The nobility. Gentry - what is it

The gentry are a special caste of Poles, who justified their uniqueness not only by their status, appearance or manners, but also by their origin. There was no place for Slavic roots in the gentry's genealogy.

Other Slavs

The recent events in Ukraine have renewed lively discussions on inter-Slavic relations. Today, the ideas of pan-Slavism, born in the 18th century and strengthened in the 19th century, have fallen into devaluation as never before. But even in the middle of the 19th century, the Czechs saw in the unification of the Slavs a powerful political force capable of resisting Germanism.

The Czech initiative was supported by Russia, but Poland reacted to it at least coolly. The union of the Slavs with the dominant role of the Russian tsar meant the collapse of hopes for an independent Polish state. Religion also played a role in the resistance of the Poles to the ideas of Pan-Slavism: Catholic Poland traditionally acted as an antagonist of Orthodox Russia.

The Kingdom of Poland, of course, had its own Slavophiles. Prince Adam Czartoryski enthusiastically accepted the idea of ​​a Slavic unification, and the Decembrist Julian Lubinski headed the Society of United Slavs, the first organization that openly proclaimed the ideas of pan-Slavism.

However, among the Polish elite there have always been ideas about the special status of the Polish people, which in many ways prevented them from finding common ground with their Slavic neighbors. The ethnologist Stanislav Khatuntsev noted that in the course of their historical existence, the Poles largely lost many of the mental properties, components of the spiritual and material way of life of that ancient tribe and instead acquired the features of mental organization, material and spiritual culture, typical of the Celtic-Roman and Germanic peoples.

The Polish historian Franciszek Pekosinski, for example, put forward a theory about the dynastic origin of the Polish gentry, linking this to the reproduction of old Scandinavian runes in Polish coats of arms that he revealed, as well as to Scandinavian expressions found in the so-called “zavolan”. However, at one time the gentry themselves had a hand in proving the uniqueness of their genealogy.

We are Sarmatians

In the XV - XVII centuries, when the final stage of the formation of European peoples took place, interest in ancient literature was gaining momentum in the Old World. In ancient books, early modern thinkers searched for the origins of their states and nations. The Romance countries saw their roots in the Roman Empire, the Germans in the ancient Germanic tribes, and the Poles found their ancestors in the far East.

One of the first to put forward the idea of ​​Sarmatism was the Polish historian Jan Dlugosz (1415-1480). He argued that the ancient writers and historians called the territory of Poland European Sarmatia, and the Poles were called "Saramats".

Later, this idea was consolidated by the astrologer Maciej Karpiga from Mechov (1457-1523) in his famous treatise "On the Two Sarmatians", which went through 14 editions in the 16th century. In his work, the author substantiated the significant difference between the Poles, as the descendants of the valiant Sarmatians, from the Muscovites, descended from barbarian tribe Scythians.

For the next several centuries, the idea of ​​Sarmatism was dominant among the Polish aristocracy, turning from a fashionable romanticized hobby into a conservative political ideal - the Republic of the Szlachta, where wide democratic freedoms are available only to the elite.

The cornerstone of gentry Sarmatism was the "golden liberty", which was opposed to both servile despotic Asia and bourgeois, businesslike Europe. However, this did not prevent the gentry from combining both an oriental love of luxury and a purely European enterprise.

An echo of the ideology of Sarmatism was the so-called “Polish messianism”, which developed in the 17th-18th centuries, according to which the Poles, by virtue of their origin, should play special role in the fate of the world, and the Commonwealth should become "the stronghold of Christianity, the refuge of freedom and the granary of Europe."

Emphasizing the uniqueness

The Sarmatian myth has always been an important ideological base for Poland, acting as an unofficial national idea. Polish historians have done a lot to strengthen the idea that the Sarmatian tribes really lived on the territory of Poland and laid the foundations of the Polish statehood.

The Sarmatian past served as a kind of standard, according to which the image of the ideal nobleman was cut. He, like his Sarmatian ancestor, is a courageous warrior, merciless to enemies, but at the same time a knight for whom honor and justice are not an empty phrase. Another hypostasis of the gentry is the Pole-tycoon, the custodian of the traditions of patriarchal antiquity, harmoniously fitting into the bosom of the rural idyll.

An important feature of Polish Sarmatism is the cultivation of a chivalrous attitude towards a woman, one of the components of which was the gallant custom of kissing a woman's hand. Supporters of the Sarmatian theory referred to the fact that high position women in society was unusual for other Slavic peoples. According to historians, the myth of the Sarmatian Amazons influenced the special status of women in gentry culture.

The image of the ideal gentry has firmly entered the genome of Polish identity over time. “Fearlessness, bordering on almost insanity, when a person goes to certain death in a white uniform, in a confederate shirt proudly shifted to one side, with a rose in his teeth, he knows that he will be shot in a minute, but he does not allow himself to leave this for a minute the image of an ideal Sarmatian knight was a reality of the Polish national character up to the 20th century,” writes journalist Tamara Lyalenkova.

We must not forget about the other side of the gentry worldview - the irrepressible arrogance with which the arrogant gentry distanced himself from the Lithuanians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Russians and even a significant part of the Poles who lived on the territory of the Commonwealth. In the terminological sense, this looked like a contrast between the Sarmatian elite and the peasant "cattle" (Bydło - working cattle), with which, among other things, the Slavs were associated.

Little in common

Sarmatism still exists in Polish culture today, however, being rather a form of ironic self-identification. Sometimes this word is used to emphasize the uniqueness of the Polish character, any differences from the Slavic neighbors.

Today, the divisions within the Slavic family are obvious, and there are many socio-political and cultural reasons for this. One of them dates back to about the 6th century AD - it was then, according to researchers, that the Proto-Slavic language common to all Slavs began to fall into disuse. As one thinker put it, "the Slavs used their national languages ​​more to divide than to unite."

However, the differences between the Slavs are explained not only through history or language. The Polish anthropologist and bioarchaeologist Janusz Piontek writes that from a biological point of view, the Slavs can be attributed to different groups that originally inhabited Southern, Central and Eastern Europe, and they differ markedly from each other.

“Slavs and Poles have a lot in common. Poles with the Slavs - nothing. They are uncomfortable in their Slavism, uncomfortable to realize that they are from the same family as Ukrainians and Russians. The fact that we turned out to be Slavs is an accident,” states the Polish writer Mariusz Szczygel.

The events of the Second World War, the consequences of the collapse of the USSR in many ways alienated the Poles not only from everything Soviet, but also, to some extent, from what is the basis of the Slavic identity. The trend of recent decades, when the situation forces Polish citizens to look for work and Better conditions existence in the West, leads to the fact that the Poles began to feel more in common with the inhabitants of Great Britain and Germany than with Belarusians or Ukrainians.

Journalist Krzysztof Wasilewski in his article "Slavs against Slavs" calls the post-Soviet period in the history of Poland the years of transformation, when the Poles "at all costs tried to become like the West, dissociating themselves from everything that bore the imprint of the East."

It is quite natural that Polish historians seek out theories common roots with anyone - with the Germans, Scandinavians, Sarmatians, with disgust referring to the words of the author of the most ancient Polish chronicle Gall Anonymus: "Poland is part of the Slavic world."

In modern Poland, its citizens are equal in rights and have no class differences. However, every Pole knows well the meaning of the word privileged class existed in the state for almost a thousand years, from the 11th century to the beginning of the 20th, when all privileges were abolished in 1921.

History of occurrence

There are two versions of the emergence of the supreme nobility of Poland, the gentry.

According to the first, which is considered more plausible and officially accepted, it is believed that the Polish gentry arose evolutionarily as a result of socio-economic transformations.

Scattered Slavic tribes, who lived on the territory of Eastern Europe, gradually grew and united in unions. The largest was called the pole. Initially, at the head of the field was a council of elders, elected from representatives of the most powerful and respected families. AT further management In separate territories, the field was divided among the elders and began to be inherited, and the elders themselves began to be called princes.

