The beginning of the 19th century in Russia marks the establishment of the modern system of education, to much extent based on the standards set by the National Commission of Education. Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski , then a close associate of Alexander I, used the young tsar’s enthusiasm for reforming the country, including the educational system. The already implemented reforms encompassed also the territories of the Russian partition. The unique feature of the Vilnius Scientific District created at that time was the possibility of teaching in the Polish language in all types of schools. It was the school superintendent Prince A. J. Czartoryski who deserved credit for that - due to his considerable influence upon the tsar’s policy towards the Poles. After the change in the position of the superintendent (1824) and the death of Alexander I (1825), the authorities’ policy on the Polish educational system became stricter, and after the fall of the November Uprising Polish educational institutions practically disappeared. The source base of the text is constituted by the archival materials stored in the State Historical Archives in Kiev and Vilnius as well as in the Library of The Vilnius University. Monographic studies of such authors as e.g. D. Beauvois, L. Janowski, M. Rolle and S. Truchim turned out helpful to this work.
In 1937, the Warsaw historian Marceli Handelsman published a work entitled Ukraińska polityka ks. Adama Czartoryskiego przed wojną krymską [Ukrainian politics of Prince Adam Czartoryski before the Crimean War]. So far, this book has been used by historians as the primary source of information on the Ukrainian issue in the views of the Hotel Lambert’s leader. The author of this text has decided to collect Ukrainian works referring to the topic inaugurated by Handelsman. Unfortunately, no larger study has been prepared on the Ukrainian side. However, a number of articles and encyclopaedic notes showing Prince Adam and his Eastern policy (especially during his stay at the court of Tsar Alexander I Romanov) has been published. Ukrainian authors paid much more attention to Czartoryski’s associates, who tried to put his ideas into practice. Ukrainian researchers wrote mainly about Michał Czaykowski (Sadyk Pasha) organizing the Cossack troops in the Ottoman Empire, about Hipolit Terlecki striving for the union of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches, and finally about the ethnographer and writer Franciszek Duchiński clearly separating Ukraine from Russia in his writings.
The article is a contribution to the reflection on the place of the Eastern Borderlands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the political program of Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski and his followers after 1831. This program was expressed and implemented in various ways, and its addressees were both the Poles and the public opinion of Western Europe. Without trying to present the whole issue, three iconographic representations that contained elements of this program were analyzed here. What they had in common was that all of them were to honor the closest British ally of Prince Adam – Lord Dudley Coutts Stuart (1803–1854). In 1846 he received a decorative tapestry from Polish emigrants, in 1847 a golden watch, and after his death a medal made by J.F.A. Bovy was minted in his honor. The heraldic and cartographic motifs adorning theses items indicate that Prince Adam and his associates saw the future of the Eastern Borderlands in connection with the rebirth of Poland. These representations were a persuasive message addressed to Polish and foreign audiences, the purpose of which was to convince them of the importance of this issue in Czartoryski’s plan for the restitution of the Polish state.
The article aims to describe the actions of Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski and his friends of the same political group directed towards Greek Catholics. Prince Adam Jerzy, firstly religiously indifferent, came into contact with Uniates’ problems at the beginning of the 19th century, as a curator of Vilnius Scientific Society. In that period he was a protector of Uniate Bazylian Convent. As a representative of authorities of the Kingdom of Poland he aimed to engage Uniates in development of people’s education. New opening for Czartoryski’s activities started with the Great Emigration after the failure of the November Uprising. As a leader of Hotel Lambert Prince Czartoryski observed with a great worry the liquidation of the Church Union in Russian partition. Several times he intervened by Pope Gregory XVI in favour of the persecuted people of Uniate Church. Apostolic Capital was then receiving journals, letters, and other proofs for Russian repressions. In 40s and 50s of the 19th century Czartoryski’s agents were involved in issues of Uniates living in Russian and Austrian partitions. Some examples of these actions were: giving the Roman Catholic Church Madonna del Pascola to Bazylian Convent, opening of Uniate Collegium and placing Galician clerics in Apostolic Capital. Moreover, initiatives for Greek Catholics among Polish immigrants were supported and also the foundation of the Greek Catholic Church in Bulgaria was backed up.
The article is based on three English-language press titles published in the early 1830s in Great Britain by Polish emigrants and British supporters of the Polish case related to the political camp of Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski. These are: “The Hull Polish Record,” “The Polish Exile,” and “Polonia or Monthly Reports of Polish Affairs”. The main aim of the article is to recreate the image of the so-called “Ziemie Zabrane” (The Taken Lands) – i.e. the former Polish provinces incorporated directly into the Russian Empire after 1795. These were the lands of today’s Lithuania, part of Latvia, all of Belarus and the right-bank of Ukraine. The authors of the several articles devoted to this issue presented – in their writings – the history of these lands from the Middle Ages, their fate during the partitions until the November Uprising, the course of which in Lithuania and Ukraine was described in more detail. There were also reports of repressions that fell upon the inhabitants of these lands after the defeat of the uprising. On the pages of the surveyed press one can also find reports on the state of the economy of these lands, trade and water routes; biographies of famous people born in these areas and many descriptions of their tourist and sightseeing values. In each of these cases, the authors of the texts tried to emphasize the ties between these lands and their inhabitants with the rest of the Polish territory and convince the potential readers that they constitute its integral part, which should be included in it in the event of the reconstruction of the independent Polish state.
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