).
Grushevsky enjoyed the absolute support of the deputy of the Duma, nationalist V. A. Bobrinsky, who in this regard became the object of regular jokes and attacks from the extreme left. Thus, the leader of the Social Democrats Vladimir Lenin (Ulyanov) suggested Bobrinsky "enroll in the Austrian Social Democrats for active protection of Ukrainians in the Kholmshchyna" (14). When, in 1912, the separation of the Kholmsk Territory became actually only a matter of time, Hrushevsky decided to put in place the presumptuous gentlemen once again: “This is not about the fourth partition of Poland, but about the struggle for the Ukrainian bone” (15) (again “maslak” - A. NS.).
Subsequently, the most sober-minded Poles rightly criticized the National Democrats for their distinct clericalism at first, and not without reason they believed that it was he who led to the birth of the Kholmsk project. The well-known liberal Alexander Sventokhovsky, who repeatedly reminded his opponents that Poland could find recognition in Russia, but Catholicism could not, extremely harshly assessed the "inept" activity of the priests. At the same time, such politicians loyal to Russia did not stop talking about the Kholmsk region - "this is also a Polish land."
Untimely initiative
The manifesto of October 17 became an additional incentive to delimit the Polish issue, and specifically in relation to the separation of the Kholmsk province. Thus, the Minister of Internal Affairs P. N. Durnovo, recognizing the effect of the "constitutional act" on public opinion in the Kholmsh region, believed that a straightforward Russification of the region should now be avoided, all the more so since all the measures taken to this have brought nothing. From the minister's point of view, there was no rapprochement between the outskirts and the central lands. In response to a request from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Vilensky and Kiev governors advocated the early separation of the Kholmsk region, but the Warsaw governor-general G. A. Skalon replied with a categorical "no" - both to the idea of creating a new province and to the proposal to annex the Kholmsk lands in parts to other generals. governorates (16).
Despite such contradictions, soon after the publication of the manifesto, Nicholas II first of all received a deputation of public figures from the Kholmsh region, every member of which turned out to be ardent nationalists. What else could "their emperor" tell them, except that "the interests of the Russian people of the Kholmsh region are close and dear to me" (17), having favorably accepted the offer to have their own representative in the region.
When Pyotr Stolypin became the head of the committee of ministers, the government took a firm course towards eliminating separatism in the outskirts. One of the first statements of the future prime minister about the Kholmsk project, made back in May 1906, is very characteristic: "The separation of the Kholmsk region would cut the wings of the Poles." As a deputy of the Duma, Stolypin managed to be known as a liberal, but at the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the government he became distinguished by enviable conservatism. It is no coincidence that the Black Hundred, through its charitable society, sent a greeting address to Nicholas II on the occasion of Stolypin's appointment, and Bishop Eulogius first of all sent a new request on the Kholm topic to the Synod.
In the Second State Duma, Polish deputies were much more active in raising the issue of autonomy, the "natural" response of the nationalists to this was to force the issue of separating the Kholm province. So, on April 10, 1907, the Polish Kolo put forward another project of autonomy (18), which, however, is rather short. However, immediately in response to the plenary session, extremely tendentious statistics about the population of the Kholmsk region sounded, where the rapid "polonization" of the primordially Russian land was noted with concern and indignation (19).
However, as compensation for the Polish colo, it was indicated that all reforms carried out in the empire, including agrarian reforms, on Polish lands would be carried out within the framework of autonomy. It is not clear only, future or present. But, isn't it, it is characteristic that in 1907, seven years before the World War, no one was embarrassed by the very idea of autonomy. Moreover, it was said about it as something self-evident, another thing is that no one, even in the Duma, expected to "pull off" the reforms mentioned overnight.
Novoye Vremya immediately commented on the bargaining over the prospect of autonomy in the spirit of a criminal chronicle: “Milyukov and his friends promised Count Tyshkevich and his accomplices autonomy. as a tactical device, the Polish participants in this maneuver have already sincerely admitted this (20).