Constant wars and conflicts between the princes led to the need to create military units. Warriors were recruited from free people not tied to the ground. It was from this class that a new privileged class arose - the gentry. Translated from German, the word "gentry" means "battle".

But what is the second version of the emergence of the estate. It belongs to a professor at the University of Krakow, Franciszek Xavier Pekosinski, who lived in the 19th century. According to the scientist, the Polish gentry was not born evolutionarily in the bowels of the Polish people. He is convinced that the first gentry were descendants of the Polabs, warlike Slavic tribes that invaded Poland in the late 8th - early 9th century. In favor of his assumption is the fact that Slavic runes are depicted on the family coats of arms of the most ancient gentry families.

First chronicles

The first mention of the Polish knights, who became the founders of the nobility, was preserved in the annals of Gall Anonymus, who died in 1145. Despite the fact that the “Chronicle and Acts of the Princes and Rulers of Poland” compiled by him sometimes sins with historical inaccuracies and gaps, it nevertheless became the main source of information about the formation of the Polish state. The first mention of the gentry is associated with the names of Meshko 1 and his son, King Boleslav 1 the Brave.

During the reign of Boleslav, the assignment of the status of "lord" to each warrior who rendered the king a significant service was established. There is a record of this dating back to 1025.

King of Polish Knights

Boleslav I the Brave granted the honorary title not only to princes, but also to slaves, although the former demanded a special status for themselves - “monarchs”, which they were especially proud of. Until the end of the 11th century, the lords, they are also knights, they are also the founders of the gentry class, did not have their own land holdings.

In the 12th century, under Bolesław Krivoust, the knightly estate turned from a tumbleweed into landowners.

Europe in the middle of the last century knows knights as warriors of the church, carrying the Christian faith to the pagans. The Polish knights began not as warriors of the church, but as defenders of princes and kings. Boleslav 1 the Brave, who made this estate, was first the prince of Poland, and then the self-proclaimed king. He ruled for almost 30 years and remained in history as a very smart, cunning and courageous politician and warrior. Under him, the Kingdom of Poland expanded significantly due to the annexation of Czech territories. Boleslav introduced part of Great Moravia into Poland. Thanks to him, the city of Krakow, the capital of Lesser Poland, entered the Kingdom of Poland forever. For a long time it was the capital of the state. It is still one of the most major cities country, its most important cultural, economic and scientific center.

Piasts

The Piast dynasty, to which King Bolesław belonged, ruled the country for four centuries. It was under the Piasts that Poland experienced a period of the most rapid development in all areas. Basics modern culture Poland were laid just then. Not the last role in this was played by the Christianization of the country. Crafts flourished and Agriculture, strong trade ties were established with border states. The gentry class actively participated in the processes contributing to the development and exaltation of Poland.

Separation of nobility and chivalry

The Polish gentry was a rather numerous and very influential estate. Now it became impossible to enter it just like that, for a knightly feat. Laws on indigenate, adoption and nobilitation were passed. The gentry fenced themselves off from other classes, putting pressure on the king. They could afford it, as for several centuries they became the largest landowners in the state. And in the reign of King Louis of Hungary they achieved hitherto unheard of privileges.

Kosice Privilege

Louis had no sons, and his daughters had no right to the throne. In order to obtain this right for them, he promised the nobles-gentry the abolition of almost all duties in relation to the monarch. So, in 1374, the famous Kosice privilege came out. Now all important government positions were occupied by the Polish gentry.

In accordance with the new treaty, the nobility significantly limited the power royal family and high clergy. The gentry were exempted from all taxes, with the exception of land, but it was also meager - only 2 pennies were charged from one field per year. At the same time, the nobles received a salary if they participated in hostilities. They were not obliged to build and repair castles, bridges, city buildings. During the trips of the royal person through the territory of Poland, the gentry no longer accompanied her as a guard and an honorary escort, they were also relieved of the obligation to provide the king with food and housing.

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

In 1569, the Kingdom of Poland united with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into a single state, the Commonwealth. The political system in the new state is usually called gentry democracy. In fact, there was no democracy. At the head of the Commonwealth was a king elected for life. His title was not hereditary. Together with the monarch, the Seimas ruled the country.

The Sejm consisted of two chambers - the Senate and the Embassy hut. The Sejm consisted of senior government officials and the supreme clergy, and the Posolskaya hut - their elected representatives of the gentry class. In fact, the history of the Commonwealth is the history of how the nobility autocratically and unreasonably ruled their own state.

The power of the nobility over Poland

With a weak monarchy, the Polish gentry achieved enormous influence on the legislative and executive bodies authorities. Historians assess gentry self-government as a precondition for anarchy.

This conclusion is based on the unlimited influence of the gentry on political and economic processes in the country. The gentry had the right to veto if the king intended to convene a militia, pass any law or establish a new tax, the last word, to be or not to be, has always stood for the gentry. And this despite the fact that the gentry class itself was protected by the law on personal and property inviolability.

The relationship of the nobility with the peasants

After joining in the 14-15 centuries. to Poland, sparsely populated Chervonnaya Rus, Polish peasants began to move to new territories. With the development of trade, agricultural products produced on these lands began to be in high demand abroad.

In 1423, the freedoms of the communities of peasant settlers were limited by another law, introduced under pressure from the gentry class. Under this law, the peasants were converted into serfs, obliged to fulfill the panshchina and did not have the right to leave the area where they lived.

The relationship of the nobility with the townspeople

The history of the Commonwealth also remembers how the gentry treated urban population. In 1496, a law was passed prohibiting the townspeople from buying land. The reason looks far-fetched, since the argument in favor of the adoption of this resolution was only that the townspeople tend to evade military duties, and the peasants assigned to the land are potential recruits. And their urban masters, the philistines, will prevent the conscription of their subjects for military service.

By the same law, work industrial enterprises and trading establishments was controlled by elders and governors appointed from among the gentry.

Gentry worldview

Gradually, the Polish gentry began to perceive themselves as the highest and best of the Polish estates. Despite the fact that, in the general mass, the gentry were not magnates, but had rather modest possessions and did not differ high level education, they had extremely high self-esteem, after all, a gentry is, first of all, an ambition. In Poland, the word "arrogance" still does not have a negative connotation.

What was the basis of such an unusual worldview? First of all, on the fact that every nobleman elected to the Government had the right to veto. The then gentry culture even implied a dismissive attitude towards the king, whom she elected at her own discretion. Rokosh (the right to disobey the king) put the monarch on the same level as subjects from the gentry class. A gentry is a person who equally despises all estates except his own, and if the king himself is not an authority for a gentry, let alone talking about peasants and philistines? Their gentry called serfs.

What did this idle part of the population of the Commonwealth occupy their time with? The gentry's favorite pastimes were feasts, hunting and dancing. The morals of the Polish nobles are colorfully described in the historical novels of Henryk Sienkiewicz "Pan Volodyevsky", "Fire and Sword" and "The Flood".

However, everything eventually comes to an end. The autocracy of the nobility also ended.

Poland within the Russian Empire

At the end of the 18th century, part of the territories of the Commonwealth entered. That's when the so-called analysis of the gentry began. This term refers to a set of activities carried out Russian government. They were aimed at limiting the undivided and inappropriate, within the framework of state development, the power of the Polish nobility. By the way, at that time the percentage of the noble population in Poland was 7-8%, and in the Russian Empire it barely reached 1.5%.

The property status of the gentry did not reach that adopted in Russia. According to the sovereign Decree of September 25, 1800, those residents of the Privislinsky provinces (as the Polish lands within Russia were called) could be attributed to the nobility, who would be able to provide documentary evidence of their status within two years, dating back to the gentry of 1795. All the rest will be distributed among other estates - peasant, petty-bourgeois and free-growers. During the gentry self-government in the Commonwealth, the gentry class was actively replenished with new members. By the time of joining the Russian Empire, among the gentry there were those who managed to receive this status from the Nobility Assembly, but did not have confirmation from the Heraldry of the Senate. This category was excluded from the list considered for inclusion in the nobility.

