Authors

Łukasz Kożuchowski¹;  ¹ University of Warsaw, Poland

Discussion

The literature concerning the Russian imperial rule in the lands of partitioned Poland has concentrated on the various repressions of the Catholic Church. It is without a doubt that the government severely attacked the clerical hierarchy and the faithful – leading to mass expulsions to Siberia, heavy fines, or even murders of the resisters. However, what has not received relevant attention is that the government also intended to subordinate the clergy by financial and honorary gifts handed out as a result of annual quasi-competitions – i.e. not only the stick, but also the carrot was in place (even if the latter was incomparable to the former). Therefore, while the rulers clearly had an image of who was a repression-worthy “bad” Catholic priest, a “good” priest was still a conceivable model, and even an actively promoted one. For the purpose of this paper, a large sample of documents concerning such stipends and prizes has been queried (parts of the Governors' Chancellaries archives). The last decade of the Russian imperial rule in the Kingdom (1905-1915) has been selected. This turbulent time, started with the 1905 Revolution and ended with the withdrawal of the Russians during the First World War, as the documents for that period are, in general, better preserved than the earlier ones. Moreover, the troubles the Russians faced then allowed some priests to be appreciated due to their stance to various burning social questions. The provincial (non-urban) priests were selected as a group of interest, as in the countryside the clergy often played a role of not only religious leaders, but also sole representatives of local intelligentsia, allowing Russians to view them not only as members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, but also as social activists whose activity could also have been awarded. The main thesis of the presentation will be that despite the declared détente in the state-church relations after issuing the 1905 Decree on Tolerance, the government still kept much distrust towards the priests and held an anachronic view of a “good” priest as being a loyal agent of the state, mostly passive in other spheres of social realm. A "good" Catholic priests would be a some kind of a clerical policeman, but not necessarily an outstanding spiritual or social leader.