Международная онлайн школа "Российско-польская транснациональная история"

After the Napoleonic Wars, the Duchy of Warsaw was liquidated. Most of its lands, under the name of the Kingdom of Poland, found themselves within the borders of the Russian Empire, where they received extensive autonomy, retained their former administration, rights and a well-trained army of post-Napoleonic Polish officers. Although the Kingdom enjoyed formal independence and its constitution was one of the most liberal in Europe at the time, opposition was growing against the rule of tsarist governors, and above all the grand duke Konstantin Pavlovich. Dissatisfaction was also caused by violations of the constitution, rising taxes, and an extensive network of secret police. However, the direct cause was revolutions in France and Belgium. As a signatory of the Holy Alliance, Russia announced that the Polish army would be sent to Belgium. 
Due to earlier abuses of tsarist officials, it was feared that when the Polish army left the Kingdom, tsar would introduce a state of emergency and incorporate Poland into the Empire as another governorate. On the night of November 29-30 1830, a group of cadets carried out a successful coup d'état in Warsaw, called the November Uprising in Polish historiography. Russian troops withdrew from the Kingdom, and Konstantin Pavlovich was evacuated. On January 25, 1831, the Sejm of the Kingdom announced the dethronement of Nicholas I, which canceled attempts to reach agreement and became the cause of the outbreak of the Polish-Russian war of 1831. Quite unexpectedly, the Russian army was not able to defeat the weaker but well-trained insurgent troops. On February 14, 1831, the Russian avant-garde was defeated in a skirmish at Stoczek, and on February 25, 1831, after the unresolved battle of Grochów, they withdrew from Warsaw, giving Poles time to regroup and prepare a counteroffensive. This began with Polish successes: March 31, 1831 near Dębie Wielkie; October 10, 1831 near Iganie. 
The situation of the Poles became so favorable that troops were even sent to start an uprising in the Belorussian, Lithuanian and Ukrainian governorates located at the rear of the Russian army. In order to take advantage of the initial successes and the dispersion of Russian troops, the Kingdom’s staff planned an operation known in historiography as an «expedition to the guard». It was an elite unit in the Russian army, consisting of sons of aristocracy. It was intended to take the guards prisoners so that they could exert pressure on the tsar through the Russian aristocracy and negotiate a favorable peace. It was known that the Guard was stationed in Ostrołęka, far away from the main Russian forces. The first clash took place from May 17-18. Then the guard found itself at a disadvantage: no retreats, almost encircled by the Polish army and given a slight advantage of the opponent. 28,000. Poles and 80 guns faced 24,000. Russians and 72 guns. Fortunately for the Russians, due to the negligence of general Skrzynecki, not only the advantage was not used, but the attack was stopped and the guards were allowed to join the remaining Russian forces. 
The Battle of Ostrołęka, which was fought on May 26, 1831, had a different power ratio: 30,000. Poles and 74 guns were to face 35,000. Russians and 148 guns, which already use much better terrain. To better describe that battle I divided it into six stages presented in this lecture. 
Stage I: 9.00-11.00 AM retreat of Polish guard forces to Ostrołęka against the attack of the Russians (1) and mobilization of surprised Skrzynecki's main forces (2), defense of the city and monastery (3), and finally retreat to the west bank of the Narew river (4). 
Stage II: The crossing of the Astrakhan grenadiers and guard grenadiers supported by numerous Russian artillery and the creation of a foothold on the west bank (1), which caused chaos in the Polish ranks deepened by the strong fire of Russian artillery and uncoordinated attacks by the Polish 3rd infantry division (3). 
Stage III: at 1.00 PM successful attack of the Polish 1st infantry division (1) ended with displacement of the Russians up to the bridges of the Narew River (2) stopped by effective fire of Russian artillery (3). 
Stage IV: 2.00-3.00 PM attack of the 2nd and 5th uhlans regiment failed (1) and the death of general Kicki (2) at 4.00PM. Russians repair bridges to carry out the main attack (3). 
Stage V: 4.00PM Crossing of subsequent Russian forces (1) which at 5.00PM lead a failed attack on Poles, which causes panic in the Russian ranks and the threat of its collapse (2). Thanks for arriving at 18.00 Russian support forces managed to prevent the Russian defeat, but the positions were still threatened by Poles (3). 
Stage VI: at 7.00PM transferred the Russian commander-in-chief Ivan Dibicz on the west bank of the Narew river, thanks to which panic was under control (1). Meanwhile, on the Polish side, there were no more reserves (2) so under the cover of light infantry set up in the loose lines they tried to regroup the remaining Polish regiments, but in the event of a attack, the Polish army would be defeated (3). To prevent a Russian attack, so-called the «charge» of 4 light battery of general Józef Bem, which with accurate firing prevented the Russians from launching the final attack (4) and enabled the organized retreat of the Polish army, saving it from destruction. 
Polish losses amounted to 194 officers and 6224 soldiers killed, injured or taken prisoner, while Russian losses amounted to 172 officers and 5696 soldiers. Due to the ignorance of the situation among the opponents, both sides initially considered the battle to be lost (!). However, it was a turning point of the Polish-Russian war. Since then, the Poles have lost the initiative and despite their local successes and chances of success, they were no longer able to repel the second Russian offensive on Warsaw, which capitulated on September 8, 1831. The last event of the war was the capitulation of the Zamość fortress on October 21, 1831. Defeat in the Polish-war Russia resulted in the liquidation of the autonomy of the Kingdom of Poland and the obliteration of the constitution of 1815. Education and administration were subjected to forced rusification, and numerous arrests and exiles to Siberia led to the emigration of a significant part of the participants of the uprising.

