Targowica, Confederation of

Targowica, Confederation of 

a reactionary union of Polish magnates organized in 1792 and led by K. Branicki, S. Rzewuski, and S. Potocki. The confederation was formed to eliminate—with the help of tsarist Russia—the progressive reforms enacted by the Four-year Sejm of 1788–92 in the Rzeczpospolita. The confederation’s founding document, which was drawn up in St. Petersburg under the supervision of Catherine II, was published on May 14, 1792, in the village of Targowica as tsarist troops were invading Poland.

The Confederation of Targowica assisted in the second partition of the Rzeczpospolita by Russia and Prussia in 1793. It went down in Polish history as a symbol of national treason. The Polish people responded to the confederation and the partition of the country by inciting the Polish Uprising of 1794, a rebellion for national liberation during which several figures of the confederation were executed as traitors.