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The Polish-Lithuanian unions in Polish historical memory in
the 19th and early 20th century. The case of the Union of
Horodło
Jolanta Sikorska-Kulesza
University of Warsaw
Researching what and how societies remember, to use the title of Paul
Connerton’s book,1 as well as what societies forget from their past and how
they do it, is not only interesting, but also important. This area of research is
also increasingly popular with Polish historians. In the case of Central-Eastern
Europe, the importance of this research is connected with the role ascribed to
the impact of cultural memory on national identity and the influence of the
collective historical memory on contemporary relationships between the
nations and their states, which in this part of Europe is, as it seems, real and
more significant the in Western Europe.
In the last two centuries, Central-Eastern Europe has not only been the
space where the empires – Prussia/Germany, Russia and the Habsburg Austria
– vied for control or where the social and civilisational progress took place. It
has also been the space of great political instability, with some states falling
and others rising, of huge shifts in state borders and of forced migrations. As a
result, perceptions concerning the same events varied and still vary, depending
on particular ethnic groups and nations. The collective memory often feeds on
stereotypes, departs from historiography and retains collective emotions,
especially those of dislike and mistrust. This is how the divergences and
clashes between historical narrations belonging to particular nations arose.
One of the most important facts in the history of today’s Poland,
Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine was the existence of the legal union between
the Crown of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. This union of states
1
P. Connerton, How Societies Remember, Cambridge University Press 1989.
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lasted, in various forms,2 for four hundred years: from the Middle Ages until
the end of the 18th century. Its durability is a unique phenomenon in the entire
history of Europe.
The Poles and the Lithuanians created one of the largest states in
Europe. But from the end of the 19th century onwards the assessments of it, and
also the ways in which it was remembered, by the successors of these nations
began to diverge.
In the present essay, I will use the example of the Horodło Pact in 1413
to describe the Polish cultural memory of this Pact and, more broadly, the
Polish narration regarding the Polish-Lithuanian alliance, which functioned in
the public space in the 19th and early 20th century.3 Two points to be examined
will be the patriotic/religious demonstration known as the Horodło Assembly,
which took place at the outskirts of Horodło in 1861, and the set of press texts
occasioned by the 500th anniversary of the Horodło Pact, which was celebrated
in 1913. These two dates, 1861 and 1913, mark crucial moments in the history
of the attitudes towards the Polish-Lithuanian alliance evinced by the Polish
public opinion in the period of the Partitions. The related events indicate how
the changing political situation influenced the historical memory and how the
past was being used in the service of the current politics. Our scrutiny will
show who, how and to what purpose recollected the past unions; also who
remembered and who chose to forget them, in all the cases – for what reasons.
The matter is multifaceted and extensive in itself, conceptually complex and
ambiguous; a short essay can only explain it in a very simplified manner.
To begin with, a presentation of the main facts about the PolishLithuanian unions will provide the basic historical context.4 In the year 1385 to
1386, Jagiello (Jogaila in Lithuanian, Jagiełło in Polish), the grand duke of
Lithuania, adopted Christianity in the Roman Catholic rite, married Hedwig
(Jadwiga) of Anjou, the queen of Poland, and was crowned as King Ladislaus
2
The legal character of the documents signed at particular moments of the allinace’s existence
(i.e. whether these alliances were truly unions) is not relevant to the current analysis as it did
not influence the popular awareness in the 19th century, which is the focus of my interest.
3
The historiography of the time is not of interest to us, although it certainly influenced, even if
indirectly, the contents of the popular narration concerning the unions.
4
Specialist literature concerning the Polish-Lithuanian unions is vast; basic information will be
found in any synthesis of Polish history. Cf. also G. Błaszczyk, Dzieje stosunków polskolitewskich [The History of Polish-Lithuanian Relations], vol. 2: Od Krewa do Lublina [From
Kreva to Lublin] part 1, Poznań 2007.
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(Władysław) II of Poland. He also signed at Kreva (then in Lithuania, now in
Belarus) the document known as the Union of Kreva. It was a turning point in
the history of this part of Europe for a number of reasons: firstly, the baptism
of Lithuania concluded the process of Christianisation in Europe;5 secondly, it
marked the birth of the constitutional alliance between Poland and Lithuania
(later transformed into one federation state), with the resultant political entity
covering the territories of today’s Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and
parts of Russia, Latvia and Estonia; finally, this union began a period of great
prosperity in all these lands.
