Grand Duchy of Poznan

In 1772, Prussia occupied the right bank of the Netze River (in the Polish sources of Notets ) and the northern part of the Inowraclaw Voivodeship from Nakla to Solz , in 1773 the left bank of the Netze. In 1793 , the Prussians received lands known since then under the name of South Prussia (Süd-Preussen). A few years later, the Prussian government confiscated church estates, converting them into royal domains; even earlier, the estates of many participants in the Polish uprising of 1794 were confiscated. In 1807 , by virtue of the Tilsit Treaty , the territory of the future Poznan principality became part of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw , a vassal of Napoleonic France. However, after the defeat of Napoleon, the departments of Poznan and Bydgoszcz , with a total area of ​​588 square meters. miles, under the terms of the Vienna Treaty of 1815 , were given to Prussia under the name Vel. Principality (Duchy) of Poznan. The May 3 treaty concluded between Russia and Prussia promised special institutions to the divided Poles, which would ensure the preservation of their national identity (“qui assurent la conservation de leur nationalité”), and allowed free circulation of goods among the divided parts of Poland. The simultaneous patent of King Frederick William III recognized that ethnic Poles , incorporated into his monarchy, are not required to renounce their people and religion; Polish was put in public life along with German; and the Poles were promised access to state activity not only in the Grand Duchy of Poznan, but throughout the Prussian monarchy.

The Prussian authorities carried out one progressive reform in the principality: in 1823 serfdom was abolished and a provincial Sejm was organized, which included 4 large landowners with a personal vote , 22 deputies from noblemen, 16 from urban communes, 8 from rural. However, this ended the progress , and the whole subsequent history of the principality was actually an attempt by the Germans to assimilate the local Polish majority by introducing various kinds of restrictions.

Under the terms of the original treaty, the Grand Duchy of Poznansky was promised wide internal autonomy within the Prussian kingdom , which the latter granted only for a short time. Already in the 1820s, autonomous bodies in the principality lost real power and turned into advisory appendages of the Prussian administration, to which posts were appointed almost exclusively by the Germans . Compared to the Kingdom of Poland , annexed to the Russian Empire , where Russification was relatively slow before the Polish uprising of 1830–31 , Polish administrative and educational institutions in Prussia were dissolved and abolished quite quickly. The Polish language has been completely eliminated from the official sphere since 1825 . After 1831, Prussia launched a policy of intensified Germanization of the Polish population of the principality. In 1832 , Fleetwell was appointed Ober President of Poznan, who was instructed to unite the principality with the Prussian monarchy. In 1833 , the right to choose candidates for the Landrates was suspended, a special fund was appointed to buy Polish estates and transfer them to the Germans, Catholic monasteries that played an important cultural role in the life of Polish peasants were destroyed. In 1836 , the German authorities deprived the inhabitants of the principality of the right to occupy the posts of troops. All this caused an increase in discontent among the Poznan Poles. Due to ethnic and linguistic discrimination, there is an increased literary and mental movement among the Poles of the principality; periodicals are founded, scientific societies are established. In 1843 , a revolutionary committee was formed in the Grand Duchy of Poznan, in 1846 an uprising erupted. The Berlin Revolution of 1848 supports this movement, the result of which is the division of the Grand Duchy into two parts: Polish and German, which was confirmed by the Frankfurt Parliament .

Posen Province

During the suppression of the revolution of 1848-1849 in Germany, the principality was turned into the province of Posen , although the Prussian kings, who had also become German emperors since 1871 , continued to use the title of Grand Duke of Poznansky . Under the new Prussian constitution, the interethnic demarcation line was destroyed, and the entire Grand Duchy of Poznan was completely incorporated into Prussia. In 1861 , the persecution of the Polish language began, the change of the Polish names of villages to German. The Germanization of Poznan intensified after the reunification of Germany in 1870. The Poznan province lives under exceptional laws and survives Kulturkampf , with which Archbishop Ledokhovsky and Suffragan Yanishevsky end up in prison. The situation of the Poles is worsened by the discord between the gentry-priest party ("Polish Colo") and the "Narodniks" grouping near Shimansky, the editor of Orędownika.

• 900,000 people ( 1815 )
• 1,350,000 ( 1849 )
• 2 100 000 people ( 1910 )

For comparison, in the Russian Privislinsky Territory with an area of ​​128,500 km², the population increased from 3.3 million people. in 1815 to 6.1 million people. in 1870 and up to 10.1 million in 1900. Due to the relatively small number of Poles in Poznan, the Germanization of the principality was more successful than the Russification of Poland . The share of Poles in the duchy decreased from 73% (657 thousand) in 1815 to 64% (1.344 million) in 1910 , and the share of Germans increased from 25% (225 thousand) to 31% (651 thousand), Jews from 2 to 5%. The German language significantly supplanted Polish in the duchy by the beginning of the 20th century , especially in the official sphere.

• Poznan Grand Duchy // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.