Poland

  There was, however, one notable change. Tytus Bukowski, for reasons which not even he could have explained, had begun to speculate on the nature of Polish history, especially as it compared with the development of surrounding countries about which he heard many accounts, and he saw that each of Poland’s neighbors had strong central governments, and regular taxation, and armies which increased in size, while Poland did not.

  More specifically, when he watched the Seym, of which he was now an important member, he realized that almost everything he was ordered to do by Count Lubonski, Prince Lubomirski and the powerful Granickis and Mniszechs was helpful only to them and extremely hurtful to the nation as a whole. Tytus was not a revolutionary, but he did believe that the time had come when people who lived in towns—some of the best people in Poland, he judged—must be given the right to own land, to vote, and even to take their rightful place in the legislative bodies. Jews he was willing to exclude because they denied Christ and the primacy of Rome, which any good Pole subscribed to, and he was not yet certain what he thought about freedom for peasants, since he owned three villages, and to give peasants rights might mean financial loss, but even in this case he was beginning to see that a prospering society required much more freedom for serfs than Poland now allowed.

  One spring morning Countess Lubonska asked him about these matters: Tytus, when you meet with the Seym in Warsaw, what will be your feeling about greater freedom for the townspeople?’

  When the countess first asked such questions he had temporized, for he suspected she might be a spy sent to test him on behalf of the magnates, but with the passage of time he found that she was much like himself: a person trying to visualize a new Poland, and he grew to trust her. ‘I think the time has come, Countess, when we must have a union of strong men in the towns with strong men in the countryside.’

  ‘You’ve heard what my father says? “Townsmen are like horse piss. Smelly, noisy and good for absolutely nothing.”’

  ‘That was the old view, Countess. But if Poland wants to protect itself …’

  ‘Would you allow your daughter to marry a townsman?’

  ‘I’m nobility, Countess. Poor but noble. My family has always married with its own kind.’

  ‘So you have the same opinion as my father?’

  ‘I do not.’ He leaned against a stone fence that separated the castle grounds from those of the village, and said very carefully, choosing each word for its exact meaning: ‘Countess, you must prepare your husband, and his friends, for what I believe the Seym is going to do if it is ever allowed to meet again.’

  ‘It will do what it’s told,’ Anna Radziwill said, as if she were one of her fighting uncles.

  ‘I think … that such days … are ended.’ As soon as he uttered these portentous words, both he and Anna appreciated their profound significance, for they constituted a revolutionary challenge and she wanted to know its dimensions. Perching herself upon the fence, she asked bluntly: ‘And what will your Seym attempt to do?’

  ‘Have you listened to your magnates, Countess? Have you just listened to what they say when they meet in your castle?’

  ‘They talk a lot of bombast, but I think all men do.’ She laughed, a beautiful, free-spirited woman approaching fifty, amused by the contradictions of Polish life, whether in the Austrian segment or the free, and with a finger that contained two rings she pointed at Tytus and said: ‘Right now, Bukowski, you’re talking bombast, aren’t you?’

  ‘I must respectfully contradict you, Countess. I am the voice of the future, not of bombast.’

  ‘Tell me about the future, Tytus.’

  ‘Let’s take three magnates. In old Poland, where I work. One takes his orders from Prussia because it’s growing. One takes his orders from Russia because it’s big. And one listens to Austria because it’s well governed.’

  ‘It’s always been that way,’ Countess Lubonska said, smiling. ‘You speak as if there were something unusual.’

  ‘There is. At a time when Poland needs everyone joined together in a great effort, the first magnate despises everyone in the town—the burghers, the shopkeepers, the Jews, the priests, the artisans. They’re all cut off—permanently—from Polish life.’ With both hands waving the air, he made broad exclusionary gestures. ‘The second magnate hates peasants—will grant them no freedoms at all, not even land.’

  ‘Who’s left for the third magnate to despise?’ the countess asked.

  Bringing his hands back to his chest, he tapped himself with his fingertips: ‘Me. The little nobleman with few horses … few villages … few peasants.’

