LONDON
PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO.
NEW-STREET SQUARE
BY
M. RUFIN PIETROWSKI.
FOLLOWED BY
A NARRATIVE OF RECENT EVENTS IN POLAND.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.
LONDON:
LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, ROBERTS, & GREEN.
1863.
[Pg v]
It has not been thought advisable to give these papers to the publicwithout a few words of explanation to those readers who see them forthe first time in an English dress. It may seem that the three partsof which the book is composed have little connection with each other,but this is not the case. Along with the story of a Polish Exile inSiberia will be found two chapters on the political aspects of Poland.The first of these contains an account of those measures and eventsby which the dismemberment of ancient Poland was effected. But thePoles contend that the wrong done to their country has not stoppedthere; and that she has been not only dismembered, but denationalised.On referring to the Treaty of Vienna they find that this loss ofnationality was not contemplated by the European powers, and that it iscontrary both to the[Pg vi] letter and to the spirit of the Treaties of 1815.By degrees, however, whether rightly or wrongly, Russian supremacy hasasserted itself, and the story of M. Rufin Pietrowski is intended todemonstrate what are the amenities of that régime. The Poles will notsubmit to a government in which they are not allowed to participate;and they are engaged in ceaseless attempts to elude its vigilance, andto defy its power. They wish to organise themselves; and the executive,obliged to act both on the defensive and the offensive towardsthem, has recourse to cruel and arbitrary methods of repression.The narrative of the Siberian Exile is a strange one, but there isno reason to believe that his tale is otherwise than authentic. Thecandour and moderation with which he speaks of the Russian officialsis highly creditable, and it deserves to be noticed, that it is thesystem, rather than the men, which he attacks.
The last paper in this book will be found, without doubt, to be themost interesting. A moment’s reflection will convince its readersthat there is no European country in which so great a change is beingeffected, and of which they hear so little, as Russian Poland. Yet theevents which have recently agitated Poland[Pg vii] are events of historicalinterest, and they are not in themselves unimportant to Western Europe.An outline of their nature and extent is given here. This history of‘twelve months of agitation’ makes us spectators of a struggle whichthe Poles have maintained against the Czar, and in which they haveproved themselves to be still full of that high, haughty, and stubbornspirit of liberty which Edmund Burke discerned in them of yore. Theirrecent efforts towards civilization and self-improvement will notfail to ensure for them the sympathy of all who can discern in itsenergy and its self-control the true greatness of a nation. Sketch