After Polish uprising In 1830-1831, the Senate adopted a Decree on the ordering of the Poles, who consider themselves to be gentry, and on dividing them into three categories with subsequent inclusion in the nobility.

Since the entry into force of this Decree, it was forbidden for the Assemblies of Nobility to issue certificates of nobility to Poles if the named status was not certified in the Heraldry.

The Poles-gentry, who submitted documents for the nobility, were recorded as citizens or single-palaces. All the rest were registered as state peasants.

The gentry, who were not approved, did not have the right to buy land with the peasants. Ultimately, they replenished the petty-bourgeois class and the peasantry.

The end of the nobility

The era of the Polish gentry ended with the acquisition by Poland (at the beginning of the 20th century) of independence from the Russian Empire. In the new Constitution of 1921-1926. the words "gentry" or "nobility" are never mentioned. From now on and forever in the newly proclaimed Polish Republic, all its citizens were equalized in rights and duties.

execution movement

execution movement

In order to understand where the execution movement (translated from Latin means execution) arose in the Kingdom of Poland and why it eventually defeated the royal power, we need to start from an earlier period of Polish history.

Back in the 13th and 14th centuries, the Polish gentry, on the one hand, did not have political significance in the state, since, obeying the will of prelates and barons, but on the other hand, it already objectively represented a real social force, which led to its desire to occupy in the state leading place.

As we know from the previous material (http://h.ua/story/347884/), the Polish gentry, although it was divided into 7-12 classes, was nevertheless imbued with a corporate spirit, feelings of class solidarity and was able to consistently defend your interests.

First of all, as strange as it may seem in such a religious country as Poland, the gentry fought hard against the clergy.

After all, the privileges of the clergy, namely: the collection of tithes, church jurisdiction, exemption from military service and taxes - all this became the object of desire for the gentry.

And at the initial stage, the process of redistribution of rights and duties, these aspirations of the gentry were fair and, therefore, constructive.

And if we turn to the chronicle of the struggle of the gentry for their privileges, then we get such a picture.

The first success of this struggle was the Privilei of the 13th century. (1229 and 1291) forbid the princes to increase the duties that lie on the gentry, in excess of the existing norm.

In the first half of the XIV century. the gentry are already present at the national congresses of prelates and barons as ordinary spectators or listeners without the right to vote.

In the second half of the XIV century. King Louis I the Great (Ludwik Wgierski, 1326-1382), having granted various benefits to the state officials of Poland, made them recognize one of his daughters as the heiress of the Polish crown.

So, according to the Kosice Privilege of 1374, the gentry was exempted from all state duties, with the exception of paying land tax, they received the exclusive right to hold the positions of governor, castellan, judges, sub-commissar, etc.

In the period 1382-1384, after the death of Louis I, the gentry represented the same force on which the fate of the Polish kingdom depended.

The next success of the gentry was, it limited the self-government of the peasant communities and their subordination to their control, by acquiring the position of Soltys, who was at the head of the peasant community.

Having constrained peasant self-government, the gentry then limited the freedom of peasant resettlement, established corvée, and finally turned the peasant into a serf.

At the same time, until the middle of the 15th century, the gentry still continues to be in an official position in relation to the spiritual and secular nobles.

The state at that time was ruled by the Polish aristocracy.

But these relations change with the adoption of the "Neshava Legislation" (1454), which put the gentry on the same level as the representatives of the nobility - "possessors".

The Polish king Casimir IV, 1427-1492 granted these next "privileges" to the gentry for support in his struggle against the magnates.

Also, the gentry established a number of restrictive measures in relation to the urban class.

According to the "Statute of Petrokovsky" of 1496, the petty-bourgeois were forbidden to acquire landed estates under the pretext that they did not take part in military campaigns and tried to evade military service.

According to this statute, only one peasant had the right to leave the landowner's village.

And only one son, the peasant family had the right to give in training. The law allowed the landowner to pursue and return the runaway peasant.

At the same time, the gentry managed to defend the fundamental principle of "nothing new" - "nihil novi" (1505).

The ban on the introduction of any innovations without the consent of the representatives of the gentry was enshrined in 1506 in a code of laws drawn up on the initiative of the Crown Chancellor Jan Lasky.

From the beginning of the XVI century. the gentry, having turned into a "gentry nation", a full-fledged master in the state, and remained such a master until the end of the existence of the Commonwealth, that is, the republic - res publica.

In the 30s years XVI in. under the slogan of "execution" (executio) of the former rights and the return of royal possessions and directly under the influence of the events caused in Europe by the REFORMATION, in Poland a political movement gentry, called the "execution movement".

And for this, the following path was chosen. The gentry did not protest when the Sejm adopted instructions or Sejm constitutions.

But the adopted documents were subject to signature by the country's top leaders, and after that, the elected representatives of the gentry, very strictly ensured that neither the king nor the senators made their own clarifications to the adopted documents.

Such tactics accustomed the gentry to the local solidarity necessary to fight the king and senators.

The politically active part of the gentry sought to gain influence on the monarch, thus giving him a chance to strengthen his own power.

The power of the nobility lay in the fact that it was she who had the right to determine the level of taxes, and the king was not able to obtain the funds he needed in any other way than through a tax collection.

This economic dependence of the king, and therefore the state, on the gentry was an instrument of political bargaining.

This state of affairs in Poland created there, in comparison with neighboring countries, an exceptional climate in Europe of that time, a climate of freedom of faith and unprecedented religious tolerance.

For the Polish gentry, demanding the implementation of the adopted laws, also defended before the king and senators-bishops all the Protestants who settled in Poland, and this was done in the name of gentry solidarity, and not out of mercantile interests.

A wave or periodical waves, the movements of executionists in Poland grew all the time and soon they raised the question of depriving the bishops of judicial power!

King Sigmund I August, in response, stopped convening diets!

And did not convene them for 3 years!

But this nobility did not stop. In the end, the executionists in their political ambitions got to the power of the king!

Started the struggle for the introduction of the right to elect a king!

So, due to circumstances in 1538, the Polish king Sigismund the Old (1467-1548) was forced to promise the gentry that after the death of his son, the kings would be chosen, and he himself would no longer make any decisions without the consent of the Sejm!

And ha Petrkovsky Sejm 1562-1563. the requirements of the executionists were approved and, first of all, the requirement to revise the rights received by the magnates to own royal lands, which should have weakened the position of the nobility; also decided that a quarter of the income from these lands would be allocated to the maintenance of a standing army.

As a result, in Poland, unlike other European countries not to mention Muscovy, a peculiar political system, called "gentry democracy".

The immediate reason for the capitulation of the Polish king Sigmund August to the gentry, as I noted above, was the emergence of the so-called "Moscow threat" in the geopolitical European space.

After all, in 1552 the Moscow Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible conquered the Kazan Khanate, and in 1556 the Astrakhan Khanate.

That is, territories that primordially, as they say, belonged to the Tatar-Mongol state of the Golden Horde.

But the rulers of the Golden Horde more than 200 years before that were the overlords (lords) of Muscovy (Moscow principality).

In addition, in 1547, the wedding of Ivan IV the Terrible to the kingdom took place in Moscow, after which Muscovy groundlessly began to claim the "inheritance of the Byzantine Empire" and the title of "defender of the Orthodox faith"!

Although it was only a theatrical entourage, but in reality, a model of royal power for all Moscow rulers without exception from Ivan the Terrible to Vladimir Putin, was and remains the "king of kings" that is, the Golden Horde Khan Genghis Khan, whom the princes Alexander Nevsky and Ivan Kalita served as faithful tribute collectors, in the sense of tax collectors for the Golden Horde.

And in connection with the fall of Kazan and Astrakhan khanates and manifestations of new geopolitical aspirations of the Moscow rulers since 1558, Muscovy began to advance, first to the Baltic states.

At the same time, Ivan the Terrible captured the cities of Narva and Dorpat (Tartu) at the initial stage of the war.

These "conquests" of Muscovy, in turn, forced the master Livonian Order sword-bearers of Gotthard Ketler to transfer the Order under the protectorate of the Polish king Sigmund August.

