Polskie Stronnictwo Krajowe na Rusi 1907–1909
ENThis article discusses the second national alliance, after the National Alliance of Lithuania and Belarus, to be founded in 1907 and officially registered by the Russian authorities in the Taken Lands. The Ruthenian nationalists differed from the Lithuanian and Belarusian alliance members in that they used more powerful Polish national slogans and their program was addressed mainly to Russians rather than the indigenous Ukrainian population. The article is divided into five parts, and it discusses the following issues: the alliance's establishment and operations in 1907–1909, its organisational structure, its program and the promoted principles, the arguments of the party's followers and opponents. The main objective of a political party uniting a small group of the Polish gentry and aristocrats was to further the cooperation with the Russian landowners in protecting the estates threatened by agrarian reforms. The party's founders were acutely criticised by the Polish press supporting the Democratic and National Alliance for their efforts to collaborate with the Russians. The attacks launched by the Democratic and National Alliance and the suppressing of the peasants' agrarian revolution by Stolypin's government marginalized the party which did not even run in the elections to the Third Duma and ceased to exist several years later. The emergence and the quick disappearance of both national alliances in the Taken Lands showed that the nationalist concept, especially one with a conservative and conciliatory formula, was unacceptable to the local Polish community. After the agrarian revolution had been contained and as the Russian nationalist movement gained ground, the Russian authorities and landowners lost their interest in the Polish nationalists.