Bożejewicz. Abstract (DOCX, 17 Кб)

Poland was one of the most important political and economical partners of medieval Rus’. There were several trade ways between two countries. Rulers of two countries often concluded political alliances, confirming them by dynastic marriages beginning with that of Casimir the Restorer and Maria Dobroniega. The basis for mutual accusations existed as well, as both countries claimed their rights to the Cherven cities area, Kiev was several times occupied by Polish warriors, and Rusian princes deported Polish population to the border areas of their land in turn. 
The purpose of my talk is to check if such level of historic entanglement led to upgrowth of knowledge on Polish politics, society, and culture, circulating in Rusian lands. Examining The Tale of Bygone Years, Kievan and Galician-Volhynian Chronicle, which mentioned Poles and Poland most oftenly, I’ll discuss the amount of information on Poland available to Rusian chroniclers, the way it was represented in the narrative, the eventual biases and disproportions of the latter, and the ways by which details of Polish internal affairs could became known to the country’s eastern neighbour in periodically changing historic circumstances.

Dobrovolski. Abstract

The imperial court is a space for representing power: here every word, gesture, distance, and location had an impact on the construction of the hierarchy of power. The emperor made someone closer, and moved away from others in a seemingly invisible way, but his (monarch) tone of voice, his slightest body movements could tell a lot. It is not surprising that the court was also the space of the ruler's politics; persons, who were close to emperor’s family, had power within the country and high importance in the international stage. This way of influencing politics could be the rise of one group of people, showing attention to them, giving them places in the ministry of the imperial court, where they were involved in the public and private life of the monarch's family.In this regard, it is interesting to look at the court staff of the ladies-in-waiting (mostly young unmarried noblewomen, who were on duty for the empress), which was part of the complex structure of the Russian imperial court during the reign of Nicholas I (1825–1855). Nicholas I was known for his desire to regulate all spheres of life and the court as well. The emperor strove to preserve the «Russian» court with its long-standing traditions, which were distinguished by an Orthodox component. However, according to the staff of court officials and court ladies, it is noticeable that not only representatives of the Russian nobility were appointed to this service, but also a number of nobles of other ethnic origins. Among the staff of ladies-in-waiting, the largest number of young unmarried noblewoman was Russians, Germans, Poles, Georgians, French women, and Swedes.This report focuses on Polish ladies-in-waiting at the court of Nicholas I. A number of questions appear for the historical research: why Nicholas I kept the multinational state of ladies-in-waiting, when he tried to preserve Russian, Orthodox traditions in the imperial court. Why exactly Poles were chosen to serve at the court? How long were Polish ladies-in-waiting in service at the imperial court? Did the families of girls play a role in this choice? Was the choice of noble Polish women the result of the emperor's policy of power? Did the political situation influence on the service of Polish ladies-in-waiting (for example, the uprising of 1830–1831)?

