The Polish question in Russian liberal journalism of the 1860s-1880s.

The article examines the Russian-Polish relations, which were a painful and constantly discussed issue in the social thought of Russia in the second half of the 19th century. The reason for it, above all, was the "restlessness" of Poland, which did not resign itself to the loss of statehood and actively resisted the Russification policy of the tsarist government. The author notes the connection of the intensity and severity of discussions on the Polish question in Russian journalism with the aggravation of the situation in Poland. Thus, the Polish Uprising in 1863 was an event that affected the theme and tonality of the works of liberal authors. The sharpness of the judgments slightly weakened by the mid-1870s. A new surge was caused by reports of the participation of Polish volunteers in the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878 on the side of Turkey. The author focuses on a wide range of opinions in Russian liberal journalism in assessing relations between Poland and Russia. Gradovsky assigned most of the blame for the national catastrophe of the Poles to its ruling strata that wrongly assessed the place of Poland in the European civilization and chose an erroneous external and internal political strategy. Chicherin's attitude to the problem significantly contrasted with his conclusions. Chicherin condemned the partition of Poland, and considered its inclusion in Russia as conquest and enslavement. While not blaming the Poles for the collapse of their own state, the researcher did not think that this justified the conquerors. For Russia, the destruction of the Slavic state was, ultimately, unprofitable and immoral. Chicherin considered the interference of the authorities in the matters of faith inadmissible. The state, in his opinion, could influence the missionary activity of the churches of various faiths, encouraging one of them, but it should not violate the freedom of conscience. The author points to a special position in this issue of Soloviev. Soloviev wrote about an unconditional sympathy for the idea of the "most complete" Polish autonomy, the implementation of which would be beneficial to Russia. He constantly and quite sharply opposed the Russification of Poland, calling it the "murder of a fraternal people". The attitude towards the struggle of the Poles for the restoration of statehood among the representatives of the liberal wing of the Russian public thought was different, but it did not presuppose the possibility of creating an independent Polish state in the foreseeable future. With a significant discrepancy in assessing the reasons for the Polish-Russian confrontation, the only option was a joint coexistence within the framework of a single Russian state. The author comes to a conclusion that the policy of Russification carried out by the government in Poland provoked amicable criticism in liberal journalism, while at the same time part of the blame for the harsh administrative measures was shifted to the separatist-minded Polish elite. Russian liberals considered it senseless to attempt to overcome the formed Polish national identity and proposed to focus on overcoming the Polonophobia in Russian society and Russophobia in Polish. The search for compromises was vital to ensure joint progressive development.

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