In 1413, about two decades after the Union of Kreva, King Władysław
Jagiełło of Poland and Grand Duke Vytautas (Witold) of Lithuania signed a
new union, named after the place of its signing, Horodło (a town which today
is situated on the very border of the European Union). Four documents which
were signed there would in the future tie the two states and two societies
together, even though one of them essentially guaranteed the Grand Duchy’s
independence. The pacts of Horodło confirmed the dynastic union and
established some Polish legal institutions and privileges of the nobility as valid
also in Lithuania. Another important decision was that forty-seven Polish
noblemen agreed to allow forty-seven Catholic boyars from Lithuania to share
their ancestral coats of arms; both parties swore mutual allegiance. In the 19th
century, this act, known as the act of adoption, was the best known and most
often recalled of all the Horodło documents because of its symbolic
significance.6
The Horodło agreements resulted in the fact that state institutions of
Lithuania began to resemble those of Poland and the gentry class of both states
became similar. This was the base for the real union, which was established
150 years later, and the origin of one combined state: the Commonwealth of
Two Nations. The latter pacts were signed in 1569 in Lublin by the parliament
and by Sigismundus Augustus (Zygmunt August), the king of Poland and
5
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania included also lands with Orthodox population (today’s
Ukraine and Belarus).
6
W. Semkowicz, Braterstwo szlachty polskiej z bojarstwem litewskim w unii horodelskiej 1413
roku [Polish Gentry’s Brotherhood with the Lithuanian Boyars in the Horodło Union of 1413],
in: Polska i Litwa w dziejowym stosunku [Poland and Lithuania’s Historical Relation], Warsaw
1914.
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40
grand duke of Lithuania in one person. The Union of Lublin was the last and
most important union between Poland and Lithuania.
The Commonwealth of Two Nations was multiethnic, multicultural and
multireligious. It is worth recalling that the territory of the Commonwealth
was inhabited by the Roman Catholic Poles and Lithuanians, the Orthodox
(later Eastern Catholic, then called Uniate) Ruthenians (today Ukrainians and
Belarusians) and by the Jews. In the 15th and 16th century, the Commonwealth
went through a period of great political, economic and cultural development.
The gentry of the Commonwealth of Two Nations (which, in fact, included
three or more nations) created one political community, which followed
Western models present in the Crown of Poland and spoke the Polish language.
This state was to fall only in the end of the 18th century, in the process of three
partitions carried out by the neighbouring empires: Prussia, Russia and Austria.
However, the fall of the actual state did not mean the fall of the idea of
a common state. Throughout the 19th century the social and political elite,
which considered itself the successor of the former Polish-Lithuanian
federation state, aspired to regain independence within the borders as they had
been before the Partitions. Especially in the early period the tradition of the
Polish-Lithuanian state was still very powerful, manifesting itself in attempts at
regaining independence (1812, 1831). In fact, in the period of the Partitions the
ties between the social elites tightened, in spite of new borders and existence in
three separate states. This was due not only to joint participation in wars and
uprisings, but mainly to popular culture and especially to literature. Many of
the Polish Romantics were born in the lands of the former Grand Duchy of
Lithuania, including Adam Mickiewicz, the most famous Polish poet, who was
born in today’s Belarus and began his epic Pan Tadeusz with the invocation:
“Lithuania! My motherland”. In the last part of the 19th century, Henryk
Sienkiewicz, the most popular Polish historical writer and a Nobel laureate,
consolidated this sense of community by means of his historical novels.
In the 19th century, the tradition of the Polish-Lithuanian unions was for
the first time used for political purposes, and in a very visible manner.7 In 1861,
7
J. Sikorska-Kulesza, Z tradycji unii horodelskiej w okresie zaborów. Konteksty polityczne
[Tradition of the Union of Horodło during the Partition Period. Political Context], in: Od
Horodła do Horodła. Unia horodelska – dzieje i pamięć (1413-2013). Wystawa Muzeum
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i.e. not long before the January Uprising, activists of the national movement
and
animators
of
patriotic/religious
manifestations
designed
large
demonstrations on the anniversaries of the Lublin Union (the two hundred
ninety-second) and Horodło Union (the four hundred forty-eighth). The
organisers made sure the visual symbols of unity would be very much on
display during those events. The largest manifestations were to take place on
the borders of Poland, Lithuania and Rus’ (today’s Ukraine),8 where pilgrims
approaching from both directions were to meet during a ceremony that was
essentially religious, although it included national elements. This was intended
to symbolise the restoration of the historical union and to point to its validity.
