Аннотация: "A partitioning of the Russian people" and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. A historical essay.
"A partitioning of the Russian people" and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. A historical essay.
The concept of "partitioning" ("fragmentation", "crushing", "раздробление") is usually not used in historiography.
However, why not to use the word "partitioning" in the word-combination the "partitioning of the Russian people"?
Has there been a "partitioning" of the Russian people in history?
We are not ready to give an indisputable answer on this issue.
Why not call the original disintegration of the ancient Russian state after the Tatar-Mongol invasion a "partitioning"?
Indeed, some of the principalities became part of the Mongol Empire, and some became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
Why not to call this historical event "the partitioning of the Russian people"?
If we consider the usage of the term "partitioning" for a given phenomenon to be correct, then this is the first known "partitioning".
At the stage of the first "partitioning" the Rzeczpospolita does not yet exist, but there is the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which is more suitable for the role of the savior of a part of the Russian people than for the culprit of the "partitioning".
After the outbreak of the Livonian War in 1558, Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania united in 1569. A united state was created - the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (the Rzecz Pospolita, Rzeczpospolita).
What was the purpose of the Livonian War (1558-1583)? At the time of the beginning of this war, Russia had access to the Baltic Sea, which it received as an "inheritance" from the Novgorod Republic.
After the end of the Livonian War in 1583, Russia lost access to the Baltic Sea. Only Peter the Great was able to return the Baltic shores to Russia.
In the very creation of the Commonwealth (1569), no "partitioning" is visible.
A significant part of the population of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania voluntarily absorbed the more higher Polish culture, received a Polish education and switched to the Polish language. Another part of the population, who did not have the opportunity or desire to join the Polish culture, lived according to the previously established traditions.
There were a religious contradictions.
If Vilnius University was founded in 1579, and the Academic University in St. Petersburg - in 1725 (there were no faculties or nor departments at the Academic University), then who is to blame for the "partitioning"? Who prevented the creation of a university in a more earlier period? Tatar-Mongol yoke?
In 1795, Russia, Prussia and Austria carried out the partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In a sense, this was a new "partitioning" - but the Commonwealth was not the initiator, but the victim of this "partitioning".
Then came 1917 and 1991 ... If there were "partitionings", then they can be studied in the Centers with luxurious buildings.
The territories that became part of the Second Rzecz Pospolita after the Peace of Riga (1921) were spared the vigorous collectivization that was characteristic of Soviet Russia in the 30s of the 20th century. It would be more correct to speak not about "partitioning", but about gradual integration into the European political system, about a kind of salvation.
In general, this is an interesting topic - "the partitioning of the Russian people" and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
In our opinion, it is long overdue to abandon the old-fashioned views on the history of Russia in the spirit, in the style of Nikolai Karamzin and to use the latest achievements of historical thought.
[MMСXL. The original historical concept by Vladimir Zalessky "East-Republican Space Project and the Russial (Soviet) intelligentsia". - April 29, 2021.].
June 30, 2021 17:46
Translation from Russian into English: June 30, 2021 19:40
Владимир Владимирович Залесский ""Раздробление русского народа" и Речь Посполитая. Исторический очерк".