Dolgova. Abstract

The research is devoted to the study of institutional practices connected with the activity of the court of grand prince Konstantin Nikolayevich in Warsaw in 1862–1863: from semantics and «scenarios of power» to the practices of recruiting of personnel and the daily activities of the court department.The analysis was carried out on an extensive source base, namely the documents stored in the leading archival collections of Russia: the Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA) and the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GA RF).
In this study we compare the interdepartmental processes of the activities of the grand prince’s courts in St. Petersburg and Warsaw, their financial, legal and ideological components. What is more, we consider the system and functionality of the court staff and reveal the semantics and aims of the advanced socio-political centers of the empire – the small courtyards of the grand prince Konstantin Nikolayevich.
During the investigated period, large-scale socio-political transformations took place in the Kingdom of Poland, which were based on the national self-determination of the Poles in the multinational Russian Empire. The viceroyalty of Konstantin Nikolayevich, brother and closest associate of emperor Alexander II, in Warsaw allows us to consider the small grand prince court in the historical context, reflecting the specificity of the Warsaw residence. It is possible to study the activities of the court department, trace the public representation of the court in various aspects of ceremonial culture, and explore the means of representation of the power of the Russian monarch in the Kingdom of Poland.
The topic of the work is connected with a number of relevant areas of humanitarian knowledge, such as new biographical history, history of everyday and private life, institutional history, gender history, potestary imagology, elitology.

Dzyubinskiy. Abstract (DOCX, 14 Кб)

Integration and discrimination played an important role in the fate of the Polish question in the Russian Empire. Opposing each other at first glance, these two vectors were actually in a more complex relationship. Integration, making up the essence of the Polish question, was understood in a very wide range – from political loyalty to assimilation, and the variety of goals corresponded to the variety of means to achieve them. Both positive and negative discrimination, responsible for imperial asymmetry, could be considered as a temporary measure on the way to integration. 
The Empire reforming had to take into account the centre-peripheral relations. It was necessary to choose between (1) autonomy, in which the national suburbs could be the first to acquire new institutions, (2) advanced modernization of the imperial core, and (3) carrying out transformations throughout the state simultaneously.
The scenario in which positive discrimination of the western suburbs became a model for transformation throughout the state was almost never implemented. The use of negative discrimination experience based on restrictions and violence was much more in demand. Russian-Polish relations have known cases of rapid changes of the directions of discriminatory measures. Considerable difficulties arose in determining their targeting. Numerous imperial situations of this kind deserve special attention.
When studying the history of the Polish question it is necessary to consider the goal-setting of the imperial authorities (often represented by carriers of different attitudes) and their Polish opponents (also adherents of competing strategies). Secondly, it is important to analyse the achieved results, which often do not coincide with the expectations of the conflicting parties. Third, we need to pay attention to the perception of these results by contemporaries, in whose optics realities could receive a distorted and even mystified interpretation.
The format of the transnational history allows to trace how, in the face of new challenges, following strategic guidelines was replaced by situational solutions, and initially temporary measures showed great constancy.
The report presents a number of case studies that support the provisions formulated in the theses. 

Gorizontov. Abstract (DOC, 29 Кб)

The changes taking place in the culture of society's memory lead directly to changes of meanings in tragic places of the past. The confrontation of memories of different groups is reflected in the historical narrative of places of tragic memory. I am interested in various ways of dealing with the past, that is, with the memory of tragedies in the specific places of events. I’ll tell about the representation of the tragedy of Polish militarymen in Katyn as a place of tragic memory.
The purpose of this study is to identify new meanings and values that have appeared after the reconstruction of the Katyn memorial in 2017–2018. Key tasks are (1) to show the forms of historical narrative reflected in the complex of artifacts presented in Katyn and (2) to make a diachronic comparative analysis using the Bernhard – Kubik methodology, which helps to see new values and changes of previous meanings as a result of the memorial reconstruction.
The main sources constitute the archive of photo documents formed during my field research; «Bulletins of the Katyn memorial»; Russian-language and English-language booklets for visitors of the memorial.
I have identified the following meanings, including those that have been changed. First, the presence of Burdenko’s version (1944) without necessary comments and displacement of the narrative about the Katyn crime as a crime of the Soviet regime. Second, a formation of a hostile image of Poland in the historical perspective. Third, a formation of a sense of pride among Russian-speaking visitors of Katyn for the actions of the USSR during the liberation of Poland in the World War II and its post-war restoration. After the reconstruction the exhibition also tells a general story of the Soviet penitentiary system and its victims.