And so on 12 August, the Lublin Union anniversary celebrations took place in
Kowno (today’s Kaunas) on a bridge crossing the Neman River on the border
of Poland and Lithuania. Iconographic records of this celebration were later
disseminated in the form of thousands of copies of photographs and drawings
intended to make popular the event which symbolised the union’s durability
and resilience.9
As regards the celebrations commemorating the Horodło Union, which
were to be staged on 10 October in the town of Horodło, on a bridge over the
Bug River that had once separated the Kingdom of Poland and Rus’, the
Russian army banned both the meeting of pilgrims coming from the Polish and
Russian (Volhynian) banks of the river and the celebrations in the town. The
commanding general gave permission only for a Holy Mass to be conducted
for the pilgrims who arrived on the Polish bank. Russian soldiers monitored the
event.10
According to one of the organisers, in 1861 near Horodło not only was
the union between Poland and Lithuania renewed, but also an additional union
of these two nations with Rus’ took place. The Union Renewal Act stated: “We
Zamojskiego w Zamościu i Muzeum Historii Polski. Muzeum Zamojskie w Zamościu 29 IX-23
XI 2013 [From Horodło to Horodło. The Horodło Union – history and memory (1413-2013.
Exhibition Organised by the Zamość Museum and the Polish History Museum in Zamość,
Held at the Zamość Museum, 29 Sept. – 23 Nov. 2013)], Zamość-Warsaw 2013, pp. 81-102.
8
In 1815 the Congress of Vienna instituted the Kingdom of Poland united by a personal union
with Russia. After the Commonwealth had been partitioned, the former Grand Duchy of
Lithuania (today’s Lithuania and Belarus) and Rus’ (today’s Ukraine) found themselves within
the borders of Russia.
9
Reproduced in: Od Horodła do Horodła…, pp. 186, 187.
10
For the fullest description of the event, cf. P. Graboś, Manifestacja w Horodle 10 X 1861
roku [The Demonstration in Horodło on 10 Oct. 1861], Lublin 2011.
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declare once more the union of all lands of Poland, Lithuania and Rus’ on the
grounds of complete equality of the three nations and all religions combined”.11
The Act, which was read aloud after the Holy Mass, was confirmed with the
signatures of the meeting’s participants (diarists report a few thousand present),
who represented various lands of the former Commonwealth, as well as various
religious creeds and various professions; the conspirators had taken care to
provide an adequate cross-section and underlined this need in a declaration
calling all and sundry to attend the celebrations.
Thus, the Horodlo celebrations were chiefly meant to underline the
presence of Rus’ in the union on the same grounds as the equal and free nations
which were, as it was then thought, creating one state. Paradoxically, the 1413
Horodło Union, of which Ruthenians as Orthodox Christians were not
beneficiaries (the act of adoption concerned only Catholic boyars), in 1861
became a symbol of the union of all three nations. A medal was distributed “to
commemorate the first union of fraternity, equality of rights and liberties
between Lithuania, Rus’ and Poland”. This was, of course, a result of the fact
that the organisers of the manifestation considered it of paramount importance
to include Rus’/Ukraine into actions which were to lay the groundwork for a
future national uprising against Russia.
The manifestations were also an attempt at popularising the knowledge
about the unions among the lower classes participating in these events
(thousands of people, including peasants and burghers, were encouraged to
take part). Similarly as after the anniversary of the Union of Lublin, drawings
showing the Horodło celebrations and imbued with much symbolism were
disseminated, this time reproduced in the technique of lithography. 12 As
regards political aims, the future insurgents were adamant that the Polish state
should be restored within its borders from before the first Partition. These
people came from different areas of former Poland; for instance Apollo
Korzeniowski, the originator of the manifestations and the father of Joseph
Conrad, came from Podolia (Rus’/Ukraine). The entire political elite, whose
members spoke Polish and belonged to the gentry, was characterised by a sense
11
K. Gregorowicz, Zarys główniejszych wypadków w województwie lubelskim w r. 1861
[Outline of Key Events in the Lubin Voivodship in 1861], ed. and introduced by W.