According to the agreement of 1561, the Order was secularized and in the status of a DUCHIE it turned into a fief of the Polish royal dynasty of the Jagielons.

Moreover, it should also be noted here that the struggle for Livonia in Muscovy was justified as a "return of the fatherlands", since the Moscow prince Ivan III, the grandfather of Ivan IV the Terrible, relying on an unconfirmed thesis about the hereditary belonging of the ancient Kyiv and other Russian lands to the Moscow dynasty, demanded the return Belarus and Ukraine. (Ukraine in the territory, covering the land from Kyiv to Lvov).

And in the spring of 1563, Ivan IV the Terrible moved from threats to deeds. His troops captured the city of Polotsk.

And right there, throughout Poland and Lithuania, the news spread about how the Muscovites "carry out" the "cleansing of holy Russia."

There, in the course of establishing his influence in Polotsk and its environs, Ivan IV the Terrible ordered the drowning of all Polotsk Jews who refused to accept Orthodox baptism. Read more about this event here: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9E%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B0_%D0%9F%D0%BE%D0 % BB% D0% BE% D1% 86% D0% BA% D0% B0_% 281563% 29, and I will only give other data concerning not only the Jews.

"Some sources also report the death of the Polotsk Bernardines and Dominicans at the hands of the Tatars from the Moscow army, this possibility cannot be ruled out (see Saints Adam, Dominics Peter of Polotsk).

Ivan IV treated 500-700 Poles from the garrison and German mercenaries mercifully, some mercenaries transferred to the Moscow service.

The captains received as a gift sable coats covered with brocade. Captain Verkhlinsky was later accused of receiving gifts from the enemy, but was acquitted by the court.

This attitude of Ivan IV towards the Poles is explained by his unwillingness to enter the war of Poland, he planned to conduct military operations only against the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Polotsk boyars, merchants, most of the townspeople, as well as residents of the Polotsk suburbs were deprived of their property and taken prisoner, according to various estimates, the number of prisoners ranged from 15,000 to 60,000 people.

Some part of the prisoners (for certain we can judge 2 people) were later sold (in the case of Catholics and Protestants - legally, and with the Orthodox - illegally, since it was forbidden to sell "baptized souls") into slavery, for example, to Persia (see. Hazi Khosrow). S. S. Dovoyna with his wife, Ya. Ya. Glebovich and Bishop Arseny were also captured.

Almost immediately after the capture of the city, 15,000 Tatars were sent to action along the road to Vilna. On February 21, the ambassador of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania arrived at the king's camp to negotiate a truce, which was concluded on the same days. On February 27, leaving the garrison in Polotsk and giving orders to fortify the city, Ivan IV with the main forces went to Moscow.

Some of the captive Polotsk boyars were exchanged for Moscow prisoners or redeemed by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1566. S. S. Dovoyna was exchanged for a Moscow prisoner in 1567, later he unsuccessfully tried to transport the ashes of his wife, who died in captivity, back home.

Ya. Ya. Glebovich was released in exchange for a promise to win over the magnates of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to the side of the Moscow state, for which he was accused of treason, but acquitted by the Grand Duke.

Bishop Arseniy was sent to the Spaso-Kamenny Monastery near Kubena, and some of the Polotsk boyars were imprisoned with him.

The capture and ruin of the city and its environs was not only the end of the greatness of Polotsk, after which it never revived, and not only the largest event of both the first period and the entire Livonian War.

The events of the Polotsk siege caused an international outcry: in Augsburg, Lübeck, Nuremberg, Prague and other European cities, more than a dozen informational leaflets dedicated to the events in Polotsk were published.

In the Holy Roman Empire, the successes of the Muscovite state were watched with alarm. Opponents of the empire hoped to expand cooperation with the Muscovite state - King Frederick II of Denmark congratulated Ivan IV on the capture of Polotsk.

In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland were shocked by the Polotsk disaster.

And Ivan the Terrible, having gained a foothold in Narva and established diplomatic relations with England and even wooed a relative of the Queen, Maria Hastings, a relative of the English Queen, relying on the Caspian Sea, Ivan the Terrible intended to move his troops further to the West.

And only after that, when King Sigmund August and his gentry realized the danger of Muscovy, they concluded a peace agreement among themselves and began to prepare to repel a thunderstorm from the East.

And here, I think (although I’m getting ahead of myself a little) the reader will be interested in information about how the further fate Polish gentry within the Russian Empire.

And how representatives of the gentry families fit into this empire, playing far from the last roles in its final collapse in November 1917.

For this, I am quoting here an excerpt from the book by S.N. Bukharin and N.M. Rakityansky " Political-Psychological Analysis of the Phenomenon of Limitrification of Poland".

1.2. Analysis of the gentry

The state system of the Commonwealth, based on the "principles of democracy", entered a period of instability and began to disintegrate. However, the collapse was not the result external influences. Poland was destroyed by the internal mechanisms of the so-called gentry democracy. With the collapse of the state, problems began with the gentry.

After the first division of the Commonwealth in 1772, the Russian authorities faced the problem of the presence of a large stratum of the privileged class in the annexed lands. Total The gentry accounted for 7-8% of the total population of Poland, its property and social status was diverse and did not fit into the existing status of a nobleman of the Russian Empire.

Immediately after the first partition, the Russian authorities began to take measures to exclude the poor gentry from the privileged class. The analysis of the gentry was carried out in the territories of Southern Livonia with Dinaburg, eastern Belarus with Polotsk, Vitebsk and Mogilev and the eastern part of Black Russia (the right bank of the Western Dvina and the left bank of the Berezina).

In particular, the following were recognized as the rights of the Russian hereditary nobility:

state ranks: governors, headman of Samonite, castellans of the highest and lower ranks, chief marshal, court marshal, grand hetman, full hetman, chief chancellor, sub-chancellor, great treasurer, court treasurer, crown secretary, referendary (assistant to the chancellor), etc. d.;

court ranks: great podkomornik (chief chamberlain), great equerry (chief master of the stall), podkonyuschik, trapper, cook, steward, podchashy, kraichi, understol, cheshnik and shambelyan (chamberlain);

zemstvo ranks: podkomorii (10), elders, commanders, judicial and juvenile elders, city elders, city clerks, district marshals (11), cornets (12), zemstvo judges, court judges (13), clerks, regents, stolniks, podstolniki, Czechs , sub-bowls, hunters, swordsmen or swordsmen, equestrians, yards, treasuries, convoys, guards, bridgers, budovniches, assistants, foresters, strukchas, etc.

The occupation of one of these positions by one of the ancestors gave the rights of the Russian hereditary nobility.

Documentary evidence of the noble status served: acts of determination in these ranks and positions.

If there was no such act, then other papers were required, from which it would be clear that this person really held a position that was associated with belonging to the nobility. In addition, evidence of noble origin was considered a certificate that the ancestor of the applicant for nobility before 1795 held a position or was in a rank or title certified by a royal charter.

At the same time, the condition must be observed that this rank or rank gave him primacy over the disorderly gentry at the sejmiks (14) or a place between dignitaries and dignitaries (15) of the kingdom, as well as patents for military ranks signed by the king, and before the constitution of 1776. and hetmans, in which the person receiving the rank is called "born" (16).

So, for example, in the Supremely approved report of the Belarusian Governor-General dated September 13, 1772, the gentry was instructed to submit documents to the provincial authorities confirming their noble origin. In a special decree, it was explained that lists of all members of noble families with a detailed description of the origin of the family, coats of arms, with all references and documents should be submitted to the provincial offices through the zemstvo courts.

The decree emphasized that henceforth, without the royal permission, no one could call himself a gentry and enjoy the rights of the gentry.

After the decree of June 14, 1773, the gentry had to prove their origin in the Supreme Provincial Zemstvo Courts.

During the revision of 1772-1774. part of the chinshevoy and service gentry was recorded in the peasant estate.

The most "lower" layers of the gentry class - "earthlings" and "armored boyars" - were recorded as peasants without exception. At the same time, they were subjected to a poll tax and recruitment duty.

