Zjazd szlachty litewskiej w Wilnie w 1715 roku
Gathering of Lithuanian Nobility in Vilnius in 1715

Summary/Abstract: The issue of the gathering of the Lithuanian nobility in Vilnius, organised in Au- gust 1715 by Great Hetman of Lithuania Ludwik Konstanty Pociej as a way of sparking a protest against the contributions imposed by King Augustus II for the maintenance of the Saxon army in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, has so far been margin- ally addressed in historiography. The purpose of the article is to examine the causes and consequences of the gathering and to determine the Russian attitude towards it. Using manuscript sources from Russia, Belarus, Poland and Lithuania, the author ar- gues that the Russians had minimal influence over the organization of the gathering, yet they used it as a means to combat King Augustus II’s attempts to free himself from Russian influence. There is ample evidence to put forward a hypothesis that the request to Tsar Peter I for acting as an intermediary in the conflict between the king and the nobility was conceived by Pociej and other leading officials of the Commonwealth rather than by Russian diplomats. The article also argues that the convention in Vil- nius contributed significantly to the formation of the Tarnogród Confederation in the Crown. The Poles believed that the Lithuanians were determined to uphold the decla- ration of the Vilnius convention to instigate military action against the king’s policies and contributions for the purposes of the Saxon army. When the news of the Vilnius gathering spread throughout Poland, riots began in the southern provinces, and part of the Polish army declared a confederation and took up arms.

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