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previous: Chapter 19 This webpage reproduces a chapter of The Story of Lithuania By Thomas G. Chase printed by Stratford House, Inc. New York, 1946 The text is in the public domain. This page has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know! next: Chapter 21

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 p187  Chapter XX
Lithuania and Napoleon

(The numbers link directly to the sections.)

The period of one‑hundred-twenty years, during which the major portion of Lithuania remained under Russian occupation, was characterized by constant efforts on the part of the Lithuanians to regain their right to direct their own political, cultural and economic destinies in a manner they saw fit. This was manifested in no less than four major outbreaks or revolts against the Russian regime, and was supported by a rapid development of a vivid consciousness of Lithuanian nationality in the lives of the Lithuanian people. Instead of annihilating the Lithuanian nation, this period of subjugation rather represented its true and thorough regeneration. It is during this era that the Lithuanians finally and flatly rejected all insistent proposals of their Polish neighbors to recreate the Polish-Lithuanian Republic of 1569‑1795; that they struggled against the fierce process of Russification, which was calculated to exterminate their name and language; that they desperately sought to preserve their national characteristics in Lithuania Minor — the area occupied by Prussia and subjected to ruthless denationalization by the German overlords. And it was the peasant and the serf who resisted the dangers presented by this threefold movement under Polish, Russian and German auspices. Just as the seed dies in order to produce life, so the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1227‑1795), quite contrary to prevalent popular opinion, seemed to die momentarily during the partitions, only to bring forth a more active and a more fruitful existence.

 p200  1. Partitioned Lithuania

Under Russian domination, the territories of Lithuania Major⁠1, in 1815, divided into the Russian governments (gubernia) of Vilnius and Gardinas. In 1825, a threefold division, consisting of the governments of Vilnius, Gardinas and Kaunas, which perdured until the overthrow of the Tsars in the twentieth century, was introduced. Over each of these administrative units a Russian governor exercised jurisdiction with the aid of special district councils and courts. The class distinctions, which had existed in Lithuania, were not disrupted. The landed gentry remained the most influential class of the population, with the privilege of participating in district dietines, electing deputies to the diets of the gubernias, and even occupying certain official government posts. The burghers retained substantially the same autonomy they had formerly enjoyed. Similarly, the status of the serfs or peasants was not improved; they remained under the absolute control of their masters. And since Catherine II and Paul I had divided many of the Grand Ducal and ecclesiastical estates of Lithuania among their officers and generals, many of the Lithuanian serfs fell under the sway of Russian noblemen. Catherine's death, soon after the final partitions, however, postponed the abolition of the ancient Lithuanian Statute, which continued in force until 1840.

The Suvalkai area, lying on the left bank of the Nemunas, had been annexed at the final partitions by Prussia and experienced a development far different than that of the rest of Lithuania. During the brief twelve-year Prussian rule (1795‑1807), the Lithuanian gentry and the Lithuanian peasant-serfs were granted no greater rights or privileges than those possessed by the gentry and the serfs of East Prussia. After Napoleon's conquest of Prussia, the Suvalkai area was attached to the Duchy of Warsaw in 1807. Serfdom was abolished, but the peasants were released without any grant of land; the Napoleonic Code was promulgated. And although  p201 shortly afterwards, Russia assumed rather complete control of the Duchy of Warsaw and the Suvalkai area (which union represented in a somewhat symbolic fashion the partitioned Polish-Lithuanian Republic), political and social conditions were more tolerable there than in Lithuania Major.

Lithuania Minor, the eastern sector of East Prussia (chiefly between the Pregel and Nemunas Rivers), annexed by the German Knights of the Cross from the vanquished Old Prussians during the thirteenth century, had retained a comparatively large Lithuanian-speaking population even during the nineteenth century. So predominant was the Lithuanian element in this particular area, that the Prussian chancery, some three hundred years after the conquests of the Teutonic Knights, had found it necessary to use the Lithuanian language for the promulgation of decrees and other matters in the seventeenth century. Nevertheless, in the last half of that same century, a very active process of Germanization was inaugurated against the Lithuanian inhabitants. Various regulations attempted to reduce the Lithuanians to a status socially and economically inferior to that of the Germans. After the terrible plague and famine of 1709‑10, during which one‑third of the Lithuanian population in Lithuania Minor had perished, a heavy infiltration of the German colonists ensued under the auspices of the Prussian government. The new settlers were granted necessary assistance and were strictly forbidden to adopt the prevalent Lithuanian customs and language. The Lithuanian tongue was then abolished from use in church services or, at best, relegated to a secondary position. Only in Koenigsberg, Tilsit and Klaipeda (Memel) did a few churches remain, where Lithuanian was tolerated to the exclusion of the German. In addition to these restrictions in such vitally important fields as religious, social and economic life, the Germans also officially eliminated the Lithuanian language from all schools of Lithuania Minor in 1865‑1873. Living under such conditions, a vast number of the Lithuanians were consequently Germanized.