After the Charter to the nobility of 1785, the "corporate" rights of the nobility of the Russian Empire took shape. All noble families should have been included in the genealogical books, for which it was required to provide the necessary evidence of their "noble origin".

The second partition of Poland took place in 1793. As a result, Russia received Western Belarus with Minsk, the central part of Black Russia, Eastern Polesie with Pinsk, Right-Bank Ukraine with Zhitomir, Eastern Volyn and most of Podolia with Kamenets and Bratslav. Measures to streamline the gentry, of course, spread to these territories.

The deprivation of privileges of a significant part of the gentry could not remain without consequences.

Parsing the nobility was a lengthy process. First, decrees and other legal acts were issued. Then organizational measures followed, analysis of the collected documents, after which part of the gentry was deprived of privileges. This could not but cause discontent. Those who lost a number of privileges and were forced to pay taxes, give their sons as recruits and ceased to be called "knights" rebelled.

It took about twenty years to form a critical mass of discontented gentry. It was the gentry deprived of privileges that were the social base of the uprising of T. Kosciuszko (Andrzej Tadeusz Bonawentura Kosciuszko, 1746-1817).

It is known that the basis of the army of the rebellious dictator was the cavalry brigade of General A.Yu. Madalinsky (1739-1805), who refused to comply with the decision of the Grodno Seim on its liquidation.

That is, at the heart of the revolt of the professional military was not a patriotic, but a mercantile factor. Among the rebels, of course, there were patriots dreaming of Greater Poland, but the majority fought for the restoration of privileges.

After the suppression of the T. Kosciuszko uprising in 1794, an agreement was reached between Austria, Prussia and Russia on the third division of the Commonwealth. The treaty approving the new borders was signed on January 26, 1797 in St. Petersburg. The territory that came under the rule of the Russian Empire was divided into provinces (Courland, Vilna and Grodno).

Here the former legal system(Lithuanian Statute), the election of judges and marshals (17) at sejmiks, as well as serfdom.

The estates of the odnodvortsev and citizens of the Western province were abolished after the decree of February 19, 1868. The odnodvortsy were equated with peasants.

Citizens were given a year to make a choice between the peasant and petty-bourgeois estates.

The rest needed three years to submit documents confirming the right to own land with peasants or belonging to the gentry during the time of the Commonwealth. The overwhelming majority of the petty gentry could not provide such documents. At the same time, about 200,000 people were transferred to the class of single-palace residents and citizens (18).

Of the Polish families, princely titles have since been used: Czartorysky, Giedroytsy, Yablonovsky, Lubomirsky, Radziwill, Sangushko, Sapieha, Sulkovsky, Oginsky, Koribut-Voronetsky.

120 clans have the title of count, of which 56 are recognized as counts in Russia, that is, more than half were not recognized. Here is a list of those who retained the title of count:

Aleksandrovichi, Bobrovsky, Borch, Branitsky, Brzhostovsky, Belinsky, Valevsky, Velepolsky, Vodzitsky, Vollovichi, Velgorsky, Gauke, Grabovsky, Grokholsky, Gurovsky, Gutten-Czapsky, Jezersky, Zamoysky, Zboinsky, Ilinsky, Kviletsky, Kitsinsky, Komarovsky, Korvin- Kossakovskiye, Krasinskiye, Krasitskiye, Krukovetskiye, Ledochovskiye, Elks, Lubenskiye, Lyubenskiye, Malakhovskiye, Mikorskiye, Mionchinskiye, Mnishki, Mostovskiye, Moschenskiye, Ozharovskyy, Ossolinskiye, Ostrovskyy, Ostrorogy, Flew, Pototskiye, Potulitskiye, Przhezdetskiye, Rzhevuskiye, Skarbeki, Stadnitskiye, Starzhensky, Sukhodolsky, Tarnovsky, Serakovsky, Tyshkevichi and Kholonevsky.

From the popes of Rome, 17 clans received the title of count, but they were not recognized by the Russian government.

There are 32 baronial families, of which only six are recognized in Russia: Vyshinsky, Gorokhi, Kosinsky, Rastovets von Simolins and Shoduar" (19).

Soviet political and statesman AND I. Vyshinsky (1883-1954) belonged to a Polish baronial family. Andrei Yanuarievich's father comes from an old Polish gentry family. January Feliksovich Vyshinsky was a pharmacist, a relative of Cardinal Stefan Vyshinsky; mother is a music teacher.

Thus, after each territorial acquisition, Russia arranged a long procedure of gentry debriefing, as a result of which a significant part of the gentry lost their benefits, which caused riots and the so-called Polish uprisings.

"From the beginning of the 16th century, the gentry was already the all-powerful master in the state and remained such a master until the end of the existence of the Commonwealth.

She legislated, judged, elected kings, protected the state from enemies, waged wars, concluded peace agreements and treaties, etc.

Not only the political and social organization of Poland was szlachta, but the szlachta world outlook dominated the intellectual life of the country as well.

Well, we will discuss how the Poles managed to delay their conquest for 200 years in the next part.

The traditional name of the Polish nobility is "gentry" ( szlachta ). One of the first attempts folk etymology, especially popular in the 17th century, derived this concept from a group of German lexemes: schlagen "beat, smash (enemy)", schlachten "beat, cut (cattle), kill" and Schlacht "battle, fight" Such an interpretation was based on the idea that the gentry are warriors, warriors defending their homeland. However, linguists associate the concept of "gentry" with the Old High German slahte "genus, breed, origin" (German. Geschlecht “clan, generation”), which emphasizes the importance of clan belonging to a given social group.

Initially, the gentry consisted of petty feudal lords - knights (lat. milites), dependent on supreme power(prince, king) and different from the big magnates - canowners. In the course of the formation of the gentry estate, the strengthening of its political role and the receipt of a number of privileges, the largest landowners also entered it. In the XVI - XVIII centuries. in the Commonwealth, a unique political system was established - the gentry "republic", in which royalty turned out to be completely dependent on the gentry (especially on large feudal lords). The gentry received a number of "golden liberties" that determined its privileged position in the country. For a long time, the most worthy gentry occupations were considered: military and public service, participation in church administration, hunting.

An essential feature of the Polish gentry, like the Spanish nobility, was its large number, explained by the entire course of development of Polish history and the role that the gentry played in the socio-political life of the state. In the sixteenth century 7.5 million people living in the Commonwealth accounted for 500 thousand nobles or 25 thousand noble families, that is, 6.6% of the total population, and in Mazovia, literally overflowing with the gentry, this figure was even more impressive - 23.4%. By the time of the divisions of the Commonwealth, the Polish nobility already accounted for 8-10% of the population.

Obviously, such a significant number of nobility could not be completely homogeneous. In its midst, processes of differentiation and stratification were constantly going on, most clearly manifested in the 17th-18th centuries. The very large number of the Polish nobility was associated with the actual lack of isolation of the estate. Both representatives of the nobility of the newly annexed lands to Poland and members of other estates joined its composition. The theme of the "philistine in the nobility" is a constant for the late medieval Polish literature (cf. the famous work of Valerian Nekanda Trepka "The Book of boors" 1624-1640). In addition, in addition to the Poles themselves, the gentry included Polonized representatives of the Baltic, Belarusian and Ukrainian nobility, as well as a number of German (in Prussia), Tatar (in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania) and Jewish (throughout the Commonwealth) clans.

Sometimes significant differences in the property status of the gentry manifested themselves in different territories of its residence. So, the poorest and most numerous was

the gentry of Mazovia, the Carpathians, Podlasie and princely Prussia, and the richest latifundists owned lands in Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. Polish researchers conditionally distinguish within the gentry of the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. several groups.

The following groups belonged to the landowning gentry:

Magnatheria (magnateria) - the richest and most influential families, the largest latifundists; they played key roles in state administration, their representatives constantly sat in the diets. Although officially none of the magnates had special rights or privileges, in reality this gentry group had power incomparable to the number of its members.