Śladkowski, Lublin 1984.
12
Reproduced in: Od Horodła do Horodła…, pp. 199, 200.
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of unity. The emblem of the underground Polish state in January Uprising of
1863 was symbolic of this change. It was the only time in the history of Poland
when the national emblem respected the three parts of the state from before the
Partitions, as it included the White Eagle of Poland, the Chase of Lithuania and
Archangel Michael as the emblem of Rus’, all on one shield topped with the
Jagiellonian crown.13
The year 1913 was the fifth centennial of the Union of Horodło. Fifty
years having passed from the “renewal of the union” gala in 1861, the lack of
public celebration of this anniversary can be perceived as symbolic. The
anniversary was only referred to in occasional press articles, even though over
the period of the previous fifty years references to its tradition had been many.
“Round” anniversaries were always celebrated in Galicia – which was
autonomous under the Habsburg rule – and among the political emigrants; the
300th anniversary of the Lublin Union in 1869 or the 600th anniversary of the
Kreva Union in 1885 are cases in point. Various monuments were erected, for
instance the Lublin Union mound in Lvov or the monument of Queen Jadwiga
and King Jagiełło in Cracow. Popular literature stressed the unity of all the
lands and glorified the union of Poland and Lithuania. For instance in 1861
Maria Konopnicka, a female poet very popular at the turn of the 19th century,
wrote a long poem about the Horodło Assembly.14
New features that emerged in the relations between the Poles, the
Lithuanians and the Ukrainians at the very end of the 19th century became the
main factor influencing the debate on the historical unions in the first decades
of the 20th century. In fact, at the turn of the century the process of
emancipation of modern Ukrainian and Lithuanian nations underwent a marked
intensification. In order to find their own national identity, these nations were
turning away from the Res Publica, the Commonwealth, which had been ruled
by the gentry class, and also away from their own but distinctly Polonised
elites. Instead, they turned towards peasants, who had preserved their mother
13
On its connection with the Horodło rally, cf. F. Ramotowska, Herb państwa polskiego
okresu Powstania Styczniowego (1861-1864) [The Emblem of the Polish State in the Period of
the January Uprising (1861-1864)], “Miscellanea Historico-Archivistica”, vol. 5, 1994.
14
M. Konopnicka [P. Surma, Przez głębinę, [Through the Depths], Cracow 1907 (reprinted
Lublin 2011). In 1907, in the special issue (4) of the Warsaw weekly “Tygodnik Ilustrowany”
dedicated to Lithuania, outstanding Polish writers such as, among others, H. Sienkiewicz, B.
Prus and M. Konopnicka published works which emphasised the sense of Polish-Lithuanian
unity.
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tongue. As a result, many narratives regarding the unions existed among the
Commonwealth’s “descendants”; in some of them the unions, and the
Commonwealth of Two Nations itself, were judged unfavourably as the source
of the process in the course of which these two nations lost their individual
statehood. One of them was the Lithuanian narrative of Jagiello as a villain.15
The Poles were accused of “colonialism” and enforced Polonisation, as the
Lithuanians wanted to forget the times when they were presented in the Polish
narrations as the younger or, in fact, adopted brothers from a barbaric land who
owed everything to the Poles.16 This was the reason why the Lithuanians began
to refer to the tradition of pagan Lithuania as their “national” history, as well as
to the Lithuania under the leadership of Grand Duke Vytautas, who symbolised
Lithuanian separatism from Poland. Interestingly, an analogy to the national
identity-oriented descriptions of the Horodło Union is found in the “Gazeta
Warszawska” newspaper, which was strongly influenced by the National
Democracy. Apart from some content that was typical of the Polish pro-Union
narration, the article stressed the role of the Piast dynasty, Poland’s first and
native royal dynasty. The “historical policy” implemented by the National
Democracy movement popularised the Piast tradition as an exclusively Polish
heritage’ it also referred to the state as located within the confines of the
ethnically pure Poland and to its greatness achieved under the rule of the native
dynasty. This does not mean that the National Democrats rejected the heritage
of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; an article celebrating the anniversary
of the Horodło Union assessed it as a dazzling manifestation of the Polish
political genius produced by the Piast era.17
Naturally, this was dictated by a divergence in the political plans. The
objective articulated by the Lithuanian and Ukrainian national movements was
the formation of independent countries; the project of restoring the old
15
On the Lithuanian narrative, cf. J. Kiaupiene, 500-letnia rocznica unii horodelskiej 1413
roku. Między kulturą polityczną a pamięcią historyczną [500th Anniversary of the Union of
Horodło of 1413. Between Political Culture and Historical Memory], in: Unia horodelska 1413,
ed. L. Korczak, “Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego. Prace historyczne” 141, fasc.
