„Najpierwsze przy tronie dostojeństwo” – napoleoński centralizm a pojęcie elity w Księstwie Warszawskim

“Supreme Office Next to the Throne” – Napoleonic Centralism and the Concept of the Elite in the Duchy of WarsawThe article deals with the conception of political (social) life in the Duchy of Warsaw (1807–1813/1815) at a time of revolutionary changes of the heretofore character of public service in the Polish state “resurrected” by Napoleon. The titular problem is illustrated by an unrealised attempt at establishing a precedence of offices, unknown in pre-partition tradition and referring to analogous French solutions. This venture was to encompass all public offices (administrative, military, court, parliamentary and self-government functions), with only a few referring (mainly via their names) to posts from the period of the Commonwealth of Two Nations. The prime object of the analysis is a collection of projects preserved at the Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw. The fundamental difference comes down to establishing priority in the hierarchy of offices – the senators and chairman of the Senate or the ministers and chairman of the Council of State and Council of Ministers. Their ability to make an unambiguous decision stemmed from the different character of the offices of ministers directly dependent on the absolute monarch and representing modern centralised bureaucracy, and the independent senators closer to Old Polish anti-monarchic traditions. By locating the discussion within a wider context of socio-systemic transformations at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the author demonstrated the way in which the drastically altered political situation (preserving, however, the appearances of a return to the past) influenced the views of men of the period concerning the elite of the “resurrected” Polish state.