In the 18th-century history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, there are few events that have been as fraught with myths, stereotypes and even misrepresentations, as the Tarnogród Confederation (1715–1717) and, in particular, the Silent Sejm, which lasted only a single day: 1 February 1717.
by Prof. Adam Perłakowski
A certain pattern of thought, repeated for generations and, to my horror, still being pounded into the heads, especially of the younger generation, means that historians are faced with the very difficult, and sometimes even impossible, task of breaking through this stereotypical approach, posing a few basic questions and seeking answers. Sometimes one gets the impression that an attempt to present the deep context of the events closely related to the Tarnogród Confederation and the Silent Sejm is met with complete incomprehension, and potential recipients of such content prefer to be stuck in well-known and long-standing, albeit untrue and schematic, interpretations of historical events.
When writing about the Tarnogród Confederation as a popular nobility, on the surface everything appears very simple in presenting the facts and describing their consequences. This is because, on 26 November 1715, the Polish and Lithuanian nobility, fed up with the politics of August II, the ruler of the Commonwealth from the Saxon Wettin dynasty, established a general confederation in Tarnogród, a small town in what was at the time the Ruthenian Province. It was preceded by confederate unions set up by the nobility in the provinces. Stanisław Ledóchowski, then Chamberlain of Krzemieniec, was appointed Marshal of the general union. Of course, it seems reasonable to ask the question: why did the confederation come about at all?
The main goal of the confederates was to force the king to evacuate Saxon troops from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and to prevent any changes to the state’s legal and political system. Saxon troops had been stationed on Polish territory since 1713, primarily as a consequence of the crisis in Polish-Turkish relations. In 1713, there was a real threat of war between the Commonwealth and the Ottoman Porte. Saxon soldiers were to provide significant support to the Polish-Lithuanian army in the event of conflict. When the Warsaw-Constantinople line relaxed, August II did not at all intend to send his troops back to the Electorate, counting on them being maintained at the expense of the Polish and Lithuanian taxpayer. Another factor was added to this; the nobility was alarmed by the opinions circulating in the public sphere about August II’s desire to strengthen the monarch’s power, which, in their view, could be tantamount to the introduction of absolutum dominium, and would mean the end of their liberties. In the eyes of the nobility, the king himself was an unpredictable ruler who had broken his word on more than one occasion.
Undoubtedly, the Polish monarch was indeed thinking of strengthening his power, and the Saxon army stationed on the territory of the Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania could serve as armed support for the royal plans in the case of resistance from the nobility-dominated society. However, was it the point to introduce a model of government known from Saxony, and above all based on succession to the throne? Certainly such a move was impossible in 1715, but the implementation of August II’s intentions was staggered, and could have resulted in a quasi-absolutist model of government.
As mentioned, the confederates expected August II to immediately and fully evacuate the Saxon troops from the territory of the Commonwealth. The Polish monarch, in turn, had no intention of yielding to the demands of the nobility. As early as the summer of 1715, the first clashes took place in the Krakow Province, and soon the whole of southern Poland was gripped by a movement against the Saxon troops, culminating in the formation of a general union in Tarnogród.
However, the nobility’s movement did not only mean the armed uprising of Polish and Lithuanian noblemen. A very important element of this movement was also the willingness to hold talks and negotiations with the monarch. This resulted directly from the ideology of the nobility, which regarded talks and the resulting compromise as the only means of achieving peace and reform in a state whose system was based on the principles of nobility-controlled democracy. This was clearly visible as early as January of 1716, when an agreement was concluded in Rawa between the king and the confederates, introducing a ceasefire, opening up the possibility of evacuating Saxon troops from the Commonwealth, and offering hope for a compromise.
Unfortunately for the Commonwealth and its subsequent fate, the confederates rejected the Rawa settlement after a month, and invited Tsar Peter I Romanov to be the mediator in the dispute between the nobility and the king in February 1716. They decided not to take up the mediation offer by the papal nuncio in Poland, Girolamo Grimaldi, and later by the imperial envoy, Damian Hugo von Virmondt. The Russian ruler sent his diplomat Grigoriy Fyodorovich Dolgoruki, who officially represented the Tsar. To make matters worse, in the spring of 1716, Peter I announced his readiness to introduce 18,000 Russian troops into the Commonwealth, whose task was – in the absence of any possibility of a compromise between August II and the confederates – to pacify the country. Moreover, the Russian monarch was concerned both about the aspirations of the Polish ruler to consolidate his power, and his desire to make separatist peace with the Swedish King Karl XII Wittelsbach. The Tsar did not even rule out dethroning Wettin with the help of the confederates.