The Russian press in response to the publication in Lviv of "Historical Maps of Poland" almost unanimously (among others - the newspapers "Russia" and "Voice of Moscow", the same "Novoye Vremya") accused the Poles of wanting to return the borders of 1772, or even better - to get not only Lviv and Holm, but also Kiev and Vilno. The Voice of Moscow was especially zealous, asking, in the end, a fair question: where are the borders of Poland? (21). The famous historian and writer Kazimir Waliszewski immediately characterized the discussion as a game of parliamentarism.
Even liberals were smart enough at that moment to recognize the demand for autonomy as "untimely" (22). The well-known aristocrat, supporter of a political compromise, Count Ignatius Korvin-Milevsky harshly criticized his fellow tribesmen who took parliamentary seats in the first Russian parliament: and a defiant position in relation to the Russian government … They bowed to various cadets in the Duma, bowed to some disgusting "Trudoviks", among whom there were an abundance of simply "boors who could not tell the right paw from the left" (23).
The pick, however, continued. Deputy Stetsky declares that "we (Poles) will not reconcile with our current legal situation" (24). Vladislav Grabsky is trying to support him - "this is not Kholmskaya Rus, but a lace-like product of a clerical trick" (25). Bishop Eulogius immediately rejected the claims of the Poles as "too bold and inappropriate" (26).
Instead of a conclusion
Well, then the time has come for the Poles to change the front. Russia had proved its readiness to allocate Poland to autonomy several years before the World War, and Polish politicians had to take Germany and Austria-Hungary seriously. For which the Russians as allies could well come in handy.
How the Polish renaissance ultimately happened will be discussed in our next series of essays on the Polish question.
Notes (edit)
1. F. Kornilov, Opening of the Kholm Diocese, Lublin, 1906, p. 42.
2. Quoted. according to V. Rozhkov, Church issues in the State Duma, Moscow, 1975, p. 189.
3. V. I. Lenin, "Classes and Parties in Their Relation to Religion," Collected Works, vol. 17, p. 435.
4. Metropolitan Evlogy Georgievsky, The Way of My Life, M. 1994, p. 162.
5. Outskirts of Russia, 1909, No. 21, dated May 23.
6. Kulakovsky P. A., The Polish question in the past and the present, St. Petersburg, 1907, p. 12, 30, 42.
7. Kulakovsky P. A., Poles and the question of autonomy, St. Petersburg, 1906, p. 7.
8. "Hromadska Dumka", Kiev, 1906, October 14, №33.
9. Hrushevsky M., Towards Polish-Ukrainian Relations in Galicia, "Kievskaya Starina", 1905, No. 7-8, p. 230.
10. Hrushevsky M., Essay on the history of the Ukrainian people, St. Petersburg, 1907.
11. Rada, 1907, No. 2, January 2.
12. Rada, 1909, No. 87, April 18.
13. Nazionalism Rusinski a wylaczenue Chelmsczijzny, "Dzien", 1909, no. 70.
14. V. I. Lenin, On the question of national policy, Works, vol. 17, p. 325, PSS, vol. 25, pp. 66-67.
15. Ukrainian life, 1912, No. 5, p. 24.
16. RGIA, Foundation of the Chancellery of the Council of Ministers, 1906, d.79, op.2, l.19, Letter to G. A. Skalon at the request of the Minister of Internal Affairs, sheet 19.
17. Ibid, l.20.
18. TSGIAO, f. State Duma, 1907, op. 2, d. 1212, l. 12.
19. Ibid, l.14.
20. New time, 1907, No. 11112, February 17.
21. Voice of Moscow, 1907, No. 47, February 22, No. 87, April 12.
22. A. L. Pogodin, The Main Currents of Polish Social Thought, St. Petersburg, 1908, p. 615.
23. I. Korvin-Milevsky, Fight against lies, St. Petersburg, 1911, p. 23.
24. Verbatim report of the II State Duma, part 1, page 906.
25. Ibid., Part 1, volume 2, page 64.
26. Ibid, part 1, page 1042.