  ‘Oh, they don’t despise you, Bukowski. I’m sure my husband doesn’t despise you. If he did, he wouldn’t use you as his voice in the Seym, would he?’

  ‘He uses and despises,’ Bukowski said, dropping his voice on the last word as if to end that line of argument.

  ‘Yes, there are degrees,’ she conceded. Flicking her dress so that its folds fell attractively over the stones on which she sat, she said: ‘My father … well, you’re right about him. He despises all your three groups. He sees Poland as the fief of about sixty families—the only ones in his opinion who count.’ She brought her hands to her face to hide the broad smile; then she dropped them to look bewitchingly at her husband’s factotum. ‘Tytus, when I was about eighteen my father took me aside, sat me in a chair, and showed me a small sheet of paper on which he had written seven names. I can see them yet, in order, starting with Radziwill. Then: Lubomirski, Lubonski, Potocki, Ossolinski, Mniszech, Granicki. They were the families from which I must select my husband, for in his opinion no others existed.’

  ‘How were they numbered?’ Tytus asked.

  ‘A combination of ancient power and modern wealth. The Granickis were newcomers, but they were damned rich. The Mniszechs were of Czech derivation but they were damned powerful. Ossolinski and Lubonski were both ancient and rich, and Lubomirski, of course, was best of all.’

  ‘Then why did he place the Radziwills first?’

  ‘Because we are first.’

  ‘Weren’t the Czartoryskis and Zamoyskis already rather rich and powerful?’

  ‘Father had them on his list—over to one side, with a note above them: “If things go poorly.” ’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘That if I couldn’t catch a Lubomirski or one of the rich Radziwills … You know, of course, that our branch of the Radziwills … we had damned little. That’s why my father has had to be so …’ She thought for a long time as to how best she might characterize her conniving parent, and she smiled as she visualized him in his long overcoat darting here and there as his probing nose smelled out possibilities. No appropriate word came, and in the end she said in a kind of defeat: ‘That’s why Father has had to be so flexible.’

  ‘Was it easy, catching a Lubonski?’

  ‘From the moment I saw Laskarz, and I think that from the moment he saw me … because I was not ugly when I was young …’ She kicked at the stone wall with the heel of her left boot, then asked in real anxiety: ‘Oh, Tytus, what’s going to happen to Poland?’

  One day in 1786 they carried this question to the count, who laughed at their fears, citing an old truism: ‘Anarchy is the salvation of Poland. We have always thrived on chaos.’

  ‘But if we can’t defend ourselves?’ his wife asked.

  ‘Our strategy is to be so obviously weak that no neighbor will feel it necessary to attack us.’

  ‘It seems to me,’ Bukowski said, ‘that in 1772 our neighbors attacked us rather severely. They stole half our citizens.’

  ‘That was a readjustment,’ Lubonski argued, ‘and I think you’ll agree we’re better off now than we were then.’

  ‘People are beginning to take seriously the proposals of the Czartoryskis,’ Tytus warned, and the countess jumped to his support: ‘Yes, I’ve heard much good said about their plans.’

  Now the count dropped his easy rebuttals, for he had heard even some of his associates discu
ssing seriously the proposed reforms, and he simply could not fathom why a man in his senses would even listen to them, let alone accord them attention. ‘I want you to hear, one by one, the incredible things they’re suggesting. First, abolition of the liberum veto, the agency with which we protect our rights. Second, the Seym to serve for two years instead of six weeks, and God knows what would happen then. Third, townsmen to have the vote. Fourth, banishing landless gentry from the Seym on the grounds that they vote always for the magnates who pay their bills. Fifth, an end to private armies like ours and the installation of a strong central army, which would threaten our freedoms. Sixth, peasants to be given their own land, at our expense. Seventh, additional power to the king, who would soon dictate to the magnates. Eighth, hereditary king rather than free election by the magnates and the gentry.’

  As he listed these demands, his voice grew more and more grave, until at last it was a mournful rumble, as if he were lamenting the passage of an era, and he looked soberly at his listeners to impress upon them the revolutionary nature of these proposals. But then he brightened. ‘This was before your time in the Seym, Tytus, but when the patriots awakened to what was happening, we sprang to action. Lubomirski, myself, Granicki, Mniszech … there were other good men too, but we led the way in defense of the motherland.’