Foreign nobility (szlachta zamożna) - prosperous gentry, who owned both land and peasants; its representatives were completely independent in their socio-political and economic activity ( Sobie Pan).

farm gentry(szlachta folwarczna) - owned one or several farms and peasants on them; she could both manage her farm herself and hire housekeepers.

"Shared" gentry(szlachta cząstkowa) - owners of not whole estates, but parts of them (often large estates were divided into small shares for sale or lease); Usually, representatives of this gentry, together with their neighbors, used the labor of the peasants and the material resources of the estate.

Zastenkovaya or roundabout gentry(szlachta zasciankowa, szlachta okoliczna, szlachta zagrodowa)- small estate gentry, whose representatives owned household plots, but did not have peasants and therefore worked on their own land; often they formed entire gentry settlements - the so-called "dungeons"(zaścianki) or "outskirts" (okolice) , isolated from the rest of the plebeian world. The name "roundabout gentry" was characteristic of the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

To the landless nobility(szlachta bezrolna albo szaraczkowa) were:

Chinsha nobility (szlachta czynszowa) - did not have land and was forced to rent it on chinsh terms and work on it, although such work was considered shameful for a well-born person, since it likened him to a peasant. In the last two centuries of the existence of the Commonwealth, the Chinsh gentry became the most numerous group of the Polish nobility.

Service gentry (szlachta służebna) - served in the rich estates of magnates, church hierarchs or wealthy gentry as managers, housekeepers, etc.

Holota (holota) - “bad”, impoverished gentry, who had neither land nor peasants; usually hired as workers, servants, went to the soldiers.

"Street" nobility(szlachta brukowa) - the smallest group of the gentry, leading a very poor life in cities.

Sometimes the last four gentry groups, as well as the surrounding gentry, were called the "working gentry", since they earned their livelihood with their own labor.

Despite the large differences in property, among the Polish nobility there were also unifying tendencies associated with class solidarity. In many ways, the feeling of gentry unity was facilitated by the special ideology of “Sarmatism”, which led all Polish gentry from the ancient Sarmatians, who in ancient times conquered the Slavic tribes that lived on the lands of the future Poland. "Sarmatism" was inextricably linked with such myths as the complete equality of all Polish nobles (szlachcic na zagrodzie rowny wojewodzie), the exceptional virtue of the gentry, the vital importance of Polish bread and the Polish gentry farm for existence Western Europe, the special historical calling of the Poles to defend Europe from the Turkish danger, and a number of others.

The dominant privileged position of the gentry was combined with the traditional prohibition to turn to "vile" occupations (trade, craft, the performance of urban, that is, philistine positions, and others). However, judging by the position of representatives of the lower gentry groups, this ban actually ceased to operate in the second half of the 17th century, and was formally canceled in 1775.

After the divisions of the Commonwealth and the Napoleonic Wars, the Polish nobles became subjects of three absolutist regimes, which differed sharply from the political system of the gentry "republic". Intensified Germanization and Russification of the occupied Polish lands began. The gentry lost a number of old privileges: the monopoly of land ownership, freedom from taxes, separate (only for the gentry) legal proceedings, the exclusive right to hold positions virtually independent of the supreme power, the right to choose members of the Diets and the right to choose the king. Many of the richest families (Pototsky, Radziwill, Krasiński, Czartoryski, Zamoyski, Wielopolski and others) lost their latifundia and political influence, some of them emigrated abroad.

The monarchs of Prussia, Austria and Russia sought to completely subjugate the representatives of the Polish nobility, to force them to abandon the idea of ​​restoring their former influence on political life. One of critical tasks these monarchs was the reduction in the number of Polish nobility due to the refusal to recognize the noble customs of a number of land-poor and landless gentry families. In all three zones of occupation, laws were issued on the registration of the Polish gentry, which was to be included in the Prussian, Austrian and Russian nobility. At the same time, all sorts of bureaucratic barriers were created that prevented the poorest gentry from confirming their noble origin. Thousands of ancient noble, but impoverished families could not confirm their nobility.

At the same time, the authorities of Prussia, Austria and Russia, in an effort to tame the representatives of the richest and most influential gentry families, began a wide distribution of the highest noble titles (margraves, counts, viscounts, barons and others). In addition, absolute monarchs encouraged those who had special merit in the military or civil service to receive the nobility. This opened a wide way for replenishing the nobility with representatives of the lower classes, which was almost impossible to do officially during the time of the Commonwealth.

In the Commonwealth, due to the principle of equality of gentry brothers, titles of nobility were banned. Only the descendants of the Russian Prince Rurik, the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas and some other ancient princely families could bear the title of prince. An exception (and even then quite late) is the granting of princely titles to Poniatowski (1764), Sapieha (1768) and Poninsky (1773) at the Diet. Another characteristic exception is the granting of the count title by King Sigismund on August 11 to the Hodkevnchi family (1568). other titled gentry received their titles from foreign sovereigns (for example, the Roman emperor or pope), which earned them hatred from untitled brethren.

In the Austrian zone of occupation ("Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria"), the Polish gentry was divided into two categories: titled families (princely, ducal, count and baronial) and knightly (non-titled). Representatives of the second category were divided into Uradel (ancient nobility) and Briefadel (anobled or naturalized nobility). In order to successfully complete the registration, it was necessary to find evidence that the ancestors had government positions, were members of the Senate, or participated in diets. This criterion immediately deprived representatives of many gentry families of the right to nobility. In the Prussian zone of occupation, the registration of the gentry began in 1777. The requirements for proving their nobility were the same as in Galicia, but one more criterion was added - possession of land.

A similar state of affairs has developed in Russia. The lands of the former Commonwealth formed two parts here:

1) Kingdom of Poland (Poland proper);

2) The Western Territory, which included nine western provinces from the former Polish possessions in Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. In turn, these lands were divided into six northwestern provinces: Vilna (existed in 1795-1796, from 1802), Vitebsk (from 1801/1802), Grodno (from 1801), Kovno (from 1842/1843), Minsk (in 1793-1795, from 1796), Mogilev (in 1773-1778, from 1802) and three southwestern provinces: Volyn (from 1796 to ), Kyiv (8 1708-1781, from 1796), Podolskaya (since 1796).

Immediately after the first partition in 1772, by decree of the Governor-General of Belarus Z.G. Chernyshev, the registration of the gentry in the zemstvo district courts began. Registration required: a detailed genealogy, a description of the coat of arms, extracts from registers of births and other related documents.

On April 21, 1785, Catherine 11 issued the famous "Charter to the nobility", according to which, for the registration of noble rights, instead of old genealogical books, noble genealogical books of each province were introduced, divided into six parts. The first part included the clans granted by the nobility by the monarch, the second - the clans that received the nobility for achieving a rank in military service, the third - the clans that received the nobility for achieving a rank in the civil service or through the award of an order, the fourth - foreign nobles who left from other states and were recognized in noble dignity by Russian sovereigns (for which it was necessary to first accept Russian citizenship), in the fifth - titled nobility and in the sixth - ancient families that could prove their belonging to the nobility for a hundred years before the publication " Letter of Complaint".

The legal difference between these six categories manifested itself in only one thing: in privileged educational establishments- The Corps of Pages, the Alexander Lyceum and the School of Law - could be accepted (regardless of the position of the parents) only children of persons included in the fifth and sixth parts of the genealogical book. These rules also applied to the Polish gentry. Judging by the registration lists of the provinces of the North-Western Territory (without the Vilna province) and the Smolensk region, which for some time was part of the Commonwealth, most of the local nobility was assigned to the first and sixth parts of the genealogical books of their provinces. In these lands, out of 6,888 gentry families, about 39% (2,681 families) are assigned to the sixth part and about 28.6% (1,969 families) to the first.

