1815–1863 · Kingdom of Poland (Congress)
The Congress Kingdom
The Congress of Vienna creates a Kingdom of Poland in personal union with the tsar — with a constitution, a parliament, an army, a currency and a university. The autonomy shrinks every decade: after the November Uprising (1830–31) the Organic Statute abolishes the parliament and the army, and after the January Uprising (1863–64) the rest goes. The remaining lands of the old Commonwealth stay split between three empires.
Population
- about 3,300,000 (estimate, ±200,000) — The Congress Kingdom alone, in 1815.
- From 1830: about 4,000,000 (estimate, ±200,000) — The Kingdom on the eve of the November Uprising.
- From 1860: about 4,800,000 (estimate, ±300,000) — The Kingdom on the eve of the January Uprising.
Rulers and leaders
- 1792–1835 Francis II — Holy Roman Emperor, from 1804 Emperor of Austria — partitioning power occupying power
- 1797–1840 Frederick William III — King of Prussia — partitioning power occupying power
- 1807–1815 Frederick Augustus I — Duke of Warsaw, King of Saxony monarch
- 1815–1830 Grand Duke Constantine — the tsar’s brother, commander-in-chief of the Kingdom’s army — its real ruler de facto leader
The viceroy in name was General Józef Zajączek. The November Uprising began with an attempt to seize Constantine at the Belweder; he escaped Warsaw and died in 1831.
- 1815–1825 Alexander I — Emperor of Russia and King of Poland monarch
- 1825–1855 Nicholas I — Emperor of Russia and King of Poland monarch
The insurgent sejm dethroned him in 1831; once the rising was put down he abolished the Kingdom’s constitution.
- 1830–1831 Józef Chłopicki — dictator of the November Uprising de facto leader
Dictator from 5 December 1830 to 17 January 1831; he sought a settlement with the tsar and stood down when none came.
- 1831 Adam Jerzy Czartoryski — President of the National Government after the tsar was dethroned head of state
From 30 January to 15 August 1831.
- 1831 Jan Krukowiecki — President of the National Government; surrendered Warsaw head of state
From 17 August to the surrender of Warsaw on 7 September 1831.
- 1831 Bonawentura Niemojowski — last President of the National Government head of state
From the surrender of Warsaw until the last of the army crossed into Prussia in early October 1831.
- 1831–1856 Ivan Paskevich — captor of Warsaw, Viceroy of the Kingdom of Poland occupying power
Ruled the Kingdom from the fall of the uprising until his death in 1856 — the "Paskevich night".
- 1835–1848 Ferdinand I — Emperor of Austria — partitioning power occupying power
- 1840–1861 Frederick William IV — King of Prussia — partitioning power occupying power
- 1848–1916 Franz Joseph I — Emperor of Austria, from 1867 of Austria-Hungary — partitioning power occupying power
- 1855–1863 Alexander II — Emperor of Russia and King of Poland monarch
- 1861–1888 William I — King of Prussia, from 1871 German Emperor — partitioning power occupying power
- 1862–1863 Aleksander Wielopolski — head of the Kingdom’s civil government; his conscription levy set off the January Uprising head of government
From 1861 he pursued a settlement that gave the Kingdom back Polish institutions; dismissed in July 1863.
- 1862–1890 Otto von Bismarck — Minister-President of Prussia, from 1871 Chancellor of Germany — partitioning power occupying power
Behind the Kulturkampf in the Prussian partition, the Prussian deportations of 1885 and the Settlement Commission of 1886.
- 1863–1864 Romuald Traugutt — dictator of the January Uprising, head of the National Government head of state
Led the uprising from October 1863 until his arrest in April 1864, and was hanged below the Warsaw Citadel in August. Ludwik Mierosławski and Marian Langiewicz had each been dictator briefly before him.
- 1863–1874 Fyodor Berg — Viceroy of the Kingdom of Poland — suppressed the January Uprising occupying power
The last viceroy; under him the Kingdom’s separate institutions were abolished.
Events
- 1815The Congress of Vienna 3 May, 9 June treaty
The powers redraw the Polish lands: a Congress Kingdom in union with the tsar, a Grand Duchy of Posen for Prussia, Galicia for Austria and Kraków as a free city. The partition frontiers drawn at Vienna lasted, Kraków apart, a century.
- 1815The constitution of the Kingdom of Poland 27 November constitution
In Warsaw Alexander I grants a constitution to the Kingdom of which he is king: its own sejm, army, treasury and courts, Polish as the language of government, offices for Poles only. One of the most liberal constitutions in Europe at the time, it was broken by the tsar and Grand Duke Constantine, and that became one of the causes of the November Uprising.
- 1830The November Night 29 November uprising
On 29 November conspirators, civilians and officer cadets, storm the Belweder and the people of Warsaw take the Arsenal. Grand Duke Constantine withdraws from the city with the Russian troops, and an officers’ plot becomes an uprising, and soon a war between the Kingdom and Russia.