  ‘What did you do?’ the countess asked.

  ‘We proposed our own series of bills, the ones that would preserve freedom. First, the king to be elected, preferably from among foreign nominees, by us magnates. That would protect us from dictators and hereditary domination. Second, continuance forever of the liberum veto, which is the protection of the few against the pressure of the many. Third, the ancient right of any magnate to renounce allegiance to the king, if the king persists in error. Fourth, land ownership and office occupancy reserved exclusively for magnates and their supportive gentry. Fifth, landowners’ control of peasants to be continued and strengthened.’

  ‘Who won?’ the countess asked.

  ‘For the moment, reason prevailed and we won. But revolutionaries like Czartoryski refuse to surrender, and if we ever have a Seym again, you can be sure they’ll be back with their radical reforms.’

  In 1788, to everyone’s astonishment, the Seym was permitted to open a session which many predicted would be a turning point in Polish history, and they were right, because the sober, well-educated men who met this time were deeply aware of the fact that the salvation of their country depended upon the decisions they were about to make, and they approached their task with prayers and a proper gravity.

  Historically, Seyms were supposed to meet only in alternate years and then for just six weeks. This one lasted four glorious and rewarding years that saw one after another of the restrictive old privileges swept away: the liberum veto was abolished, meaning that henceforth Poland’s parliament would operate like those of other nations, on the majority principle; townsmen were allowed to own land; the more onerous impositions on the peasants were removed, but of course serfdom was continued, since even reformers could not visualize Poland without it; the Catholic church was deprived of its vast land holdings but was justly compensated; and most important of all, the town businessmen were invited into the halls of government.

  On 3 May 1791 a new constitution evolved out of this revolutionary four-year Seym. It was recognized as the best in Europe and the equal of what had recently been promulgated in America; philosophers hailed it as an architect’s drawing for a modern nation. With one gigantic leap, Poland left the Middle Ages and catapulted herself into the front rank of governments. The Czartoryskis had defeated the Lubonskis.

  But in Prussia and Russia the new plan activated alarms of terror, for the rulers of those autocracies properly evaluated it as a mortal blow to their dictatorships. In Berlin the King of Prussia summoned Baron von Eschl and stormed: ‘Your partition in 1772 was supposed to have forestalled such nonsense. If this new constitution is allowed to function even one year, it will spread havoc in the German states. Everyone will be demanding similar freedoms.’

  ‘We must start a war to disrupt things,’ Von Eschl proposed.

  That we’ll do, but first you get yourself to Warsaw and repair the damage your leniency allowed.’

  ‘Are you willing, Sire, to support me if we erase Poland altogether this time?’

  ‘Wipe it out.’

  ‘Even if Austria refuses to come along?’

  ‘We’re in a better position if she doesn’t. I want you to occupy everything we need—Warsaw … Krakow … Lublin … all the way to Brest-Litovsk.’

  ‘Russia and Austria might combine against us.’

  ‘That’s a risk we must take. But Poland is to be eliminated. It has no excuse for existence.’ And with this harsh directive, Von Eschl made his way to Warsaw.

  In Moscow the Empress Catherine was even more disturbed, and at a session with her councillors she enunciated, without being aware that she was doing so, the policy that would henceforth govern Russian-Polish relations: ‘Whenever the people of Poland enjoy a better life than those in Russia, we are in mortal danger. At such times Poland must be held down.’ After the meeting she held private counsel with Fyodor Kuprin: ‘My dearest little adviser, things have gone sadly wrong in Poland. Hurry there and make corrections.’

  ‘Total dismemberment this time?’

  The question posed the most severe difficulties for Catherine, and she attacked it circuitously: ‘I intended that my old friend Poniatowski should vacillate, for I knew he was weak. But I never expected him to be this weak. When those men laid that new constitution before him, he should have shot them all. Since he refused to do the job, we’ll have to do it for him.’