In 1795, after the third division of the Commonwealth, the 5th revision was carried out on the lands newly annexed to Russia, which, in fact, became the first census of the population, since in Polish state not faces were taken into account, but “smoke” (households). By Russian standards, the number of Polish gentry was enormous. For example, in the Vilna province there were 44,626 gentry, that is, 8.8% of the population, and in the Grodno province - 19,736 gentry or 6.2%, moreover, in the Shavelsk uyezd, the gentry accounted for 11.6%, in Rossiensky - 12.6 %, and in Lida - 12.7%. However, the highest concentration of the gentry was in the Drogichinsky district of the Bialystok region and, according to the 7th revision of 1816, it accounted for 31.1% of the population, which is a record value not only for Poland, but for the whole of Europe.

(Bialystok region is a part of the territory that ceded to Prussia as a result of the third partition of the Commonwealth in 1795, and transferred to Russia according to the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807. In 1808 it received the name of Bialystok region with a center in Bialystok and is divided into 4 counties: Bialystok, Belsky, Sokolsky and Drogichinsky.Bialystok region is a part of the territory that ceded to Prussia as a result of the third division of the Commonwealth in 1795, and transferred to Russia according to the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807. In 1808, it received the name of Bialystok region with a center in Bialystok and is divided into 4 counties: Bialystok, Belsky, Sokolsky and Drogichinsky.)

Seeing such a large number of the gentry and the poverty of many of its representatives, the Russian authorities began to pursue a policy of reducing the Polish nobility (primarily in the northwestern provinces). Participated in the "pacification" of Poland V.A. Zubov, put forward a project for the resettlement of a part of the small (chinsh) gentry from Belarus and Lithuania to state lands in the south of Ukraine and in the Crimea. The law on resettlement was finally ready in 1796, but Catherine II died before she could sign it. new emperor Paul I turned out to be categorically against this law.

It is characteristic that initially in the Russian Empire the requirements for registration of the nobility were more liberal than in Prussia or Austria. However, already under Alexander I, they were significantly tightened. So, according to the 7th revision (1816), the landowning and landless gentry were counted separately (although both of them belonged to the privileged class). In addition, the Department of Heraldry in St. Petersburg now began to deal with approval in the nobility, and not local courts. A strong blow to the land-poor gentry was the decree of May 24, 1818, according to which, in order to register in the nobility, it was necessary to find relevant evidence in registers of births or other documents, and also to confirm the ownership of the clan not only by land, but also by peasants. By the law of 1824, the gentry, who did not have peasants, but were engaged in trade, had to register themselves as merchants and take certificates from trading burghers. In 1825, the small landed nobility was subject to natural duties along with state peasants. Finally, by decree of June 18, 1826, only those who were assigned to this estate before 1795 were recognized as gentry.

The situation was aggravated by the special territorial policy of the Russian government, which, considering the “taken lands” of the Western Territory to be traditionally Russian, separated them from Poland and began to intensively pursue a policy of Russification and “Orthodoxization” in them. In 1839, the Uniate Church was destroyed in the Western Territory, and the Uniates were forcibly converted to Orthodoxy. Until 1850, there was a customs border between the Kingdom of Poland and the western provinces, which further contributed to the artificial isolation of the two parts of the historical Commonwealth. In the eyes of the Polish nobility, all this was regarded as acts of violence, because regardless of where the gentry lived, they considered Poland their homeland, and Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine - its provinces. Moreover, the Russian authorities defiantly attributed the issues of reckoning to the nobility in the western provinces to the competence of the Department of Heraldry in St. Petersburg, and in the Kingdom of Poland they established their own Heraldry (1836), which dealt with cases only of local applicants for nobility. At the same time, the nobility of the Kingdom of Poland, unlike the nobility of other parts of the empire, enjoyed estate privileges only personally (with certain reservations) and did not have a corporate organization, that is, noble assemblies with elected noble positions.

As a result of all this, the gentry, especially the small estates, took an active part in the November uprising (November 29, 1830 - October 1831). The Russian authorities were not slow to respond with repressive measures. The so-called "parsing" began ( rozbior ) gentry - the transfer of part of the small Polish nobility into a taxable estate. To a certain extent, these measures were in line with general policy tsarism in relation to the petty nobility, but against the backdrop of the Polish uprising, they were directly directed against the most radical representatives of the gentry, who, as the law said, “due to the lack of settlement and property and the way of life of many of them, were most inclined to rebellion and to criminal acts against legitimate authority.

The word "gentry" comes from the Middle High German Geschlecht (genus, breed), or fromSchlaht (battle). From German toIn the 13th century, it, along with many other terms from the field of state-legal relations, first penetrated into the Czech and then into the Polish language. In Poland inXIII-In the XIV centuries, the word "gentry" began to be called the military service class that was being formed at that time.

With the conclusion of the Union of Kreva in 1385 and the beginning of the publication of the first zemstvo privileges, this term also spread to the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL). Here at that time other terms were in circulation to designate the military service class, among which essential role belonged to the boyars. DuringXV-XVI centuries various terms in state-legal documents existed in parallel. But as it evolves political structure ON and registration of the gentry as a single estate, there was a gradual unification of terminology.

Origin of the nobility of the ON

In the process of formation of the gentry class on the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, several stages can be distinguished. The first corresponds to the period from the middle of the XIII to the end of the XIV centuries. At this time, in continuation of the tradition of the Old Russian state, the princely combatants and warriors who originated from the territory of the Polotsk, Turov and Smolensk principalities were still called "balyars", or "boyars". Since the second half of the 13th century, the warriors of the Grand Duke of Lithuania, as well as the warriors of specific princes and even large landowners, were also called.

Battle scene on one of the miniatures of the Radziwill Chronicle of the 15th century

The belonging of all these people to a common group was determined by the common obligation for all to serve their prince, which, in turn, gave them the right to receive food from him and the opportunity to acquire and hold land property. This category included persons of various social and property affiliations. Among them were both descendants of petty Lithuanian princes, as well as senior retinue nobility, who were wealthy hereditary patrimonial owners of their lands, and personal dependent servants of the prince, who received from him a table, maintenance, clothes, weapons and gifts for their service, as well as part of the war booty.

Studies show that the vast majority of the boyars were poor people in terms of their property status. As a rule, they owned only a small estate and one or two dependent servants, or did not have their own land property at all.

The second stage dates back to the time between the end of the 14th and the first half of the 16th centuries and is associated with the legal registration of the military service class. The beginning of this process was laid in 1387 by the publication by the Grand Duke of Lithuania Jagiello of the first zemstvo privilege in commemoration of the conclusion of the Union of Kreva with Poland. It says that conscription in the GDL applies not only to "people who bear arms, or boyars" (armigeri sive boyarines), but to all men capable of this.

Those of the boyars who accepted the Catholic faith, as well as their heirs, received the right to own, hold, sell, donate, change their lands of their own free will. The peasants who lived on these lands had to perform in his favor those duties that were supposed to be performed in favor of the prince. They were also exempt from all other forced labor, with the exception of the castle service. Priviley guaranteed these rights both in relation to the boyars themselves and their direct heirs, and in relation to their widows.

In 1413, the Gorodel Privilege was published, the addressee of which was "pans, gentry and boyars" (nobiles, barones, boyares) of the Catholic faith. Priviley confirmed their old property rights and provided them with new ones: to occupy zemstvo and court positions, participate in meetings of the grand ducal Rada and in the activities of the general diets, manage income from the grand ducal estates received as awards, i.e. the same rights that the Polish pans and gentry already enjoyed by that time. In order to strengthen the military fraternity, the Poles granted their coats of arms to the Lithuanian boyars. Families using the same coat of arms were treated as each other's relatives.

Although the above rights were initially granted only to Catholic boyars, as a result of the internecine war of 1430-1434 in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, they were also extended to the Orthodox. The corresponding decisions were carried out in the privileges of Jogaila in 1432 and Sigismund Keistutovich in 1434.

Casimir IV Jagiellon, Grand Duke of Lithuania in 1440-1492, King of Poland in 1447-1492

The privileged character of the military service class of the GDL was consolidated in the privilege of Casimir IV Jagiellon, published in 1447. In this document, they found confirmation of the boyars' right to land and property granted to them by Casimir's ancestors, the basic rights to own, inherit, sell, pledge and exchange estates were guaranteed. After the death of a boyar, his possessions could not be confiscated, but were transferred to his heirs. In addition, the daughters and relatives of the boyars could marry without the knowledge of the prince or his governor.

