Butterwick, Richard; (2024) Czynniki wyznaniowe w rozbiorach Rzeczypospolitej. Przegląd Historyczny , 115 (1) pp. 5-32. 10.36693/202401p.5-32.

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Abstract

Religious factors in the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Since the late eighteenth century the question of whether (and, if so, how) either religious diversity or intolerant Catholic ‘confessionalisation’ contributed to the partitions of Poland has provoked controversy. The present article seeks to link the conditions of the co-existence of Christians of different confessions in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to their political consequences. First, the author reviews the evolving model of ‘confessionalisation’ and its application to the Commonwealth. This is followed by an analysis of the extent to which confessional conflicts and their manipulation by Russia contributed to the first partition in 1772. The longest part of the article shows that the partitions of 1793 and 1795 were most directly caused by Prussian, Austrian and, especially, Russian responses to the geopolitical, demographic and ideological challenges presented by the revived Commonwealth. Nevertheless, confessional factors did play secondary roles in the process. Catherine II, although little moved by religion herself, sometimes found it advantageous, both in domestic and in foreign affairs, to support the Orthodox Church against the Uniate Church within the Commonwealth, as well as in the territories annexed by Russia. On the other hand, the Commonwealth’s revival encompassed a coherent confessional policy. The Commonwealth’s settlements with its Protestant and Orthodox communities, reached at the Great Sejm of 1788–1792, thus only increased the threat felt in St. Petersburg. In the final section the author argues that the partitions enabled the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union to destroy Polish and Catholic competition in the annexed lands; they also led to closer links between Polish nationalism and Roman Catholicism. Ultimately, those who have ascribed the partitions either to excessive confessional diversity or to intolerant ‘confessionalisation’ have reversed the cause and the consequence.

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