Despite the fact that its authorities offered to mediate with Russia, the Tarnogród Confederation was a highly anti-magnate movement. The Polish and Lithuanian magnates were accused of collaborating with Saxon troops stationed on Polish territory and conspiring with August II to introduce absolutism. When successive rounds of negotiations with the royal side failed to produce results, the confederates decided to take an unprecedented step. They imprisoned both hetmans, Adam Mikołaj Sieniawski, Grand Hetman of the Crown, and Ludwik Konstanty Pociej, Grand Hetman of Lithuania. G.F. Dolgoruki was involved in their defence and release, realising that, especially in Pociej’s case, removing him from the office of hetman would significantly reduce Russia’s influence on the internal situation in the Commonwealth (since Pociej was widely regarded as an ‘abominable Russian’, a man entirely sold out to Moscow’s interests. Eventually, the hetmans were freed, but their popularity in noble society declined almost to zero.
On the other hand, August II initially expressed little willingness to settle either. When successive rounds of talks aimed at pacifying the country failed to yield results (in Lublin from 13 June 1716, then in Łęczna and in Kazimierz on the Vistula), the monarch decided to ask for Dolgoruki’s armed assistance. This was possible under arrangements made by the Polish King with the Russian Tsar during a visit to Gdańsk by the latter, in April and May 1716, which were a threat to the Commonwealth, and envisaged the participation of the Russian army in the pacification of the Polish-Lithuanian state.
In the summer of 1716, the Russians crossed the border into Poland and appeared near Lviv in October. The Russian corps was headed by General Carl-Ewald von Rönne. The presence of Russian troops forced the confederates to resume negotiations with August II to some extent, and the defeat of the Tarnogród army against the Saxons in the largest battle during the union, at Kowalewo in October 1716, meant that, from then on, the only way to achieve compromise and peace in the country was through negotiations. These ended with the signing of a treaty in Warsaw on 3 November 1716. Its ratification took place during a one-day ceremonial sitting of the Sejm in Warsaw on 1 February 1717. It is possible that the originator of this completely new (one-day) Sejm formula was the Bishop of Kuyavia, Konstanty Felicjan Szaniawski, one of the negotiators representing the king’s side during negotiations with the confederates.
And it was around this Sejm that the greatest number of myths and simplifications, propagated by historians and popularisers of history, arose. Unfortunately, many of these also circulate in scholarly discourse in the form of monographs and articles in foreign languages. The most characteristic element of this false narrative is the alleged intervention and pressure exerted by G.F. Dolgoruki, who not only intimidated the participants of the negotiations between August II and the confederates, but also, on 1 February 1717, ordered the Sejm building to be surrounded by a force of several thousand Russian soldiers and forbade anyone to speak. In fact, Dolgoruki was removed both from the final confederate sessions and from influencing the final wording of the treaty.
Admittedly, he still appeared on 31 December 1716 to intervene in the interests of both the Crown and the Lithuanian grand hetmans, but his voice was completely ignored. In parallel, in November and December of 1716, works were underway on preparing the constitution of the future Sejm. All the proposals put forward by the king and the Confederation authorities had to obtain the sanction of both sides. Finally, the drafts were signed on 30 January 1717, and on 1 February the Sejm passed the laws without any Russian military presence. Although the manner in which they were passed met with strong opposition from the nobility, their content was never rejected or questioned by them.
Without a doubt, the Silent Sejm was the most important parliamentary event of the Polish-Saxon union, and, preceded by the difficult negotiations between August II and the confederates, it represented the maximum that the Polish-Lithuanian state could manage at that time. Of course, the Sejm’s constitutions should also be analysed within the context of a type of ‘invitation’ to the society of the Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in further reform efforts (for they provided a very good foundation for future generations in the act of strengthening the idea of modernising the state). The Sejm left behind an incredibly rich legislative legacy, including constitutions that brought about a comprehensive fiscal and military reform in the Commonwealth. It was in 1717 that solutions were introduced in the form of a fixed budget, the funds from which were allocated to the army (unfortunately weak in numbers). On the legal and constitutional level, the Sejm significantly strengthened the king’s power and placed the most valuable part of the Crown army under the monarch’s control. The basic principles of the Polish-Saxon union and contacts between the two states were also put in order. As concerns the political system, the power of the hetmans was curtailed, especially with regard to conducting foreign policy independent of the Sejm, and the right of the Sejm to limit (extend) its own deliberations, as well as to levy taxes and enlist the army on its own, was abolished. Legislation was passed targeting dissenting nobles, who were gradually barred from participating in public life. A year later, in 1718, the final Protestant MP was removed from the house during the General Sejm in Grodno.
