The role of public thought in ensuring security during the Polish uprising of 1863-1864

Public opinion in the Russian Empire was formed primarily through the press, which, under the conditions of liberal bourgeois transformations of the second half of the XIX century, actually acted as the fourth power. Due to the wave of anti-Russian protests in the Kingdom of Poland and the Northwestern Territory of the Russian Empire that emerged in the early 1860s relying on material assistance from Polish land magnates and spiritual support from the local Catholic clergy the Russian state risked losing its western outskirts with the full support of leading Western countries. The struggle for the minds of Russian society was also actively waged by revolutionary democrats led by a political emigrant Alexander Herzen, which aimed to overthrow the autocratic power in Russia in close alliance with the Polish revolutionaries. The purpose of the article is to consider how under those circumstances the press supported the government policy pursued in the Kingdom of Poland and the Northwestern Territory. For this end, an analysis of unpublished documents from the State Archive of the Russian Federation and published materials was conducted. The work uses the retrospective, problem-based chronological, and comparative historical methods, as well as general research methods. The article shows that one specific characteristic of the public opinion on the “Polish question” was that it was in constant dynamics and change, evolving from restrained approving rhetoric on the eve of the Polish uprising to condemning the rebels and supporting government policy in the region starting from 1863. The official press provided significant intellectual support for the government policy in the Russification of the region.