The review discusses the book “Sukcesy i porazki. Ziemianstwopolskie Ziem Zabranych w wyborach do Dumy Państwowej i Rady Panstwa 1906−1913” [Successes and Failures: Polish Landowners from the Nine Western Provinces in the Elections to the Russian State Duma and State Council in the Years 1906–1913] by Roman Jurkowski. The object of the reviewed book is the participation of Polish landowners in the elections to the Russian State Duma and the State Council. The author describes the procedure of the elections to these quasi-democratic institutions in great detail and its change as well as the rules of the run-up to the elections; Polish political groups, their agendas and activity during the elections, cooperation and confrontation of this ethnic-social group with other ethnic groups. When discussing the process of the elections in Vilnius and Kaunas guberniyas, Jurkowski pays considerable attention to the Lithuanian-Polish relations. A rather critical author’s attitude towards his analysed social-ethnic group should be noted. Jurkowski points out that landowners cared about their estate interests which hindered the understanding of the interests of other ethnic groups and that they lacked a deeper reflection of political processes taking place in the Russian Empire, etc. Although this monograph does not present any cardinally new generalisations or unexpected conclusions, it will be very important to everybody who investigates the political processes of the beginning of the 20th c. in the ethnic lands of Lithuanians, Belarusians and Ukrainians