  ‘Then you do mean total dismemberment?’

  ‘I wish I did, my treasured little guide, but we must keep one consideration always in the forefront. We are not strong enough right now to engage in war with Prussia. Sadly, we must temporize. And what we must prevent more than anything else is a situation in which Prussia grabs most of Poland and sits on our front doorstep, growling to be let in to Moscow.’

  ‘What must I do?’

  ‘Cut Poland to pieces. Great slices off here and there. But leave a central core, because for the present we need it as protection against Prussia.’

  ‘You hand me a most difficult assignment. Kill, but not quite.’

  She rose and kissed him, this strange little man who had served the Romanoffs so dutifully, chopping off heads for Empress Anna, ripping out tongues for Empress Elizabeth, subjugating Cossacks for Czar Peter, and now destroying nations for Catherine. ‘We do one thing at a time, little friend, but I assure you that before the years pass, you and I will finish with Poland forever. Now off to Warsaw.’

  While the two diplomats were moving into position for their assault on the Polish nation, pamphleteers in both Berlin and St. Petersburg started sending out messages to all the courts and journals of opinion in Europe, one from autocratic Russia sounding the tone that would prevail:

  It is sickening to all who love freedom to learn in dispatches from Warsaw how the freedom which the people of Poland once enjoyed is being trampled underfoot by the same kind of revolutionary excess which has darkened France with the blood of its best citizens. In Poland the rights of man have long been protected by an admirable system known as the Golden Freedom, under which kings and peasants alike, knights and townsmen, equally enjoyed the benefits of benign rule, and under which the precepts of Christianity were observed.

  Now the historic Golden Freedom which made Poland a leader among nations is being swept away. Radical reforms strike at the very heart of a free nation, threatening to make it a nation of slaves, and this the liberty-loving nations of the world must not permit. It is the duty of all to rise up and warn the tyrants of Warsaw that the family of nations will not allow this desecration to go forward. It is our duty to halt it and to restore to a strong and beautiful nation the freedom it has always enjoyed.

  When Baron von Eschl
reached Warsaw he became the leading spokesman for all who were defending Poland’s freedom, and he rallied around him magnates like old Janusz Radziwill, now eighty-three but still persuasive in argument, and the Paseks, who carried weight with the distant magnates who maintained their own armies. Von Eschl’s heart bled, almost literally many Poles thought, for the good of Poland, and on his extensive trips into the eastern portion of the truncated country he noted the location of all castles and the means by which they attempted to defend themselves.

  He was a brilliant, forceful debater, and whenever he met with magnates, for he refused to deal with anyone of lower position, he stressed one overwhelming fact: ‘Gentlemen, always bear in mind what happened in the aftermath of 1772. The Prussian government did not confiscate a single estate owned by your brothers. No Polish magnate lost a square of land to us. But what happened where Russia took over? You know better than I. Kleofas Granicki, a true friend of Russia’s through the years, two of his largest estates near Vitebsk ripped from him and given to Russian generals who now call themselves noblemen … at Granicki’s expense. If you side with Russia, all your precious freedoms will be lost. If you side with Prussia, your estates and your freedoms alike will be protected.’

  In this manner Von Eschl won over to his side many of the leaders of Poland, but Fyodor Kuprin was not idle. He met often with his Prussian counterpart, compared notes with him, and smiled when Poles suggested to them that their countries might soon be at war with each other over how to divide Poland. That some kind of further partition threatened, everyone acknowledged, but the form it might take, with Austria not participating, was uncertain.

  In Tytus Bukowski’s mind several pressing questions arose. ‘Why,’ he asked patriots like himself, ‘do we allow these two foreigners to parade about Warsaw plotting the war that might destroy us?’ To this he received no sensible answer, except that King Stanislaw August was too weak to discipline them. Tytus also asked: ‘How will this nation continue to exist if even more territory is stolen from us?’ The answer to this was a universal ‘We’ll get by somehow.’ His third question was more persistent, and he directed it to almost every Pole he met: ‘What can you and I do to prevent the tragedy that looms?’