Kazantsev. Abstract

In the study we analyze the following aspects: programs and measures for the support of refugees in financial, clothing, cultural, and spiritual ways. Moreover, we analyze the effectiveness of support programs. We also compared them with the state-fund programs. We consider that the organizations for Polish refugees were interested not only in supporting their fellows living, but also in strengthening and developing their national feelings.
Despite certain difficulties these organizations managed to develop an effective system of support provision. Due to the more targeted nature of support programs – exclusively to Poles, they were more effective than state programs. Moreover, the Polish refugees found themselves in a more advantageous position than Russian or Ukrainian refugees, receiving support from both national organizations and state institutions. 
Refugee support organizations had a significant impact on the unification of Polish refugees during their stay in the inner regions of Russia. Their activities made it possible to preserve national identity. Moreover, these organizations created basis for the future independent Polish state.
The topic of the work is connected with a number of relevant areas of humanitarian knowledge, such as new imperial history, war history, history of everyday life, institutional history, political history, economic history, nationalism studies.
The analysis was carried out on an extensive source base, namely the documents stored in the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GA RF). 

Komarov. Abstract

This paper is devoted to the study of the self-identification and perception of women in the leadership of the Union of Polish Patriots (UPP) – Wanda Wasilewska and Janina Broniewska, and also, we analyze their personal relationships. We use three categories of identity analysis – political, national, and gender criteria, as well as a combination of them. A special focus of the work is an attempt to reveal the case of Wanda Wasilewska, the daughter of Leon Wasilewski,  Piłsudski’s right hand, in the logic of Soviet gender policy during the World War II. 
By the middle of the 20th century, there was already a rollback to the traditional model of gender order, but the military actions required the mobilization of women by the Soviet government with a new force in three key areas: as workers, as citizens, and as mothers. Wasilewska’s case of leadership in large-scale socio-political organization during this period demonstrated the emergence of another possible model of women's self-realization in the conditions of the traditional gender system: a combination of «the someone's daughter» model and a women's strategy of active adaptation to the etacratic order. In the same logic a career of her friend and colleague Janina Broniewska has developed.
Political and national identity of Wanda Wasilewska and Janina Broniewska we build up on the basis of personal sources that the heroines of the study left, recalling their childhood, youth and their actions during the war, and the testimonies of their contemporaries – both the Poles and Soviet citizens. We are introducing some new documents from the GA RF concerning the activities of the Union of Polish Patriots to answer the question why these two women were entrusted with the leadership of the UPP.

Konovalova. Abstract

In the post-war period, over a million inhabitants came to Poland from the Eastern Territories of the Second Polish Republic, who, as a result of the decisions of the Big Three, were forced to leave their homelands in 1944–1946. Moreover, it should be remembered that the mass of these trips was influenced by the Soviet authorities who made arrests, applied propaganda and administrative pressure.
In the paper below, I would like to deal mainly with the terminology related to this topic. Dealing with it is quite justified, as it concerns such an important issue as the heritage of the Eastern Territories of the Second Polish Republic. The basis for the presentation of the lecture is archival documentation, literature on the subject and memories of people who came from the East.
In the literature on the subject, there are at least a few terms that were created in the communist period and after 1989. Despite the passage of time, all of them function in scientific and popular science texts. Although it should be noted that after the period of systemic transformation, there were visible changes in the naming of people from the Borderlands. People started to think about the correctness of the term repatriation and repatriates, and instead use a more adequate term such as expatriation and expatriates, which also became crucial in the further discussion of historians studying the migration of Poles from the Eastern Borderlands. The paper will also deal with other, more or less known terms, such as contamination, evacuation and resettlement, appearing quite often in various types of texts, including scientific ones. The possibility of compiling them all in one paper will allow for a deeper reflection on their use.

