The Annual Register (Edmund BURKE ?). Sur la décadence et la renaissance de la Pologne au XVIIIe siècle

In: Revue d'études comparatives est-ouest: RECEO, Volume 9, Issue 4, p. 147-178

Abstract

The Annual Register (Edmund Burke ?) : on the Decadence and the Renaissance of Poland in the 18th Century.
In the 18th century, the current events in Poland had been extensively reviewed in the London Annual Register, which described «into one connected narrative» the most important happenings in different countries of the world. It was initiated in 1758 by Edmund Burke who edited it singlehanded for some years, and then, until his death, «inspired and directed its composition» through his closest friends. For contemporary readers it was a reference book on the immediate past, and for the historians an uninterrupted record of events by writers who reflected the outlook of the time.
Burke's apprehension of Poland has proved remarkably accurate; as with India and America, he thoroughly acquainted himself with the historical, political, social, and religious circumstances affecting that country and he clearly studied them for a number of years before he wrote on that subject at length. In the 1760s the chapters on Poland had been rather critical. Poland was presented as a country where the idea of liberty had been carried to the extreme and most injustly distributed, and this led to the anarchy and civil wars, encouraged and provoked by Poland's rapacious neighbours. Before the first partition in 1772, the Annual Register repeatedly affirmed that in Poland the life for individuals had become unbearable, and that they would prefer anything — even a foreign yoke — to the calamities to which they were everyday subject. Subsequently however, the partition was qualified by the Annual Register as a most horrible international crime and «the first great breach in the modern political system of Europe».
After having stated in 1769 that «only a miracle» could save Poland, and in 1774 that she was «irretrievably ruined as a state», for nearly two decades the Annual Register stopped writing about that unhappy country. During those years, Burke had made a great political carrier and became world famous as the author of the Reflections on the French Revolution. Out of the three nearly simultaneous revolutions in America, France and Poland, Burke hated the second but admired the third which was, in fact, a practical application of his theory of the state as an organical developing body. In his Appeal of the New Whig to the Old Ones he prized highly the Polish May Constitution of 1791, but his position as a practical politician became rather difficult. When, in 1793, during the debates in the House of Commons, his years-long friend, Charles Fox, suggested that England should assist Poland instead of making war with France, Burke opposed categorically.
After prolonged silence, extensive reviews of the events in Poland appeared in the Annual Registers for 1791 and 1795. According to general rule, they were anonymous, but revealed the author's proficiency in Polish affairs and contained some little known details. Unlike the writings of the 1760's, they were not critical, but rather flatterous for Poland, her inhabitants and their monarch. They concluded by general «Reflections» and deplored an event so common in history, as the triumph of the wrong over the right.
Who was their author, undoubtedly expressing the opinions of Burke? The Anglo- Saxon scholars, who still labourously study the life and writings of Edmund Burke, confess «that no Burke scholar has yet worked out to his and anyone else's satisfaction the full truth about Burke's involvement with the Annual Register to around 1795»; they consider, however, it «unwise to assume that Burke was responsible for all the writings on Poland up to a date as late as 1795», and are not sure whether «any single sentence was Burke's.» Such an extreme prudence is worthy of admiration. However, several clues show that Edmund Burke wrote, or edited, or inspired, the Polish chapters in the Annual Registers not only in the 1760's but also in the 1790's, and this hypothesis will prevail as long as it will not be positively proved that some other person than Burke was their author.