Now - after several hundred years have passed - and in the coming decades, at least the past of Russia and Poland will greatly influence our relationship. The history of Poland is thoroughly saturated with Polish-Russian disputes, wars, and ideological differences. The three sections of the Commonwealth turned 123 years of enslavement.
And the history of Poland is inextricably linked with the struggle for independence.
After the fall of the anti-Russian January uprising in 1862, a further process of Russification of the Polish lands and unification of the Kingdom of Poland began. Polish institutions ceased to exist, subject to the forcibly St. Petersburg administration. Since 1865, Russian has been introduced as an administrative language by a decree, three years later a separate budget, central authority was created, and the country is divided into 10 provinces. In 1876, the judiciary was rebuilt according to the Russian model, and after ten years the Polish Bank was liquidated. Russian became the official language in institutions and courts, and most officials came from Russia. Therefore, the history of Poland at that stage was the history of enslavement and the struggle for the preservation of national self-identification.
After the death of Viceroy Theodore (Fedor) Berg, the kingdom, which they began to call the "Privislinsky Territory", began to be governed by governors-general who have special security rights. In addition, the liberal reforms carried out in the empire did not extend to Poland, everything was kept on the system of the police state, censorship, and martial law (since 1861)
continued to a certain extent. The Catholic Church, which interceded for the rebels, was also persecuted: monasteries were closed, those that were preserved had their property taken away, bishops depended on the collegium in St. Petersburg (despite the objections of the Pope) and lived under the ban on contacts with the Vatican.
On the Polish lands included in the Empire, the situation of the Poles was the worst. The most difficult for the population was the violent cultural assimilation and suppression of ethnic identity. Poland as a part of Russia was discriminated against as
national autonomy - most of the Poles were evicted to the eastern territories, the rest, under the weight of high taxes, could not acquire land, found enterprises. Naturally, this caused latent discontent among the population, which over time developed into open protests. If before the reign of Alexander II, the history of Poland was going through a difficult period of liquidation of Polish statehood, then later the authorities focused on issues of culture and language. Again and again, new nationalist currents formed, as a result of which the Russians intensified Russification at every turn. In the territories beyond the Bug, they sought to erase any manifestations of Polishness - both at school and in the administration - then it was finally banned the Polish language for public use. In the territories of the kingdom, this was not possible, however, the development of Polish culture was limited here and Russian was preferred.
In the mid-60s of the 19th century, the Russian language became the language of instruction in secondary schools. The main school in 1869 was turned into a tsarist university. In 1872, as a result of the reform of the Minister of Education, Dmitry Tolstoy, the specifics of the Polish school were completely eliminated.
Russia and Poland. The history of these countries has always been in conflict. It was with Russia that Poland waged the war of 1920. In Poland, it is believed that the next section - the occupation of the country - came in 1939, when Soviet troops entered Poland on September 17 (recall that Hitler’s troops occupied the country on September 1). However, the history of Poland still remembers the sore spots. And until we can openly and honestly discuss all the difficult historical ups and downs, a real dialogue is unlikely to be possible. After all, the struggle against Russification - first from the 19th century, then the dominance of all Russian in Soviet times - is still alive in the Poles. And although in recent years there has been a tendency toward rapprochement, nevertheless, true friendship is still far away.