On the one hand, these provisions were a challenge to the firmly rooted idea of the equality of dissenters in faith (at least since the 1573 Warsaw Confederation), but on the other hand they were nothing unusual on a European scale. They were part of the policy of confessionalisation of the state, so typical of many countries of 17th- and 18th-century Europe (England, the states of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, and others), hence the claim that the Silent Sejm, with its faith-based legislation, was evidence of religious intolerance in the Commonwealth and perpetuated the ‘Catholic Pole’ stereotype is a complete misunderstanding. One should also take into account the experience of the Polish-Lithuanian nobility, which had waged wars against non-Catholic (Turkey, the Crimean Khanate), Protestant (Sweden, Transylvania), or Orthodox (the Muscovite State, the Zaporizhian Cossacks) countries for more than 70 years. During these wars, the religious element played a huge role for all sides of the conflict, was repeatedly used for propaganda and, for the Polish nobility, was proof that true nobility obliged them to defend both the Commonwealth and the sacred Catholic faith. Incidentally, the Turks, Tartars, Swedes or Russians viewed their participation in conflicts and their religion in the same way.
Nor was the Silent Sejm entirely ‘silent’, as it was generally referred to. The Speaker of the assembly, Stanisław Ledóchowski, gave a speech welcoming and bidding farewell to the king, there were vetoes on some of the resolutions, both collective (e.g., MPs from the Minsk and Płock provinces) and individual (Crown notary Michał Potocki), attempts were made to discuss the contents of the house’s resolutions with the assembled deputies, and finally, the senators who had appeared at the Sejm, albeit in small numbers, took the floor, examples being Field Hetman of the Crown, Stanisław Mateusz Rzewuski, and Great Chancellor of the Crown, Jan Szembek.
This assembly was certainly unique for another reason. As Robert Kołodziej pointed out, if one counts as part of the Sejm the time during which its constitutions were debated (from autumn 1716 and onwards), then it would have lasted as long as 129 days. The Sejm differed considerably from other assemblies in the way it functioned, even though, at first glance, it attempted to adhere to the fixed elements comprising what is referred to as Sejm tradition. The Sejm was held, as always, at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, and the traditional Sejm ceremonies were preserved, including the welcoming and farewell to the monarch by the house, the audience of army deputies, the appointment of resident senators to the king and, finally, the closing of the session with the singing of the Te Deum laudamus song of thanksgiving. However, the fact that the Silent Sejm was convened in such circumstances as these, the course of the resolutions’ proceedings and, last but not least, the atmosphere in the chamber, certainly gave it the character of an exceptional Sejm, for which it would have been difficult to find parallels in earlier parliamentary practice. One example is the fact that the contents of the laws were discussed before the Sejm during the consultations of the so-called Plenipotentiaries’ Conference, rather than after the General Sejm, as was customary.
The Silent Sejm played, dare I say, the most important role in reforming the state during the Saxon era. It was undoubtedly a spectacular political success, an expression of compromise between the nobility and the monarch. Until what is known as the ‘Great Sejm’ (1788–1792), it was likely the only time when the nobility and the monarch, despite their differences, seriously and substantively discussed the repair of the state. Until 1788, there was no other assembly to undertake such wide-ranging and comprehensive changes in Poland. Even when compared with the later Sejms of the Stanisław II August’s era (1764 and 1776), it appears to us as one of the most important reformative events in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of the Saxon period.
Paradoxically, this fact greatly influenced the further fate of the state, and served as a type of memento for the future. Since no change comparable to that of 1717 had taken place for over 70 years, this meant that the Polish-Lithuanian state had put the brakes on reform, so to speak. The opposition of the hetmans, and a large part of the nobility-controlled society, and finally the opposition of Russia and other neighbouring states (Prussia and Austria) to attempts at systemic change – which meant a de facto internal consolidation of the Commonwealth, and an increase in its importance and prestige on the international arena – made it impossible to capitalise on this doubtless success of Polish reform-minded thinking that was the Sejm assembly of 1 February 1717.
Author: Prof. Adam Perłakowski
Translation: Mikołaj Sekrecki