Resistance of the Lithuanians to such German tactics was manifested in the eighteenth century by the publication of a Lithuanian dictionary, grammars, and some fifty new Lithuanian books, which  p202 number constituted a sufficiently important achievement in that age. It is at this time also that the Lithuanian poet of Lithuania Minor, Christian Duonelaitis (1714‑1780), composed his now famous verses. During the 19c, a high degree of cooperation with the renaissance movement which swept over Lithuania Major was effected. News­papers, such as Nusidavimai apie Evangelijos prasiplatinima (Thoughts about the Spread of the Gospel) and Lietuviska Ceitunga (The Lithuanian Gazette) made their appearances. Organizations as Birutes and Lietuviu Giedotoju Draugija (The Lithuanian Choral Society) were formed. And while repeated demands and petitions were presented to the Kaiser for the restoration of the Lithuanian language to the schools of Lithuania Minor, patriots from Lithuania Major found ready assistance in Tilsit, Ragnit and other towns for the preparation and dissemination of Lithuanian literature among their fellow men under Russian domination.

Extremely interesting are the statistics gathered by Germans themselves. In 1736, eight of every eleven families living in Lithuania Minor were Lithuanian. And Beheim-Schwarzbach⁠2 claimed that all Germans found in Lithuania Minor in the nineteenth century were colonists. Zweck⁠3 declared that towards the end of the nineteenth century the areas of Lithuania Minor east of Labiau, Insterburg and Gumbinnen were still 40 to 70% Lithuanian, and that some sections as Klaipeda (Memel) and Tilsit were even 70 to 100% Lithuanian in spite of the Germanizing policy fostered by the government.

2. The Duchy of Warsaw

The partitions had destroyed neither the spirit nor the hopes of an independent Polish-Lithuanian Republic. Numbers of the participants in the revolt of 1794 under Kosciuszko had been exiled into Russia and their possession had been confiscated. Nevertheless, Tsar Paul I (1796‑1801) seemed to have adopted a more  p203 reconcilable attitude than his mother, upon whom he himself looked as the one who had unjustly deprived him of his father's throne (1762) and held him in a state of subjection. He released Kosciuszko, Potocki and other prisoners who had fallen into Russian hands. At St. Petersburg, he had also extended a gracious reception to the dethroned king of the partitioned Polish-Lithuanian Republic, Stanislas Poniatowski.

Meanwhile, Lithuanian and Polish refugees, as Giedraitis and Dabrowski, had taken up residence in France with at least the vague hope of overthrowing the power of Russia, Austria and Prussia. In January, 1797, Napoleon Bonaparte, who had assumed command of the French forces in Italy during the previous year, approved and encouraged the formation of the so‑called Polish Legions under Dabrowski, which in reality consisted of citizens, who had emigrated from occupied Poland-Lithuania, both Poles and Lithuanians. Kosciuszko, who had returned to France from America in 1798, rejected Napoleon's offers of high command and remained distrustful of the latter's intentions. However, neither the peace of Campo Formio nor the Congress of Rastatt⁠4 towards the end of that same year, nor the peace of Lunéville in 1801⁠5 proffered any high hopes of speedy assistance from French arms for the suppressed Polish-Lithuanian Republic. Finally, when Napoleon dispatched a portion of these Legions to San Domingo, many deserted and returned home, with new sympathy for Tsar Alexander (1801‑1825), with whom Adam Czartoryski⁠6 seemed to exercise a strong influence and whose Foreign Minister he became soon afterwards.

In 1804, Napoleon assumed the title of Emperor. The French seizure of Piedmont and the consequent English refusal to evacuate Malta were offered as the causes for the formation of the third coalition against France (England-Austria-Russia) and the renewal of armed hostilities in 1805, resulting in Napoleon's victory at Austerlitz in December. His attempt to conciliate England by offering the restoration of Hanover, which he had promised to  p204 Prussia, brought about the Prussian war and the French victory at Jena in October, 1806. Before completing his conquest of Prussia, Napoleon rather carefully encouraged the hopes of the Poles for the reestablishment of their state, invited Kosciuszko to lead a revolt against the Prussians (he refused), and urged the formation of an army. Frederick William of Prussia had likewise sought and won the promise of aid from Tsar Alexander. However, continuing his Prussian campaign, Napoleon succeeded in vanquishing the Russian and Prussian forces, and concluded the conflict with the victory of Friedland in June, 1807.

