Modification of the Russia’s policy towards Poland and Poles during World War I (Based on Georgy Michajlovskij’s diary)

• Main Author: Sobczak, Jan
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Polish
• Published: Uniwersytet Warmińsko-Mazurski w Olsztynie 2008
• Subjects: hist; litt; Artide
• Online Access: https://bibliotekanauki.pl/articles/482203.pdf; https://bibliotekanauki.pl/articles/482203

Russian diplomat Georgy N. Michajlowskij’s personal notes recorded in the years 1914-1920, and published in two volumes in 1993 in the series: Russia in Diplomats’ Memories, have been the main base to write this article. Being a worker of state ap-paratus of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Pievcheskij Bridge in Petersburg, Michajlowskij took part in a hard activity of the Russian diplomacy during the very hot events of the World War I and revolution times. He witnessed the fall of tcharism, short period of the Provisional Government’s govern, but after Bolshevik upheaval on October 7, 1917 he faced the very full of tension weeks when his department was taken over by Lev Trockij and communist commissars. He obviously was forced to leave the Office. Having joined the White Guard movement in 1917, he worked during the next three years’ time as a diplomat at Gen. Anton lvanovich Denikin in Rostov-on-Don and Taganrog as well at Gen. baron Pyotr Wrangel in Sevastopol. He participated in many White Guard diplomatic missions to Constantinople, Paris, London, Romę and Washington where he frequently met and cooperated with the last three Tsarist ministers of foreign affairs – Sergey Dmitriyevich Sazonov, Boris W. Sturmer, Nikolai M. Pokrovskij and then, among others, with Michail I. Tereszczenko, Pavel N. Milukov, Wasyl A. Maklakow and Peter B. Struwe who became the successors and leaders of the former Russia’s policy realised then by the Provisional Government and by the White Guard movement as well. So, he had the unique opportunity to describe almost all main figures of the Russian political and social drama which action was setting itself before his eyes.The artide is focusing on some Polish motifs, too. Generally, they are based on Michajlowskij’s writings which can be regarded as very interesting and valuable historical sources, relevant to the Polish question of the time, particularly when their author used to act on behalf of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in different commissions and committees that ...