Позиція провідних польських партій Російського імперії напередодні та на початку Першої світової війни

Abstract

Висвітлено позицію провідних польських партій Російської імперії та на початку Першої cвітової війни. Викрито та проаналізовано основні причини їх процарських позиції. The investigation of the various aspects and preconditions targeting influential Polish political parties on different political camps before the First World War, has a great interest for researchers of modern Polish history. The activities of Polish forces, which functioned on the territory of the Russian Empire at that time, had a significant impact on the historical development. From the first days of the war the absolute majority of the Polish right parties of the Kingdom of Poland took a pronounced attitude supporting the tsarism. The activity of the influential Polish People’s Democratic Party, known by shortened name – endeky, became the particularly striking example of this policy. The book of a leader of this party R. Dmowski –“Germany, Russia and the Polish question” became the ideological substantiation of the endeky’s politics. The Party of real politicks shared the same ideas and similar position as the endeky did. This party was created in 1904. The party united in its ranks the Polish land barons, the big bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia associated with it and higher Catholic clergy. After the revolution of 1905 – 1907, the Party of real politicks actively collaborated with endeky. The same concept was also taken by the two types of progressivities: Progressive Party and the Polish progressive association. Endeky and their leader R. Dmowski as the most important target of their activity decided to defeat Germany, regardless of the outcome of the war for Poland. The Polish question for endeky at the beginning of the war had secondary importance. That is why, endeky and their leader R. Dmowski at the beginning of the war considered it as domestic issue of tsarist Russia. Thus, we can conclude that the most of the Polish nobility and wealthy citizens indirectly through parties, which expressed their interests – endekiv and realists, actively supported the idea of unification of all Polish lands within Tsarist Russia under the tsarist authorities at the beginning of the First World War.