The treaty of Tilsit followed in July. Besides the exchange of guarantees of mutual assistance between Napoleon and Alexander, Prussia was compelled to renounce all territories west of the Elbe, and from the areas which had been seized by Prussia during the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Republic, the Duchy of Warsaw was created. It included the Suvalkai area of Lithuania, with the exception of the small district near Bialystok which was ceded to Russia. Frederick Augustus of Saxony, who in December, 1806, at the peace of Posen, had joined Napoleon's Confederation of the Rhine, was made the ruler of this new Duchy.

3. Lithuanian Negotiations with Alexander

The formation, artificial as it was, of the Duchy of Warsaw under the Saxon King in 1807 and the Duchy's acquisition of Western Galicia in 1809 (although East Galicia had been annexed by Russia on that occasion) stimulated and, at the same time, played havoc with the hopes of the Lithuanian gentry to regain their political independence. At Tilsit, where the French Emperor and the Tsar had come to rather friendly terms and thereby implicitly consigned Lithuania to the continuance of Russian occupation, a severe blow was inflicted upon the faith that the Lithuanian gentry had placed in Napoleon. The previous enlistment of Lithuanians in the French forces, as well as the mission of the secret embassy of Lithuanian nobles to Napoleon at Tilsit, only served to incur the disapproval of Alexander. Taxation continued  p205 to be most severe. Many estates were forfeited to the Russian government. And momentarily it seemed that where Napoleon had bettered the lot of the Poles, he had become the cause of a worse fate for the Lithuanians.

The years following the war of 1809 witnessed the gradual decline in the ardor of French and Russian relations. Tsar Alexander showed himself unwilling to give up commerce with England in accordance with Napoleon's plans for the success of the Continental Blockade. He regarded Napoleon's promises to the Poles (the restoration of the Royal Republic) as a plot to overthrow Russian domination over the major portion of the defunct Polish-Lithuanian state. Likewise, Napoleon himself was not only favorably impressed by the virtual Russian refusal to give him the hand of Tsar Alexander's sister, Ann, in marriage. In face of such circumstances, which steadily strained the existing ties between France and Russia and seemed to hasten an armed conflict between the two powers, Lithuanian nobles sought to wrest from the Tsar various concessions in behalf of themselves and Lithuania in return for a promise of loyalty in the event of a French invasion. Various projects for the reestablishment of the Grand Duchy were therefore proposed and concocted, although not one was ultimately realized.

At a Lithuanian National Council summoned at Vilnius, the Lithuanian gentry delegated Michael Cleophas Oginski, who had been the last Lithuanian Treasurer and who held a senatorial post under the Tsar, to petition Alexander for an alleviation of the burdensome conditions which bound the nobles in Lithuania. His mission was success­ful to the extent that taxation was lightened. In 1811, Oginski having become the popular leader of the Lithuanian gentry, proposed to the Tsar that the territories of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania under Russian occupation, be formed into an autonomous political unit consisting of the eight Russian gubernias, where the Lithuanian Statute functioned. This included the Ruthenian provinces of Kiev, Podolia and Volhynia (which since 1569 had been in Polish hands as a result of the Union of Lublin), as well as the governments of Vilnius, Gardinas, Minsk and Mogilev. Accordingly, Oginski sought to convince the Tsar that this  p206 plan would insure and guarantee the loyalty of the Lithuanian gentry to Russia. The various constitutions formulated for the proposed restoration of an autonomous Grand Duchy of Lithuania suggested that the Lithuanian Statute be retained without any changes; that only citizens of the Duchy be eligible for office; that a Supreme Court of Appeal, independent of St. Petersburg, be established for the Grand Duchy; that the Tsar's viceroy reside at Vilnius; that the Duchy have its own ministers; and that a separate chancery for Lithuanian affairs be maintained at St. Petersburg. The fact that Polish rather than Lithuanian was to be adopted as the official language of the proposed Grand Duchy of Lithuania, indicated how thoroughly Polonized the leading class or gentry of Lithuania had become.

To Adam Czartoryski, Tsar Alexander offered to restore the Polish-Lithuanian Republic within the boundaries of the Dvina, Berezina and the Dnieper Rivers, while retaining the royal throne for himself; the offer was rejected, since it apparently was only an effort on Alexander's part to win the support of the Poles and the Lithuanians for the impending war with Napoleon. In spite of the diplomatic, polite and encouraging attitude the Tsar manifested toward Oginski, he never made any definite promise to the latter. Rather, he seemed to be more interested in the number of forces that could be conscripted in Lithuania; Oginski insisted that conscription would be useless, unless some sovereign and independent authority were established within the country. Gracious, too, was Alexander at Vilnius in 1812. But during the entire visit he avoided the Lithuanian question. Finally, the threatening war between Napoleon and Russia became a gruesome reality in the spring of 1812. And Lithuania was then laid open for the devastation of invading and retreating armies.

