Impact of the elections to the Russian State Duma in 1912 on the Polish-Jewish relations in the Kingdom of Poland

Abstract

The period between the 1905 Revolution and the outbreak of World War I was the time of deepening controversies between the interests of the Great Powers, the formation of the political and military alliances, and the preparations for a military conflict. In the Kingdom of Poland, the territory of which – as many expected – was to become one of the main battlegrounds in the upcoming war, the growing tension in the international relations was clearly felt. This tension influenced the internal situation, in which such events as the elections to the State Duma (the Russian Parliament), the issue of self-government or the emergence of the new Chełm gubernya (Province) electrified the population. The presence of a fairly large number of Jews, and the Jewish issue raised by some political forces were the other factors shaping up the social and political relations in the Kingdom; the factors, which - a few years before the war - gained the unprecedented momentum. Although the worsening of the Polish-Jewish relations could have been observed earlier, the elections to the State Duma in 1912, in which – due to the Jewish votes – the candidate of the National Democracy (the so-called endeks), Roman Dmowski lost his battle for a seat in the Parliament, became a turning point in the history of the Polish Jews.