Prussia

Prussia appears in the novel’s historical frame as one of the powers responsible for the partition of Poland and the suppression of its political name. Its importance lies less in a depicted setting than in the imperial division whose consequences shaped Polish society and the peasantry’s place within it.

Prussia and the Partition of Poland

Prussia participated with Russia and Austria in the successive partitions of Poland in 1772, 1793, and 1795. The final partition followed the collapse of the 1794 uprising and ended Poland’s existence as a political entity until 1918. A treaty signed in St Petersburg in 1797 formalized the erasure: its signatories undertook never again to include the name or designation of the Kingdom of Poland in their courts’ titles. Prussia’s part in this settlement was not incidental; the account describes an alliance with Russia, including a secret plan of military cooperation dating from 1764, and notes that the territories taken from Poland doubled Prussia’s area and population.

Rule and the End of Serfdom

The partition placed different parts of Poland under different monarchies, with consequences for their languages, cultures, administrations, and dominant religions. In the Prussian partition, serfdom was abolished over the period from 1811 to 1850, earlier than in the Russian partition, where abolition came in 1864. Across the partitions, the disappearance of serfdom and the decline of the landed class helped introduce capitalism into the countryside: landowners had to pay for peasant labor, while low wages left many agricultural laborers unable to support themselves. The evidence places this transformation within a broader rural crisis, also marked by widespread illiteracy and restricted opportunities for work beyond agriculture.

Place in the Novel’s Historical Frame

Prussia’s significance is contextual rather than that of a village setting in the narrated events. The historical account connects the divisions imposed by the partitioning powers to the long task of building a Polish national identity, especially among people who had been peasants and serfs. It also emphasizes that peasant participation in uprisings did not erase their distrust: many landowners had opposed peasant emancipation, contributing to reluctance or hostility toward those struggles. Prussia thus belongs to the political history behind the novel’s concern with the countryside, land, and the formation of a national community.