East Europe (1780–1791 CE): Enlightened Absolutism and Geopolitical Expansion

Stanislaw August's process of renovation reaches its climax on May 3, 1791, when, after three years of intense debate, the "Four Years' Sejm" produces Europe's first written constitution.

Conceived in the liberal spirit of the contemporaneous document in the United States, the constitution recasts Poland-Lithuania as a hereditary monarchy and abolishes many of the eccentricities and antiquated features of the old system.

The new constitution abolishes the individual veto in parliament; provides a separation of powers among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government; and established "people's sovereignty" (for the noble and bourgeois classes).

Although never fully implemented, the Constitution of May 3 gains an honored position in the Polish political heritage; tradition marks the anniversary of its passage as the country's most important civic holiday.

…whence it spreads to eastern Europe.

Orthodox Judaism opposes the Haskala movement from the start, because its repudiation of the traditional Jewish way of life threatens to destroy the tightly knit fabric of Judaism and to undermine religious observance.

There is particular distrust of a rationalistic ideology that seems to challenge rabbinic orthodoxy and the important role of Talmudic studies in Jewish education.

The Great Sejm, also known as the Four-Year Sejm, is a parliament (Sejm) of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that is held in Warsaw between 1788 and 1792.

Its principal aim becomes to restore sovereignty to, and reform, the Commonwealth politically and economically.

The Sejm's great achievement is the adoption of the Constitution of May 3, 1791, often described as Europe's first modern written national constitution, and the world's second, after the United States Constitution.

The Polish Constitution is designed to redress long-standing political defects of the federative Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and its system of Golden Liberties.

The Constitution introduces political equality between townspeople and nobility and places the peasants under the protection of the government, thus mitigating the worst abuses of serfdom.

The Constitution abolishes pernicious parliamentary institutions such as the liberum veto, which at one time had placed a sejm at the mercy of any deputy who might choose, or be bribed by an interest or foreign power, to undo all the legislation that had been passed by that sejm.

The May 3rd Constitution seeks to supplant the existing anarchy, fostered by some of the country's reactionary magnates, with a more egalitarian and democratic constitutional monarchy.

The reforms instituted by the Great Sejm and the Constitution of May 3, 1791, wil be undone in 1792 by the Targowica Confederation and the intervention of the Russian Empire at the invitation of the Targowica Confederates.

The idea of reforming the Commonwealth had gained traction from the mid-eighteenth century; it is however viewed with suspicion not only by its magnates but also by neighboring countries, which had been content with the deterioration of the Commonwealth and abhor the thought of a resurgent and democratic power on their borders.

With the Commonwealth Army reduced to around sixteen thousand, it is easy for its neighbors to intervene directly (The Imperial Russian Army numbers three hundred thousand troops overall; The Prussian Army and Imperial Army of the Holy Roman Empire, two hundred thousand each).

A major opportunity for reform had presented itself during the "Great Sejm" of 1788–92.

Poland's neighbors are preoccupied with wars and unable to intervene forcibly in Polish affairs.

Russian Empire and Archduchy of Austria have been engaged in hostilities with the Ottoman Empire (the Russo–Turkish War, 1787–1792 and the Austro-Turkish War, 1787–1791); the Russians had also found themselves simultaneously fighting in the Russo-Swedish War, 1788–1790.

A new alliance between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Prussia had seemed to provide security against Russian intervention, and on May 3, 1791 the new constitution had been read and adopted to overwhelming popular support.

Passage of the Polish constitution alarms nobles who stand to lose considerable stature under the new order.

In autocratic states such as Russia, the democratic ideals of the constitution also threaten the existing order, and the prospect of Polish recovery threatens to end domination of Polish affairs by its neighbors.

In 1792 domestic and foreign reactionaries combine to end the democratization process.

Polish conservative factions form the Confederation of Targowica and appeals for Russian assistance in restoring the status quo.

Catherine gladly uses this opportunity; enlisting Prussian support, she invades Poland under the pretext of defending Poland's ancient liberties.

The irresolute Stanislaw August capitulates, defecting to the Targowica faction.

Arguing that Poland has fallen prey to the radical Jacobinism, at this time at high tide in France, Russia and Prussia abrogate the Constitution of May 3, carry out a second partition of Poland in 1793, and place the remainder of the country under occupation by Russian troops.

The second partition of Poland is far more injurious than the first.

Russia receives a vast area of eastern Poland, extending southward from its gains in the first partition nearly to the Black Sea.

To the west, Prussia receives an area known as South Prussia, nearly twice the size of its first-partition gains along the Baltic, as well as the port of Gdansk (renamed Danzig).

Thus, Poland's neighbors reduce the commonwealth to a rump state and plainly signal their designs to abolish it altogether at their convenience.

A general Polish revolt, in a gesture of defiance, breaks out in 1794 under the leadership of Tadeusz Kosciuszko, a military officer who had rendered notable service in the American Revolution.

Kosciuszko's ragtag insurgent armies win some initial successes, but they eventually fall before the superior forces of Russian General Alexander Suvorov.

In the wake of the insurrection of 1794, Russia, Prussia, and Austria carry out the third and final partition of Poland-Lithuania in 1795, erasing the Commonwealth of Two Nations from the map and pledging never to let it return.

Much of Europe condemns the dismemberment as an international crime without historical parallel.

Amid the distractions of the French Revolution and its attendant wars, however, no state actively opposes the annexations.

In the long term, the dissolution of Poland-Lithuania upsets the traditional European balance of power, dramatically magnifying the influence of Russia and paving the way for the Germany that will emerge in the nineteenth century with Prussia at its core.

For the Poles, the third partition begins a period of continuous foreign rule that will endure well over a century.

The majority of the szlachta is reconciled to the end of the commonwealth in 1795, but the possibility of Polish independence will be kept alive by events within and outside Poland throughout the nineteenth century.

Poland's location in the very center of Europe will become especially significant in a period when both Prussia/Germany and Russia are intensely involved in European rivalries and alliances and modern nation states take form over the entire continent.

Additional Polish forces, about eight thousand strong, are to concentrate in Warsaw under command of King Poniatowski as reserve.

The Polish masses, outraged with the further humiliation of Poland by her neighbors and the betrayal by the Polish nobility, and emboldened by the French Revolution unfolding in France, quickly turn against the occupying forces of Prussia and Russia.

Following a series of nationwide riots, on March 24, 1794, Polish patriot Tadeusz Kościuszko takes command of the Polish armed forces and declares a nationwide uprising against Poland’s foreign occupiers, marking the beginning of the Kościuszko Uprising.

Catherine II and Frederick William II are quick to respond and, despite initial successes by Kosciuszko’s forces, the uprising is crushed by November 1794.

According to legend, when Kosciuszko falls off of his horse at the Battle of Maciejowice, shortly before he is captured, he says "Finis Poloniae", meaning in Latin "[This is] the end of Poland."