Krasnodębski. Abstract

The purpose of the presentation is to show the moments of contact between Polish and Russian (Moscow) history and culture on the canvas of the relations of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with Novgorod and Pskov in the first decade of the XV century. At the beginning, the author will point out when we can talk at all about Polish-Russian (Moscow) relations and what events in the past had an impact on this.
The Moscow Principality did not have much significance in Russia until the beginning of the XV century. Gradually, since the reign of Ivan I Kalita, the Principality has grown in strength thanks to the cunning policies pursued against other Russian principalities, and the obsequious attitude towards the Golden Horde. A significant event was the year 1327 and the loss of the ruler of Tver (Moscow's largest competitor at that time) the title of Grand Duke of Vladimir, which predetermined him to lead other Russian principalities. Since then, the Moscow Principality gradually strengthened its position and, thanks to Dmitry Ivanovich (grandson of Ivan Kalita), tried to throw off the Tatar yoke in 1380. It was from the victory of the battle of Kulikovo that the then Moscow ruler received the nickname Donskoy. 
The growth of the forces of the Moscow ruler was not unnoticed, and he had to meet with a response from Lithuania, which had already Mindaugas in the XIII century. It added its own possessions at the expense of Russian principalities, but since the time of Gediminas, we can talk about a visible acceleration of this trend. After his death, Casimir the Great began to expand the borders of his lands in the Eastern direction, occupying the former state of the Romanovich. This led to a conflict between Poland and Lithuania, which also claimed these territories. Only the Union of Krewo in 1385, Jagiello's wedding to Jadwiga (Hedwig) and the personal Union between the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania brought to an end territorial disputes and shifted political interests even further East. 
Taking advantage of the temporary weakening of Moscow, Wladyslaw II Jagiello and his brother, Lengvenis decided in 1389 to subjugate Novgorod. The first attempt to subdue Novgorod burned to the ground, and in 1392 Lengvenis still had to retreat from the republic of Novgorod. Yagaila's cousin, Vytautas, with the consent of his overlord, tried to achieve superiority over Russia by defeating the Golden Horde. The defeat over Vorskla reconsidered the intentions of the Lithuanian prince.
Then the author will present the relations of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with both Russian merchant republics after the defeat of Vorskla in 1399 and will tell in detail about the reasons for the Lithuanian expansion to the northeast and Severia lands, as well as the role of Moscow in this adventure.

Kryszak. Abstract

The underground communities of resistant Uniates of Siedlce province: an episode of Polish-Russian rivalry or a phenomenon of religious bIn 1875, the Uniate diocese of Kholm was liquidated and its parishes officially merged into Russian Orthodox Church (Kholm-Warsaw diocese). A large group of former Uniates refused to consider themselves Russian Orthodox, avoided churches and sacraments even when punished for doing so, and formed their own secret prayer communities. In 1875, they declared they wanted to keep a particular «Uniate liturgy», a phenomenon of the religious borderland: the Byzantine rite with East Slavonic language and a dozen of additional elements brought from Roman Catholic churches. 
However, when they began to decide autonomously on their liturgical life – as the role of actual clergymen in the creation of secret communities was limited – they became extremely close to folk Roman Catholicism, quickly abandoning the Byzantine rite and Eastern prayers. The borderland identity of the Uniates was lost: in thirty years, most of those who rejected Orthodoxy did not differ in anything from the Roman Catholic neighbours, and they succeeded in raising the second generation of staunch Catholics. 
The Uniates of Siedlce province, influenced by Roman Catholicism before 1875, underwent the final phase of self-imposed latinization, and then, consequently, polonization, at the time when the Russian authorities did the greatest effort to achieve the opposite, and when the Uniates had, paradoxically, the greates autonomy in deciding what customs and rites they would like to preserve and pass on. 
How did the underground communities work, what their spiritual culture was exactly like and how did they look at their own Eastern Slavic roots is examined on the basis of first-hand accounts of the Catholic priests who supported the Uniates, of the policemen who searched for «illegal cult» and, above all, of the Uniates themselves.
orderland?

