Ambassadors and envoys from Russia to Poland (1763–1794)
During most of that period[a] ambassadors and envoys from the Russian Empire, acting on the instructions from Saint Petersburg, held a de facto position superior to that of the Polish king, Stanisław August Poniatowski.
Beginning in the second half of the 18th century, the unique political system of the Commonwealth, the quasi-democratic[3] Golden Liberty, had turned into anarchy.
[4] The Polish nobility's (szlachta) privilege of liberum veto, first introduced as a safeguard against tyranny of the monarch, allowed any deputy to the Sejm to stop and annul the entire session.
Among other things, to ensure Poniatowski's victory he bribed the interrex of Poland, Władysław Aleksander Łubieński, with a significant sum of about 100,000 Russian rubles.
[12] Before the Sejm of 1767, he ordered the capture and exile to Kaluga of some vocal opponents of his policies,[13] namely Józef Andrzej Załuski[14] and Wacław Rzewuski.
The liberum veto, free election, neminem captivabimus, rights to form the confederation and rokosz—in other words, all the important old privileges of the nobility, which made the Commonwealth political system (the Golden Liberty) so ungovernable[20]: 44 —were guaranteed as unalterable parts in the cardinal laws.
This dependent position was bluntly spelled out in Nikita Ivanovich Panin's letter to King Poniatowski, in which he made it clear that Poland was now in the Russian sphere of influence.
On 22 May 1769 he was replaced by the envoy and minister Prince Mikhail Volkonsky, a high-ranking officer in the Russian Army who had been stationed in Poland since 1761.
In order to protect some of its gains, and with the approval and encouragement of Prussia and Austria-Hungary, Catherine II started to consider the first partition of Poland.
The Partition Sejm, with many of its deputies bribed by the Russian embassy, indeed ratified the treaty (on 30 September 1773), and established the Permanent Council – a small body that both promised to reform the inefficient Polish governance which, Stackelberg thought, could also be easily controlled by Russia.
In 1776, Stackelberg permitted King Poniatowski to carry out several minor reforms,[15]: 275 but in 1780 von Stackelberg's protest resulted in the derailing of Zamoyski's Codex, a proposed set of reforms drafted by kanclerz Andrzej Zamoyski which would have strengthened royal power, made all officials answerable to the Sejm, placed the clergy and their finances under state supervision, and deprived landless szlachta of many of their legal immunities.
However, as a large Polish army could be a threat to the Russian garrisons controlling Poland, von Stackelberg ordered his proxies in the Permanent Council to spend the money on a different goal: for the huge sum of 1 million zlotys (representing most of the surplus), the Council bought the von Brühl's Palace – and promptly donated it to 'Poland's ally', Russia, to serve as Russia's new embassy.
[15]: 271 This, however, changed little: Russia was still occupied with the Ottomans, and the Prussians played their own game, further giving Catherine a pause before ordering any intervention.
The members of the Muscovite Party, who felt secure with the previous status quo and under Russian protection, formed the Targowica Confederation, and requested Catherine II to intervene to restore their freedoms.
[34] Eventually with all the deputies cowed into agreement by Russian soldiers present in the chamber, and with none willing to speak out against the treaty, the Second Partition was declared to have passed by unanimous vote.
The Russian embassy had a special fund, Jurgielt, from which hundreds of Polish politicians and officials were receiving a stable yearly pension.
