Dariusz Milewski The horse is as everyone sees it. The Saxon leftovers

After the Northern War, Poland ended up empty‑handed and, once again, ravaged, yet formally independent. In the view of the noble statesmen, the state has been, once again, miraculously saved from heretics and schismatics by Providence, without losing any territory. The reality, however, was far from happy, and the free electionFree electionfree election after the death of Augustus II exposed the sad state of affairs in the country. The King – this time elected in a legal and free manner – Stanisław Leszczyński failed to keep the throne. The Saxon elector and candidate to grab the power in Poland after his father’s death entered into a pact with the Russians, and with their military aid took over the Polish throne. Augustus III (1733‑1763) thus gained power as a ruler de facto dependent on Russia, and remained so until the very end. After his death, the election of Stanisław August Poniatowski, by the grace and choice of Catherine II of Russia, was a pure formality. We may thus say without a trace of doubt that, in the international relations department, the Saxon era left Poland dependent on Russia, a state of affairs that would later disappear and resurface in various forms until 1989.

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Obraz przedstawiający sylwetki Augusta II i Augusta III.

The effective loss of the state’s independence did not prevent the nobility from enjoying their internal liberty, especially that the “alliance” with Russia resulted in very effective border protection. The rule of Augustus II and III – especially that of the latter – marked an era of sometimes incredible weakening of the institution of monarchy, which, according to the nobility, lurked incessantly to grab its subjects’ liberty. Augustus II had been stopped in his tracks, while his son never aspired to encroach upon the freedom of his subjects. The magnates’ factions gained prominence; one of them collaborated with the royal court, while the other stood in opposition. It was evident especially in the times of Augustus III, who, at the beginning of his reign, based his rule on the reform‑oriented Czartoryski Familia. Efforts to modernize the state had been undertaken, especially by increasing the military numbers, as of 1717 sitting at a mere 24 thousand (effectively, even less). The patriots of the Potocki faction kept sabotaging those efforts, shamelessly vetoing the subsequent Sejm sessions. Thus, when the King started collaborting with the opposition, the Czartoryski faction turned its back on the court. It was now them who, notwithstanding their old reform plans, started vetoing the sessions – to prevent the Potocki faction from gaining the upper hand. In the end the Familia decided that Augustus III was useless, and started preparations to depose him. They failed to do it in time, though, as the King passed away in 1763.

As a result of the factions’ clashes, every single Sejm session except for the pacification sejm of 1736 has ben vetoed, and the country was left without the necessary reforms. The factions deemed it better to prevent any changes than to let the opposing party introduce them. It wouldn’t be far from truth to say that this way of thinking became the heritage of the Saxon era, and it seems to persist (to varying degrees) until today.

kon Source: Dariusz Milewski, The horse is as everyone sees it. The Saxon leftovers, „Mówią Wieki” 2016, nr 5, s. 2–4.