Kulbaczewska. Abstract

Polish jacobins is a group of Polish reformers of the late 18th century who took more radical positions during the Kościuszko uprising (1794). On the one hand, those who considered themselves to this group supported Tadeusz Kościuszko and ranked themselves among 
the rebels, whose main goal was to liberate the country from the Russian and Prussian intervention. On the other hand, Polish jacobins expressed very new  revolutionary ideas based on French achievements and at the same time on the realities of Polish political, social and economic life.
This group finally took shape at the beginning of the Kościuszko uprising and played an important role until its defeat. One of the Polish jacobins – Józef Zajączek, even acted as the leader of the rebels after the capture of Kościuszko in September 1794. A bright figure of the insurrection was certainly Hugo Kołłątaj, the leader of Polish jacobins and one of the most famous Polish philosophers of the Enlightenment. At last, several members of this group organized the public executions of the «traitors» to the uprising that took place 
in Warsaw on 9 May and 28 June 1794.
In my report I would like to reflect on the question: was the uprising led by Kościuszko only an attempt to stop the intervention and save the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, or there was some political process (or even the political struggle) the main purpose of which was to carry out fundamental reforms? I also try to understand the impact of external factor, and particularly Russia’s interference in Polish affairs, to ideas and actions of the most progressive and radical group of Polish society at the end of the 18th century.

Levina. Abstract

The present study seeks to reveal key patterns and functions of the representation relationships between the USSR and Poland in the reviews on «Cinema of moral anxiety» («Kino moralnego niepokoju») in Soviet film magazines issued in 1960-1980s. The most representational Soviet articles dealing with this topic are focused on the embodiment of the socialist propaganda in Polish producers’ works. These films enjoyed great popularity and success among the Soviet audience, while also being an integral part of the political controversy, just as mentions of them in press. 
In the 20th century Soviet criticism of such antisocialist movies was a subject of discussion between editorial policy of all the media controlled by the government and cinema studies researchers, who aimed to clarify the main concepts in relation to social interpretation of the reality. These discussions focus on the works of such film directors as Zanussi, Kijowski, Kieslowski, Wajda.
Although Soviet cinema critics were censored by the government, just like all art critics, they forced to promote party’s ideology even by preparing for publishing biographical papers about directors and reports from the cinema festivals in Poland. In my lecture through the rhetorical and discourse analysis I proved that such representation patterns of Polish cinematography were the pervasive strategy of printed mass media rather than the subjective opinion of dome of Soviet journalists.
Therefore, that is the reason why Soviet critic articles’ focus changed from an academic approach to ideology and propaganda. Besides, in the following period, Soviet cinema magazines became a public discussion platform for Polish critics and directors, who visited the USSR, but these texts were edited into the ones flattering the Soviet Union. Soviet editors used to apply such tools as silence and accusation articles, which is confirmed by contemporary memoirs of Polish cinema researchers.

Makagon. Abstract

Between 1914 and 1915 the territory of Kingdom of Poland has become an area of several major military campaigns, fought between the forces of three empires engaged in the Great European War. In about a year of intense fighting the  armies of Germany, Austro-Hungary and Russia have lost literally milions of soldiers, either killed, wounded or taken prisoner by the other side. It's no wonder then that such epic military struggles attracted the attention of war reporters, journalists and photographers. The Great War was not the first military conflict documented on photographs, but never before it was done on such scale and with such wide scope  photographed of places, events and topics. Photography and it's «younger sibling» – the cinema – were used by propaganda makers, ethnographers and common soldiers alike, together creating a detailed (even if uneven in some aspects) vision of war. 
While the works of German and to lesser excent Austro-Hungarian photographers are  relatively well-known, the contribution of Russian photographers in documenting the war seems a bit neglected, at least outside Russia. The main goal of my lecture is to present basic facts about the photographic portrayal of the Imperial Russian Army during the first stage of the Great War (1914–1915), focusing on the battles waged on territory of Kingdom of Poland (though some examples from other parts of the front shall also be included). 
After discussing the technical side of the photography before and during the Great War, and then the legal aspects of working as a photographer in Russian Empire (including their status and position in the army ranks after establishing wartime censorship in 1914) we will move to present the most common, popular trends and themes of the Russian military photography, such as documenting the daily life of soldiers, famous locations, «war tourism», views of battlefields and wartime destructions, war heroes etc. Examples of works made by Russian photographes shall be compared to similar-themed works from other countries engaged in the war, to check if we could talk about any sort of uniqueness, or rather quite universal approach of authors, regardless of their nationality. Finally, we'll see the difference in portrayals of Russian Army in the eyes of their allies, enemies and non-combatants.

