International scientific conference Between the agreement and tsar’s assassination. Limitations of Polish-Russian political compromise in the time of the Kingdom of Poland. On the anniversary of the coronation of 1829 has been held in Warsaw.
The last king of Poland was crowned 190 years ago, on 24 May 1829, by tsar Nicholas I at the Royal Castle in Warsaw. The participants and observers of this ceremony, one and a half years later, were to stand on two different sides, in the next scene of the Polish-Russian historical drama, and in some cases even meet on the battlefields of the November Uprising.
The events of May 1829 are often considered to be the "dress rehearsal" of the November Night. All the more so because they revealed attitudes, phenomena, and arguments bearing important consequences: from the idea of an agreement at all costs to the plans to assassinate the tsar and ignite an uprising in the name of independence. The conflict of attitudes and choices of the pre-industrial generation in those times left a mark on the poetic vision of the observer of the events of May 1829, the young Juliusz Słowacki, in his masterpiece of Polish Romanticism Kordian: First Part of a Trilogy: The Coronation Plot.
The discussion about the last coronation in May 1829 brings to mind a wide range of issues that are fundamentally important not only for understanding the Kingdom of Poland era and the November Uprising but also for the overall Polish-Russian relations. The Uprising of 1830 and what preceded it, in some way programmed the later course of the Polish-Russian conflict in the 19th century, moreover influencing its continuation in the 20th century.
The upcoming anniversary of the November Uprising and the last coronation presents an opportunity to present the little-known contexts of the Polish-Russian agreement in the time of the Kingdom of Poland and the reasons for its rejection by the "Kordian generation". It also raises the key question: were Poles and Russians condemned to conflict at that time?
The conference will present the views and latest findings of leading Polish and Russian researchers in this field. The participation of Russian guests will allow for a broader presentation of the situation from the perspective of the Russian Empire. The discussion will focus on the reflection of the reasons for the unsuccessful experiment of the Polish-Russian agreement, attempts to maintain it, the contradiction of Polish and Russian interests and the clash of political traditions shaped differently by history and culture – the Romanov Empire and the republican heritage of the First Polish Republic. It is also necessary to take into account the conflict between the new shape of the romantic national idea and the independence tradition, which was gaining the support of the young generation of Poles with the loyalist attitudes of the old elites of the Kingdom.
Also of significant importance is the analysis of the confrontation of the traditional politics of the pre-modern empire involving the peripheral elite in the cooperation with the "unreasonable Polish nationality", which shaped in a new way under the influence of Romanticism and became a model for the new identities of the Eastern European nations formed in the 19th century. Equally important is the reflection on the reasons for the unsuccessful experiment of an agreement with Poles in the context of the modernisation projects of Russia itself, tore between the tsarist autocracy, plans to introduce a constitutional monarchy and the Decembrist revolt.
The conference programme can be found HERE.