4. Uprising Under Napoleon

On June 24th, from the Lithuanian area of Suvalkai, Napoleon crossed the Nemunas River, near Kaunas, into Russian-occupied Lithuania Major. Barclay's Russian forces retreated; and five days  p207 later, the French took possession of Vilnius. At the Lithuanian capital, Napoleon allowed the formation of a Provisional Lithuanian Government, which was entrusted with the task of supplying the French with food and the organization of a Lithuanian army. The four Lithuanian infantry and the five Lithuanian cavalry regiments, hastily conscripted, proved to be a distinct disappointment to Napoleon. Among those leaders who ruptured their ties with Alexander and joined Napoleon's troops were Radvila, Giedraitis and Dederka. And once again the Lithuanian gentry hoped to rely upon French intervention as a means of gaining the liberation of Lithuania from Russia. However, like Tsar Alexander, the French Emperor refused to commit himself to any definite decision, in spite of the urgent requests from various delegations of Lithuanian nobles. As a matter of fact, he even refused to sanction the decision of the extraordinary Diet of Warsaw, which coincided with the enthusiastic proclamation of the Lithuanian gentry at Vilnius; namely, that the Polish-Lithuanian Republic, with all its historical territories, must be restored promptly. Apparently, Bonaparte was not anxious to compromise himself in the eyes of his other allies, Austria and Prussia. In the middle of July, he left Vilnius, without having clarified his attitude towards the aspirations of both Lithuanians and Poles.

Napoleon's invasion of Russia culminated with the capture of Moscow in September, after previous victories at Smolensk and Borodino. However, one month later, he himself was forced to beat a headlong retreat westward, only to suffer severe losses at the crossing of the Berezina River in November. Finally, in December, at Smurgainiai (Smorgoni) in Lithuania near Vilnius, he decreed to journey to Paris and super­vise the organization of another army. And by way of Vilnius, Kaunas, Marijampole, Warsaw, Dresden and Mainz, he arrived at the French capital some two weeks afterwards.

Meanwhile, Murat had been delegated by Napoleon with the command and the preservation of the remnants of the French army. But he continued to retreat, reaching Vilnius and then Kaunas; while attempting to hold the town, he suffered a defeat at the hands of the Russians and was driven across the Nemunas.

 p208  Once again under total Russian occupation, Lithuania Major found itself in a more distressing state than before. The Provisional Government had fled with the French and had taken up its residence at Dresden. Vilnius, the capital, presented a picture of utter misery. Its streets and roads were lined with victims of war, the dead and the wounded. Kaunas, too, had suffered a great deal. The entire countryside was filled with disbanded and undisciplined soldiers. It has been estimated that twenty million roubles of wealth had been devastated in Lithuania. Those of the gentry who had not fled, sought the Tsar's pardon for their "disloyalty." And Lithuania, after its first un­success­ful revolt against its Russian occupant, expected little from Alexander in the way of liberation.

5. Congress of Vienna

Subsequent events, in the years 1813‑15, witnessed the downfall and the crushing of Napoleon Bonaparte as well as the final victory of the three partitioning powers, Russia, Austria and Prussia. At the Congress of Vienna (1814‑15), where the reorganization of Europe, which Napoleon had thrown into disorder, was planned, hardly any consideration was given to the restoration of Lithuania. Rather the Congress of Vienna confirmed the partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Republic with some slight variations, which merely increased the extent of Russian domination. Lithuania Major was destined to remain a mere western province of Russia. The Suvalkai area of Lithuania was incorporated into the Kingdom of Poland; the latter, having been carved out of the Polish and Lithuanian territories annexed by Austria and Prussia during the partitions, was placed under Russian jurisdiction. Finally, when on September 26, 1815, the rulers of Russia, Austria and Prussia formed the Holy Alliance, all immediate prospects of the liberation of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania or the Polish-Lithuanian Republic seemed to have been effectively destroyed. And the Napoleonic epic, which had encouraged and provided the opportunity for the first Lithuanian uprising against Russian rule, ended in dismal failure.

---

The Author's Notes:

1 We refer here to the ethnographic territories of Lithuania, inhabited by Lithuanians and not to the Ruthenian areas which had formed part of the Grand Duchy.

2 Friedrich Wilhelm I. Colonization-werk i. Litauen. kngb. 1789, p75, apud Zidinys, Kaunas, 1938, No. 12, p716.

3 Litauen, Stuttgart, 1898, p139‑140, apud Zidinys, Kaunas, 1938, No. 12, p715‑717.

4 By which Austria was forced to cede Belgium and the left side of the Rhine to France.

5 Which, reiterating the terms of Campo Formio and Rastatt, ended the second coalition war against France with another defeat of Austria, the establishment of friendly relations with Tsar Paul I, and the treaty of Amiens with England in 1802.

6 Descendant of the Polonized Lithuanian family of Cartoriskis.

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