Austrian Bureaucrats and Polish Revolutionaries as Allies? Czartoryski, Galicia, and Plans for a Future Polish Uprising 1831-1846

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article investigates the debates of the Hôtel Lambert, the constitutional monarchist wing of the Great Polish Emigration, led by Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, about the Austrian rule in Galicia, with a specific focus on the question of the position of Austrian bureaucracy in plans for the future Polish uprising. From the Hôtel Lambert’s point of view, Galicia was an integral part of a restored independent Polish state. Discussions about its strategic position and the role of its inhabitants were a critical part of plans for the future uprising. The local Austrian bureaucracy was also among those groups who were, therefore, debated. The article concludes that although Czartoryski shared the generally accepted negative image of the bureaucracy in his pre-emigration writings, once in Paris all plans for the uprising emphasized the importance of maintaining the functioning administration. Consequently, according to the Hôtel Lambert’s plans, bureaucrats in Galicia (and in the Prussian and Russian partitions as well) would play one of the crucial roles during the Polish insurrection. Either voluntarily, receiving benefits like promotion, or by force, under the direct supervision of insurgents. In that case, they would be later released from the service and expelled from the country. 1 1 Several of the arguments presented in this article had been previously discussed in the author’s study, “Z kolonizátorov asimilovaní, z nepriateľov spojenci: Germanizácia Haliče z pohl’adu Adama Jerzyho Czartoryského a Hôtel Lambert 1830 – 1846 [From Colonizers to those who Were Assimilated, from Enemies to Allies: Germanization of Galicia through the Eyes of Adam Jerzy Czartoryski and Hôtel Lambert 1830 –1846]. In Dlhá cesta od monarchie k republike : zmeny režimov, myslenia a životného štšlu na Slovensku a v strednej Eurôpe od polovice 19. do polovice 20. storočia. Jubileum Dušana Kováča. - Bratislava : HistorickÝ ústav SAV : Veda, vydavate’stvo SAV, 2021, p. 65-82. ISBN 978-80-224-1921-5.