One of the most important provisions of the privilege was the release of dependent peasants living in the boyars' possessions from paying any duties in favor of state power with the transfer of the right to receive the corresponding income for their owner. The boyar estates were also subject to the right of judicial immunity, which made their owner the sole judge for his peasants. Priviley confirmed the personal freedom and inviolability of the boyars, guaranteed the principle of personal responsibility in judicial conflicts, and granted the boyars a number of other privileges, including the freedom to travel abroad for service.

Rights and obligations of the nobility

The legal status of the gentry class, created by the grand ducal privileges of the XIV-XVI centuries and finalized in the Statutes of the GDL of 1529, 1566 and 1588, differed sharply from the legal status of other categories of the population. The gentry could own land as personal property, had the right to trade duty-free with the products of their estates, including exporting them abroad, was exempt from paying customs duties on goods purchased abroad for personal use, as well as from all other taxes and duties, except for the obligations of military service during the war and the payment of funds for military needs, which were collected by decision of the general council.

The gentry had the right to leave the service of one magnate and move to another, as well as freely travel outside the country. He retained his freedom no matter how long he was in the service of this or that magnate or lived on the land rented from him. AT legislative acts proclaimed the inviolability of the person of the gentry, who could not be imprisoned before the trial. Only other gentry equal to him could judge him. Only the nobility had the right to hold public office and participate in meetings of the Soym. For guard common interests the gentry had the right to unite in political unions-confederations.

The main occupation for most of the gentry in peacetime was hunting, feasting and dancing, which formed special type gentry culture of the 16th - 18th centuries

The main duty of the nobility was military service. In 1502, at the Diet in Novogorodok, it was established that each landowner must enumerate his people and give the lists to the Grand Duke under oath that he did not hide anything. From every ten services (peasant households) he had, the gentry had to put up with him a warrior in a "zbroy" (armed - ed.), on a horse and with a spear. Beginning in 1528, a warrior in full armor had to be exhibited from every eight services. Who had only eight, was obliged to leave himself. In the documents they were called "mounted boyars, yakiya people do not toil", or "foot gentry". Those who had fewer or no people at all had to equip the warrior with a pool of money from the corresponding number of peasant households in their property.

It was established that those who did not appear at the assembly point by the deadline were subject to a fine of 100 groschen, those who did not leave a week later lost their estate, and desertion was relied on the death penalty. In 1528, it was established how a warrior should be equipped on a campaign: “on a good horse in harness with a tree, with an ensign, on which there would be a panzer, a sailboat, a sword, a cord, a colored cloth, a pavese and two spears.” In the same year, a list was drawn up of who and how many horsemen should be sent to the militia. The largest number of warriors was exhibited by the Vilna voivodeship (3605 people, of which 466 horsemen from all their estates should be put up by the Vilna voivode Goshtovt), the Trok voivodeship (2861 people, of which the Trok voivode put up 426 horsemen), as well as the Zhmud land (1839 people, of which 371 riders were exhibited by the Samogitian headman). The total number of the Commonwealth could reach 10,178 soldiers.

These and other data from the censuses of the troops of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1528, 1565 and 1567 clearly show a huge difference in property between different representatives of the same class. At a time when large feudal lords could field entire cavalry detachments into the army, representatives of the petty gentry did not even have the proper weapons. According to the number of warriors put up by the gentry, they can be divided into five main categories, depending on the size of land holdings. The first group includes the smallest gentry (1 horseman), then small (2 - 10 horsemen), medium (11 - 50 horsemen), large (60 - 100 horsemen), magnates (more than 100 horsemen).

The absolute majority of the gentry liable for military service belongs to the group of the smallest and smallest landowners. In 1528 they amounted to 2562 people, or 81 percent of all the gentry who came to the review from Belarusian povets (districts). At the same time, they exhibited 53.6 percent of all (3873) horses from Belarusian counties, or 10.5% of all (19817) horses of the ON.

Categories of nobility

The most prominent group of the ruling class was the highest nobility, which included the descendants of specific Russian and Lithuanian princes and senior combatants, wealthy patrimonials, and large landowners, the largest hierarchs of the church. From about the middle of the 15th century, the term “pans” began to be used to designate it in state legal acts. In the Statutes of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and other documents, the following categories are distinguished:

• "Pany happy" - the highest nobility, whose representatives occupied court positions and sat in the Rada of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania;
• "Pans gonfalons" - the largest landowners who went on a campaign under their own banners (banners) at the head of their own detachments;
• "Panyata" - wealthy landowners who went to war under a special banner as part of a special detachment, separate from the district militia of the gentry.

As a rule, the representatives of the same families were representatives of the same families. In the second half of the 16th century, this group, following the Polish model, began to be called "magnates". The “Popis of the ON troops” of 1528 included 23 magnate clans, a similar document of 1567 already included 29 clans, each of which owned more than a thousand peasant smokes.

Magnates of the Commonwealth in the first half of the 17th century. Fragment of a painting by Tomasz Dolabella

At a lower level in comparison with this group were the “boyars-gentry”, or from the second half of the 16th century - simply “gentry”, which were also internally a very heterogeneous group. Its backbone was made up of medium and small proprietors who had a good settlement and owned one or more estates with their own lands and dependent peasants who cultivated them. They, as a rule, had hereditary coats of arms, or were endowed with them, having received the nobility from the king. Subsequently, in the XVII - XVIII centuries, this group was called the "farm gentry".

Even lower was the most numerous group of the poor gentry, who owned only 5-10 portages of land (portage - 21.36 hectares), which, in the absence of dependent peasants, they cultivated on your own. Completely no different from the peasantry in terms of property, the land-poor gentry enjoyed all the basic privileges of their estate and had a characteristic corporate culture. Often, entire gentry settlements were formed, the so-called "dungeons" or "outskirts", which were isolated from neighboring peasant settlements. Their population is known as the “dungeon”, “roundabout” or “corralled” gentry.

Finally, at the very bottom was the landless gentry (“golota”), who lived by renting state or magnate lands on the terms of payment of dues (“chinsh gentry”), or at the expense of service (“serving gentry”).

"A gentry on the fence is equal to a governor." Poor nobleman, 18th century drawing

A feature of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the presence of a significant intermediate group, which occupied a position between the gentry and the peasants. Such an intermediate status, for example, was possessed by “armored boyars”, or “armored servants”, recruited from free people, peasants and philistines and settled in the regions bordering the Moscow state. On the terms of free use of allotments and a number of other privileges, they had to participate in campaigns "from the estates of their embassy (on a par - ed. note) with the boyars", and also carry out border and garrison service. Between campaigns, they had to obey the local castellan.

Another similar group was the “worthy boyars” (“worthy servants”, “rural travelers”), who performed the “worthy service”, i.e. trips on behalf of the administration and for this they received similar rights to use the land allotment received from the Grand Duke. As long as the borders of the gentry remained open, these peasants liable for military service often aspired - and in most cases they actually succeeded - to get into its ranks. However, opposite cases are also known, when servant boyars who could not fulfill their duties were transferred to the category of dependent peasants.

Literature:

• Lyubavsky M.K. Essay on the history of the Lithuanian-Russian state up to the Union of Lublin inclusive. - Minsk: Belarusian science, 2012, - 397 p.
• Loyka P. A. The gentry of the Belarusian zemel among the towns and cities of the city of Rechy Paspalita of another palovy ХVІ - the first traci ХVІІІ century. - Mn., 2002. - 99 p.
• Saganovich G. M. Troops of Vyalikag of the Principality of Lithuania in the ХVІ - ХVІІ centuries. - Mn.: Navuka i tehnika, 1994. - 79 p.
• Selitsky A. I. The Polish gentry in the social and legal system of the Russian Empire // Poles in Russia: XVII - XX centuries: Materials of the International scientific conference. - Krasnodar: "Kuban", 2003. - p. 105-128.
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