Mieczkowski. Abstract (DOC, 26 Кб)

As a result of the suppression of the November uprising of 1830-1831 representatives of the military elites of the Kingdom of Poland were incorporated into the Russian imperial army. Faced with a number of restrictions on the military service, nevertheless, by the second half of the 19th century the Poles had played a crucial role in the functioning of the military apparatus of the Russian Empire and occupied an important niche in the hierarchy of the highest officers. 
In 1887 among the 32,806 officers of the Russian army, about 2,900 people (9% of the total) were of the Polish origin. For comparison, the Russians among the officer corps – 58%, Germans – 23%. In 1912 among 48,615 officers 5.4% (2,625 people) were the Poles, second only to the Russians (87.2%, 42,392 people). 3.2% (42 people) of the Russian army’s generals were represented by the Poles, which is comparable to the number of the Germans in this category – 6.3% (82 people). 
It is important to compare various factors that influenced the careers of high-ranking officers of the Polish origin in the late Russian Empire. In this work, an attempt is made to reconstruct their hierarchies of self-identifications, systematizing such main components as national, religious, social factors, and the principles of military honor and loyalty to the House of Romanov. 
The main sources are the ego documents of the generals Jan Jacyna (1864–1930), Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki (1867–1937) and Bronisław Grąbczewski (1855–1926). Their memoirs contains many examples of self-reflection and definition of self-identification, demonstrating the complexity of interethnic relations in the late Russian Empire. The hierarchies of self-identifications of the aforementioned generals were characterized mainly by the prevalence of national factor and principles of military honor but they also demonstrate the individuality of each case due to another factors’ impact. 
The study makes it possible to supply the understanding of the behavioral strategies of the Poles among the military elites of the late Russian Empire and to clarify the models of interaction between them and their Russian colleagues.

Mikhin. Abstract

One of the few stories remembered today is the story of the united naval forces of the Warsaw Pact, which operated at the Baltic Sea for 36 years. It was a fleet that consisted of the Soviet Navy, the GDR Navy, and the Polish Navy. The united naval forces trained together and conducted joint naval operations. They jointly supervised the zone of territorial waters and remote regions of the Baltic Sea and the North Atlantic. The conducted training was to ensure the readiness of the Warsaw Pact states to defend themselves against an attack by NATO. The main force in the joint fleet was the Navy of the Soviet Union.
The fleets operated on the basis of the Soviet art of war. Joint operational training was conducted on the basis of Soviet war experiences and newly developed solutions.  An important element of the operational training conducted was cooperation with other types of armed forces such as the air and land forces.
The main element of the joint operational training was to conduct a defensive and offensive operations with simultaneous sea landing. Warships of various classes took part in naval operations, including submarines, frigates, corvettes, destroyers, missile ships and more. The fleet had large landing forces, which included tanks and combat vehicles and several thousand marines. It operated on the basis of common procedures. 
The United Baltic Fleet was to be used mainly to support land forces, but also to conduct a strategic operation. The United Naval Forces of the Warsaw Pact were one of the most advanced methods of military cooperation and were characterized by high operational efficiency. They were the only fleet of this kind in the world. Therefore, it is worth remembering them and conducting research, especially on the Soviet art of war.

Rybak. Abstract

Warsaw has complex and difficult architectural and historical heritage. Mike Crang in «Cultural Geographies» offers the concept of «palimpsest» . It’s the vision of the landscape as a multi-layered structure that keeps traces of different eras. In this optics Warsaw had four modalities. This is European historical city, lost and found city, socialist–looking–like city and, finally, contemporary European capital.
As contemporary city Warsaw has a big challenge of historical representation. Complicated and multiple history buildings of different periods and contexts obstruct to construct holistic image of the city. One of the main aspects of this challenge is communist architecture. 
Kevin Lynch offers the conception of image of the city . City is seen only partly but to understand and improve it researchers and even users must have a holistic image of it. A lot of contemporary researchers such as François Penz and Giuliana Bruno, offer the frame of City as a map. This frame emphasizes the role of cinema in city image constructing . Film represents city in form of the inclusive map, which creates the real-like feeling of it.
Especially notable David Clarke’s conception of camera as flaneur. Depending on Walter Benjamin’s thought of role of flaneur in the city he suggests to consider cinematic camera in the same way . Thus, research of city image in cinema can help to understand the ways of holistic representation of city – it means Lynch’s «image of the city».

