Repnin-Sejm

The Repnine Sejm (Polish Sejm Repninowski ) was a Sejm, which met 1767-1768 in Warsaw in Poland - Lithuania. He followed the Sejm from 1764 to 1766, in which it was King Stanislaw Poniatowski at least partially successful reforms to strengthen the government of Poland-Lithuania. These reforms were assessed by Poland's neighboring countries which preferred a weak Poland and which displeased a possible threat to their own political plans as a threat.

History

( Named after the Sejm ) The emissary of the Russian Empire to Warsaw, Ambassador Prince Nikolai Repnine, was commissioned by the Russian Empress Catherine the Great ordered to move through bribery and pressure means the Members of the Sejm to legislation according to the ideas of Russia to decide, in fact, a carefully designed plan to destroy the aristocratic republic. At this time the kingdom had about 11.5 million inhabitants, of whom about 1 million of non-Catholic denomination. In his preparations Repnine stoked unrest among the religious minorities of the kingdom, the Protestants (mostly in Prussia Royal proportion and Greater Poland ) and the Orthodox (mostly in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ), who wanted to equal rights with the Catholics.

Repnine was aware that a dominated by the Catholic nobility Sejm would contradict these claims vigorously. He also reckoned that these demands would lead to the szlachta would be taken against all reforms. This included the King Stanisław August Poniatowski reforms and his supporters from the magnate Czartoryski family, the innovators were already unpopular because of their role as influenced from abroad. Repnins calculations proved to the Sejm in 1766 as applicable, by not only the demands of religious minorities a denial was issued, but also all the reforms of the king were withdrawn. This weakened the position of Poniatowski and the prosächsische party, led by Gabriel Podoski, a campaign began to his dethronement.

Although Repnine knew that you would never agree to the other courts of Europe such a measure, however, the project promoted secretly for his own purposes. In view of wider Russian objectives he encouraged the formation of two Protestant Confederation ( to Sluzk and Toruń ) and later a Catholic Confederation ( Confederation of Radom ), led by Karol Stanislaw Radziwill.

The first measure of the Radom Confederation was to send an embassy to St. Petersburg to the Tsarina our petitions to the guarantee of freedom of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and to suggest that appropriate legislation by the Russian ambassador to Warsaw should be fixed. With the certainty that Russian troops had been dispatched to protect the many pro-Russian groups and this carte blanche in the luggage Repnine proceeded to treat about the Sejmabgeordneten as if they were already subjects of the Empress.

Despite opposition by some members of the Sejm, led by Waclaw Hieronim Sierakowski (1699-1784), Bishop of Lemberg, Feliks Paweł Turski, Bishop of Chelm (1729-1800), Cajetan Ignaty Sołtyk, Bishop of Cracow (1715-1788), and Józef Andrzej Zaluski, bishop of Kiev (1702 1774) was Repnins power too great that you would have the opposition something to oppose. In order to break the backbone of the opposition, Repnine ordered in the capital, Warsaw, the arrest of four of the main opposition leaders, including: Józef Andrzej Zaluski, Cajetan Sołtyk and Hetman Waclaw Rzewuski together with his son Seweryn. All of them were members of the Polish Senate and were arrested by the Russian troops on October 13, 1767 and imprisoned for five years in Kaluga.

Through the Polish nobles who he bribed ( as Gabriel Podoski, Primate of Poland, or threatened by the presence of more than 10,000 Russian soldiers in Warsaw and even in the houses of parliament, dictated Repnine - despite some concerns about the methods to which he was stopped, -. , de facto the conditions of this Sejm this intimidated Sejm, which met in October 1767 and lasted until February 1768, a commission appointed ( the so-called delegates Sejm ) in " silent meetings " (without debate ) to 27 February. 1768 a polish- Russian treaty worked out. the Sejm also took some of the royal reforms from 1764 back and made sure that the political system of Poland-Lithuania would be ineffective and easy to control from abroad. Liberum veto that, the free choice, Neminem captivabimus, the rights to form a confederation or a Rokosz - in other words: all important, ancient privileges of the nobility, the political system ( Golden freedom) Poland - Lithuania did so ungovernable - were as immutable rights cardinal confirmed ..

However, the Repnine Sejm also adopted some progressive reforms. Russia, which had used the pretext of grants to be religious freedom for Protestants and Orthodox to destabilize Poland - Lithuania, now had to bring these reforms by the Sejm, to save face. The Sejm thus granted to religious minorities equal status as well as the Roman Catholic population and limited some of the privileges of the Catholic clergy. In addition, the penalty for the killing of peasants was aggravated by a fine to the death penalty, the liberum veto was abolished for Sejmiks and a coin was launched. All of these reforms were guaranteed by the Russian Empress Catherine II.

The Repnine Sejm marked an important milestone with respect to the Polish dependence on the Russian Empire and its conversion into a protectorate. This dependent position was bluntly stated in Nikita Ivanovich Panin letter to King Poniatowski, in which he made it clear that Poland was now in the Russian sphere of influence.

The subsequent reaction of the Roman Catholic nobility, who rejected the one hand, the legal equality of Protestants and on the other hand Russia's meddling in Polish politics, led to the Bar Confederation, which against the king on the one hand and Russia on the other hand, directed and with a victory of Russia and the first partition of Poland ended.

Repnin-Sejm

History

Further Reading