- 1831The tsar is dethroned 25 January turning point
The Sejm of the Kingdom declares Nicholas I dethroned and the Polish throne vacant. The rising becomes an open war for independence; early in February Diebitsch’s army crosses the border.
- 1832The Organic Statute 26 February loss
After the rising’s fall Nicholas I takes away the Kingdom’s constitution: the Organic Statute abolishes the sejm and the separate army, and Warsaw University is already closed. The Kingdom is ruled by the viceroy, Paskevich.
- 1846The Kraków Uprising and the end of the Free City 16 November loss
The rising in the Free City of Kraków collapses after nine days, and in Galicia peasants, encouraged by some Austrian officials, massacre the nobles preparing to rise. In November Austria annexes Kraków — the last scrap of Polish land that had kept even a semblance of independence.
- 1848The Springtime of Nations 17 April, 9 May uprising
In the Grand Duchy of Posen the National Committee raises a Polish army under Mierosławski; for all its wins at Miłosław and Sokołowo the rising surrenders in May. In Galicia Austria abolishes serfdom to forestall the Polish democrats.
- 1863The January Uprising breaks out 22 January uprising
On the night of 22 January partisan bands attack Russian garrisons across the Kingdom, and the Central Committee declares itself the Provisional National Government. The conspirators were forced into the fight by the branka — conscription into the Russian army, by which Margrave Wielopolski meant to break the conspiracy.
Wars, uprisings and longer processes
- 1830–1831The November Uprising uprising
The sejm dethrones Nicholas I, and the Kingdom’s army fights a conventional war with Russia — Olszynka Grochowska, Iganie, Ostrołęka. In September 1831 Warsaw capitulates; close to ten thousand soldiers and politicians choose the Great Emigration, and the Organic Statute replaces the Kingdom’s constitution.
- 1831–1856The Paskevich Night repression
After the uprising falls, the viceroy Ivan Paskevich governs the Kingdom: the Organic Statute in place of the constitution, martial law from 1833, the Citadel over Warsaw, the universities of Warsaw and Vilnius closed, estates confiscated, thousands exiled or conscripted into the Russian army. It ends only with his death in 1856 and the thaw under Alexander II.
- 1831–1870The Great Emigration resettlement
After the November Uprising falls, some ten thousand soldiers, politicians and artists go west, most of them to France: Czartoryski and the Hôtel Lambert, Lelewel’s democrats and the Democratic Society, Mickiewicz, Słowacki, Chopin. Beyond the censor’s reach they write the programmes of a future Poland and a culture that outlasts the partitions.
- 1863–1864The January Uprising uprising
The longest Polish rising: eighteen months of guerrilla war in the Kingdom, Lithuania and Belarus with no regular army, run by an underground state with its own government, taxes and courts. The National Government falls when the Russians arrest Romuald Traugutt in April 1864; the last units fight on into the autumn.
People of the age
- 1798–1855 Adam Mickiewicz — poet, author of Forefathers’ Eve and Pan Tadeusz; in 1848 he raised a Polish legion in Italy
- 1810–1849 Frédéric Chopin — composer and pianist, in Paris from 1831; wrote mazurkas, polonaises, ballades and two piano concertos
- 1809–1849 Juliusz Słowacki — poet and playwright, in exile from 1831; author of Kordian and Balladyna
- 1819–1872 Stanisław Moniuszko — composer of the operas Halka and The Haunted Manor; conductor of the Warsaw Opera
- 1838–1893 Jan Matejko — painter of Polish history — the Battle of Grunwald, the Prussian Homage, the Poczet of kings; director of the Kraków School of Fine Arts
- 1778–1846 Franciszek Ksawery Drucki-Lubecki — Treasury minister of the Kingdom of Poland; balanced its budget, founded the Bank of Poland and promoted industry
- 1793–1876 Aleksander Fredro — writer of comedies, author of Revenge and Maidens’ Vows
- 1797–1875 Piotr Wysocki — instructor at the Cadet School; led the conspiracy that started the November Uprising
- 1786–1861 Joachim Lelewel — historian; member of the National Government in 1831, then leader of the democratic emigration
- 1812–1859 Zygmunt Krasiński — poet and playwright, author of The Undivine Comedy and Iridion
- 1812–1887 Józef Ignacy Kraszewski — novelist, author of over two hundred novels, among them a cycle on the history of Poland
- 1814–1878 Ludwik Mierosławski — commander of the Greater Poland rising of 1848 and first dictator of the January Uprising
- 1813–1868 Hipolit Cegielski — Poznań industrialist who founded a farm-machinery works; a leader of organic work under Prussian rule
- 1821–1883 Cyprian Kamil Norwid — poet, playwright and draughtsman, in exile from 1842; author of the collection Vade-mecum
- 1812–1875 Agenor Gołuchowski — Governor of Galicia and Austrian minister; a creator of the autonomy under which Poles governed Galicia