Tarasenko. Abstract

The theory that memory as a collective (social, cultural) phenomenon can`t exist as a theoretical abstraction, but has be represented as the certain cultural forms – «sites of memory» – during the emergence of memory studies in the first third of the twentieth century was formulated. Durkheim in the book «Elementary forms of religious life» has demonstrated that the story of the totemic ancestor, which creates the narrative of the collective memory of the tribe, should be ritually represented in those sacred places that are associated with this story. Polish sociologist, a representative of the School of Durkheim, Stefan Czarnowski in the thesis on the cult of St. Patrick in Ireland explored the historical and social circumstances of the formation of the figure of the Saint as a «place» of Irish national memory. Finally, Maurice Halbwachs, in his study of the Evangelical topography of Palestine, very clearly expressed the idea that «a purely abstract truth is not a memory». In order to be recorded in the collective memory of a group, it hаs be presented in the concrete form of an event, person, or place. 
The French historian Pierre Nora on the basis of these ideas, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, hаs formulated the concept of «sites of memory» and the project of «the history of the second degree» as the history of the symbolic space of representation of the past. The largest project created on the basis of this concept is the multi-volume publication «Reаlms of Memory» («Les Lieux de Mémoire») edited by Nora, which implemented a systematic «inventory» of the «sites» that are associated with the French national identity. The main focus of criticism of the Norа`s project and the similar projects for the study of national «sites of memory» is related to the one-dimensional perception of «site of memory», reduction its complexity and polyphony exclusively to its connection with national identity.
Аs a reаction on this criticism the research of «transnational sites of memory», i.e. those that аre the part of the identity narrative for several communities simultaneously, hаs emerged. Among them, we can mention bilateral (for example, Polish-German), or regional (for example, Central and Eastern Europe) «places of memory».
In my opinion, the reseаrch of trаnsnаtionаl «sites of memory» is necessary for the study of  symbolic dimension of transnational history. Without understanding this dimension, we will not be able to understand many social and political phenomena, forms of identity (including national), and the nature of conflicts in large regions of the world, as well as at the global level. The creation of a cultural- symbolic direction for the transnational history on the bаsis of the concept of transnational «sites of memory» allows us to bring the researches in this area to a new theoretical level.

Vasilyev. Abstract (DOCX, 17 Кб)

The Uniate Church in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was created in 1596, when part of the Orthodox Church episcopate accepted the supremacy of the pope. This new Church, during the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries, formed its own religious culture and sense of identity. After the polemics between the Orthodox and Uniates were weakened, the Uniate hierarchs’s main activities were focused on the codification of the acquis communautaire in the XVIIth century and the reform of the church organization. 
All Uniate dioceses in the Polish-Lithuanian state developed until the first partition in 1772. The same process took place in the Uniate diocese of Przemyśl, the westernmost part of the Archdiocese of Kiev. In fact, a significant part of the reforms did not signify a fundamental transformation of the church institution, but rather consisted in dressing the model of the Byzantine Church in modernizing garments inspired by the achievements of the Latin Church. Old church institutions were refreshed and their efficiency improved. 
Among them were: katedratyk (kunicze), canonical visitations, synods. Bishops had better and fuller information about the clergy of diocese and its problems. Some offices in the diocese received new names, for example: namiestnik generalny – oficjał generalny, namiestnik katedralny – oficjał okręgowy, namiestnik – dziekan, pop – paroch or ksiądz. The Concistory was expanded during the XVIIIth century. As a result, the judiciary of diocese was improved. Clear signs of positive changes were visible in the education of deans. The biggest failure of the reform period was the ineffectiveness of attempts to create a seminary for priests. All reforms in the XVIIIth century centralized the power of the bishop’s diocese of Przemyśl.

Zielecka-Mikołajczyk. Abstract