2 (2014), pp. 395-407.
16
Interestingly on this topic in A. Nowak, Horodło z perspektywy XX-XXI wieku: pamięć
modernizacji, pamięć republiki, pamięć imperium [Horodło from the Perspective of the 20th
and 21st Century: Memory of Modernisation, Memory of the Republic, Memory of the Empire],
in: Unia horodelska 1413, pp. 444-445.
17
Wielka rocznica [The Great Anniversary], “Gazeta Warszawska” no. 269, 2 Oct. 1913, p. 1.
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Commonwealth was thus rejected. Divergent assessments of the past had a
deeper context as well, connected with the process of creating the so-called
“contemporary” or ethnic nations. These nations, especially the young ones,
constructed their identity on the basis of separation from and opposition to
others. Still, it needs to be stated that the most conservative part of the Polish
elites rejected the idea of recognising these ethnic groups as separate nations.
The tension between the Poles, the Lithuanians and the Ukrainians
resonates in the articles published in Polish press on the occasion of the 500th
centennial of the Union of Horodło. Everyone referred to the current situation,
which affected mostly those citizens of Lithuania and Ukraine who identified
themselves with Poland and Polishness (and those with a double identity as
well); hence the differences in accentuation evident in the press in Warsaw and
Vilnius. The “former brothers” from Lithuania were reproached for their
ingratitude or even for betraying the oaths of love and trust sworn during the
heraldic adoption process in 1413 and again in 1861. Questions were asked
whether this meant an end of the former national and political union; the shared
fortunes of the two nations throughout the 19th century were recalled. The
Polish readers of, for instance, “Kurier Litewski” (issued in Vilna) 18 were
generally soothed with the declarations that the contestation of the union by the
Lithuanian revival movement was only temporary, like a sickness that each
young movement – especially a peasant movement, which the Lithuanian one
was – needed to go through. Attempts were made to democratise the tradition
of the Polish-Lithuanian union by acknowledging that the Commonwealth’s
greatness was owed to the people in general, not only to the gentry, as
underlined by the editorial in “Kurier Litewski”: “[…] The lot of those who
laboured at the plough or in a workshop was hard indeed, but their toil was not
in vain. The commoners helped to create the Motherland and thus are also
lawful co-owners of those most precious assets which the past handed down to
us”.19
The core of the Polish narration remained constant throughout the 19th
century. It was founded on the motto “Free with the free ones and equal with
18
J. Hłasko, Wielka rocznica [The Great Anniversary], “Kurier Litewski” no. 223, 2/12 Oct.
1913. In 1913, the Polish daily “Kurier Litewski” was heavily influenced by the national
democrats and conservatives.
19
Ibidem.
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the equal ones”; the union between Poland and Lithuania was interpreted as
based on mutual love, fraternity and devotion. It was also presented as being in
opposition to Bismarck’s policy, run with iron and blood, i.e. as voluntary and
bringing benefits to all parties involved. In a wider context, it was also
described as a part of Poland’s mission to uphold Christianity and civilisation
in Eastern Europe, and later of its mission to defend Europe from the Orthodox
Russia and the Ottoman Empire.
To sum up, the Polish-Lithuanian union was one of the most important
historical events that functioned in public space in the 19th century, but the
meaning of its tradition underwent a change. In 1861, the concept of the union
was still alive; there existed a sense of unity; the old project was still relevant.
But the Horodło rally was the last demonstration shared by members of all the
three nations to take place in the territory of Poland. In 1913, the project was
already in its death throes. The idea of bringing back the multinational
Commonwealth was unsuccessfully adapted to fit the time and it was rejected
by the contemporary ethno-political nations.
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