The Poles Are to Blame: 1830s Belarus and Ukraine in the Eyes of Russian Officials

• In Event: Polonophobia and the Russian State (1837-1867): Conspiracy, Misrepresentation, and Memory

Abstract

After the partitions of Poland, and particularly after the 1830 Polish Uprising, Russians accused the Poles and Catholic clergy of instilling anti-Russian sentiment among the Eastern Slavic inhabitants in the Russian western provinces and turning them away from loyalty to the Russian throne and altar. This paper analyzes Russian documents from the 1830s that blame Poles and “Polish provincialism” for the difficulties with converting the Uniates to Orthodoxy, with carrying out policies in local government, and with promoting the Russian educational agenda in the region – all seen as a long-term plot to undermine Russian authority in the region. By accusing the Poles for using the local population in their own conspiratorial aims for ultimate separation from the Empire, the Russians denied any agency to the Belarusians or the Ukrainians themselves, assuming that they would naturally want to be loyal to the Russian state and in fact denying them any other identity other than “Russian.”

Author

• Barbara J. Skinner, Indiana State U