WI: Russia reestablishes Lithuania

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Deleted member 109224

Supposedly, prior to the November Uprising of 1830-1831, Russia had been contemplated reestablishing the Grand Duchy of Lithuanian lands between Congress Poland and the Dnieper. The uprising caused them to put an end to the idea.

What if they'd done so? Either going ahead with it anyway despite the uprising or because there isn't an uprising.
 
I haven't heard about such idea being proposed before the 1830-31 uprising, but I do know there was such a project in 1811 which came to an end because of Napoleon's invasion.
 
I haven't heard about such idea being proposed before the 1830-31 uprising, but I do know there was such a project in 1811 which came to an end because of Napoleon's invasion.

Can’t tell about 1830 or 1811 but an idea had been floated (by the Polish initiative) at the time when the Congressional Poland was created: the proposal was to include all pre-Partition PLC territories (aka, Belorussia and Right Bank Ukraine, not sure about Smolensk). Alexander was was for a while seemingly sympathetic (as far as anybody can tell something about him) but could a strong negative reaction from the Russians and abandoned the idea.
 
The closest I have seen to this is on p. 148 of Jan Zaprudnik, Belarus: At a Crossroads in History (1993) talking about various projects in the Napolonic era to restore Poland and Lithuania:

"...conjectural plans, on both the Russian and French sides, to restore the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland, but nerither materialized. As far as Belarus was concerned, the most notable project was the one submitted to Tsar Alexander I in 1811 by Count Michal Kleafas Ahinski (Oginski). On behalf of a group of polticial friends who did not want to accpr the full merger of the Grand Duchy with Poland, Ahinski drafted a manifesto and a constitution that inteded to restore the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, with the tsar's lieutenant at its head. The duchy was to consist of the gubernias of Vilnia, Hrodna (including the region of Bielastok), Miensk, Viciebsk, Mahilou, Volhynia, Podolia, (including the region of Tarnopol), and Kiev:. But the events of 1812 and of the ensuing years overtook this and other projects entertained by the Poles with French support. The cause of Poland's freedom and restoration of the commonwealth, whatever its chnces might have been , was lost in 1812 for another 100 years."

(Note that Zaprudnik uses Belaruisan spelling for all these places. Note also that like the old Grand Duchy, the restored one woule be predominantly Belarusian and Ukrainian in its population--with of course large Polish and Jewis hminorities--rather than Lithuanian in the modern ethnolinguistic sense: of all the gubernii named, only Vilna had a large Lithuanan-speaking population.)

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/w…/Micha%C5%82_Kleofas_Ogi%C5%84ski "During the Kościuszko Uprising in 1794, Ogiński commanded his own unit.[14] After the insurrection was suppressed, he emigrated to France, where he sought Napoleon's support for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.[9] At that time he saw the creation of the Duchy of Warsaw by the Emperor as a stepping stone to eventual full independence of the Commonwealth. He dedicated his only opera, Zelis et Valcour, to Napoleon.[15] In 1810, Ogiński withdrew from political activity in exile and, disappointed with Napoleon, returned to Vilnius.[5][16] Adam Jerzy Czartoryski introduced him to Tsar Alexander I, who made Ogiński a Russian Senator. Ogiński tried in vain to convince the Tsar to reconstitute the former Commonwealth. Disillusioned, he moved abroad in 1815. He died in Florence in 1833."

I must admit that I have a hard time seeing Alexander accept Oginski's proposal. Why should the Tsar weaken control over what he regarded as simply part of Russia (after the partitions of Poland) through autonomy? Autonomy for the Kingdom of Poland was another matter--it had not been a part of Russia before 1815, and the idea that it should be an autonomous kingdom with only a personal union with the Tsar was one of the decisions of the Congress of Vienna. And even that of course did not last...
 
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