The Position of the nobility of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania within the context of the second partition
ENOn 23 January 1793 the treaty of the Second Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was signed in St Petersburg. By this convention Russia received the palatinates of Kiev, Bratslav, Podolia, Minsk, the eastern part of Vilnius palatinate, a part of Brest palatinate and the eastern part of Volhynia. Prussia acquired the western lands of Poland with the towns of Gdańsk (Danzig), Torun (Thorn), Łęczyca, Piotrków, Kalisz, Gniezno, and Poznań. Prussia pledged to continue a war against France, and Russia undertook to suppress any disturbance in the Commonwealth. The following day after the signing of the convention on 24 January 1793 Prussian troops entered the territory of Poland-Lithuania. On April 9 the Prussian envoy to the Commonwealth Ludwig von Buchholtz and the Russian envoy Jakov Sievers presented the then supreme authority in the state — the General Confederacy of the Two Nations — with a declaration informing about the Partition and required to circulate a universal on the convocation of the Diet. The effect of the political changes in the state on the nobility of the Commonwealth and on its activity has not yet been investigated in greater detail. Meanwhile investigating the Second Partition and the demise of the state historians have concentrated their attention to the activity of the groupings of patriot reformers, in particular of the political emigres in Austria and Saxony, the causes of and preparation for the uprising of 1794, the stance of the leadership of the General Confederacy of the GDL in respect to the Partition; however the political attitudes of the rank-and-file nobility have not yet been subjected to any deeper analysis. Neither have the pre-diet dietines (local assemblies) of 1793 and the issues they raised for the discussion at the Diet been researched.
