In Vienna, Russia was favored; most of ancient Poland, although constitutionally divided into two zones, was now reunited within its dominions. It is therefore for him that the most important acts concerning Polish history are carried out, in the following hundred years, on its territory. A few months after the Congress of Vienna, Alexander granted the “Kingdom of Poland” a new constitution: all public offices were reserved for Poles, Catholicism retained the predominant place of religion, the basis of private law remained the code of Napoleon. On the whole, the situation appeared to be quite favorable for the subjects of the Kingdom. In 1818 the sejm was inaugurated and the University of Warsaw opened; cultural activity was developing favorably.
But things changed radically in the following decade. The Polish army was subjected to the tyrannical command of the Grand Duke Constantine, while Novosil’cev, a staunch enemy of the Poles, managed to obtain supremacy over civilian power: censorship became more and more intolerant; the diet was not recalled for a few years in a row. Then began, openly and secretly, the reaction against the Russian government which no longer respected the constitution granted to the kingdom. The situation worsened when the relations between the Russian Decembrists and the Polish patriots were discovered.
In November 1830, led by some pupils from the military school, Warsaw rose up against the Russian government. The revolt quickly spread beyond the territory of the kingdom, into Lithuania and Volhynia. On January 25, 1831, the diet dethroned Nicholas I. The struggle was at first favorable to the rioters; a series of successes increased the resistance and the hope of the Polish armies. But then – for the lack of help from foreign powers, for the disagreement that soon broke out in the government and in the permanent diet of Warsaw between radical and conservative elements, for the failure to resolve the question of the peasantry, for the uncertainties, discords and insufficient trust of army commanders, and finally for Russian superiority – the revolt was suppressed, Warsaw reoccupied, the remnants of the
According to sunglassestracker.com, large masses of rioters chose the path of emigration; others, exiled, were dispersed to the most remote lands of Siberia; those who remained in Poland subjected to a regime of oppression which contrasted with the rather mild provisions of the “organic statute” which replaced the suppressed constitution of the kingdom of Poland in 1832. The Polish schools, starting with the two universities of Vilna and Warsaw, were closed; the Union of Brześć abolished and the United forcibly brought back to the Orthodox Church; the assets of emigrants and exiles confiscated; the use of the Polish language is prohibited in the administration of Lithuanian and Ruthenian lands. The absolute master of the kingdom became Marshal Paskevič, prince of Warsaw.
Meanwhile, the emigrants, mostly gathered in France, began to carry out a lively political and propaganda activity. But the discords between the democrats and the conservatives, led by Prince Adam Czartoryski (who, recognized by some governments as the representative of the Polish nation, set up a real diplomatic office at the Hôtel Lambert, with his own agents), also resumed abroad. Other parties and committees arose in Brussels (a Union party led by the historian Lelewel) and in Bern (Giovine Polonia, section of Mazzini’s Giovine Europa, which had numerous friends and adherents among the Polish emigrants). Emissaries were sent to Poland to prepare, on new social bases, the revival: but first A. Zawisza and then the heroic Szymon Konarski ended tragically. A little bit best was Lodovico Mierosławski who, sent to Poznań in 1845 to organize a revolt in all the Polish regions, ended up in the prisons of Moabit. However, in Krakow, abandoned by the Austrian troops, a national government was established. Austria then organized the uprising of the Galician peasants which led to the massacre of more than two thousand nobles, and, in agreement with Prussia and Russia, proceeded to annex Krakow. Hopes rose again in 1848. Polish officers and soldiers, animated by ideals of the brotherhood and freedom of peoples, took part in the revolutionary struggles in various regions of Europe. Adam Mickiewicz organized a Polish legion in Rome and Milan, thus resuming the tradition of the Dąbrowski legions. Generals Bem and Dembin′ski, followed by numerous volunteers, they distinguished themselves in the struggles for Hungarian independence. Mierosławski, freed from Berlin prison, organized the Posnania uprising, which also extended to Pomerania, but which after passing successes was overwhelmed by the Prussian armies. A few years later, the diplomatic and military activity led by the Hôtel Lambert, which, hoping to exploit the Crimean war to the advantage of Poland, tried to organize a Polish army in Turkey did not improve any better result.
Yet the idea of regaining freedom by means of insurrection did not abandon the Poles. The example of Italy and the great popularity that Garibaldi enjoyed throughout Poland instilled new hope. Indeed, among the Poles there was no lack of supporters of a collaboration with Russia, but the energetic and unscrupulous action that the Marquis Wielopolski took in this direction, while bringing some real advantages to Poland (in 1862 a high school was inaugurated Polish in Warsaw), did nothing but accelerate the insurrection that radical parties had been preparing for some years.
The revolt of 1863, in which Francesco Nullo participated with other Italians, despite having to fight with much greater difficulties than all the previous ones, quickly spread not only in Russian Poland, but also in Lithuania, and unlike that of 1830, it dragged large sections of the population with it. But the insurrectional troops, poorly armed and too dispersed, could not oppose the Russian regular armies more than a strenuous resistance: on 5 August 1864 the dictator of the insurrection Romualdo Traugutt was hanged in front of the citadel of Warsaw. Only individual departments, operating mainly in the woods, managed to defend themselves for a few more months.
