National leaders and national uprisings – no matter that they failed – are given more space and weight than the foreign governments who actually dictated events. Poles revere their ‘Constitution of May 3rd’, Ukrainians, their so-called ‘Bender Constitution’. Never mind that neither even came close to being put into practice, for intentions are more important than results.
Magna Carta is a key cornerstone of English and others constituional heritage. The same King who signed embarked on a decade long campaign of murderous vengeance against the Barons to ensure it remained a dead letter. This is not unique nor even that strange for Poles and Ukrainians.
French revolution admirers likewise are obsessed with the constituion of 1793, the most radical of the legal documents of that period. It too was never implemented.
