January Uprising
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The January Uprising ( pl, powstanie styczniowe; lt, 1863 metų sukilimas; ua, Січневе повстання; russian: Польское восстание; ) was an insurrection principally in
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...
's Kingdom of Poland that was aimed at the restoration of the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, after 1791, as the Commonwealth of Poland, was a bi-confederal state, sometimes called a federation, of Crown of the Kingdom of ...
. It began on 22 January 1863 and continued until the last
insurgents An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion against authority waged by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare from primarily rural base areas. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric nature: small irr ...
were captured by the Russian forces in 1864. It was the longest-lasting insurgency in partitioned Poland. The conflict engaged all levels of society and arguably had profound repercussions on contemporary international relations and ultimately provoked a social and ideological paradigm shift in national events that went on to have a decisive influence on the subsequent development of Polish society. A confluence of factors rendered the uprising inevitable in early 1863. The Polish nobility and urban bourgeois circles longed for the semi-autonomous status they had enjoyed in Congress Poland before the previous
insurgency An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion against authority waged by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare from primarily rural base areas. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric nature: small irr ...
, a generation earlier in 1830, and youth encouraged by the success of the Italian independence movement urgently desired the same outcome. Russia had been weakened by its Crimean adventure and had introduced a more liberal attitude in its internal politics which encouraged Poland's underground National Government to plan an organised strike against their Russian occupiers no earlier than the spring of 1863. They had not reckoned with
Aleksander Wielopolski Margrave ( pl, margrabia) Aleksander Ignacy Jan-Kanty Wielopolski (born 1803 in Sędziejowice, Kraków Department, Duchy of Warsaw, died 1877 in Dresden, Kingdom of Saxony, German Empire) was a Polish aristocrat, owner of large estates, and t ...
, the pro-Russian archconservative head of the civil administration in the Russian partition, who had wind of the plans. Wielopolski was aware that his fellow countrymen's fervent desire for independence was coming to a head, something that he wanted to avoid at all costs. In an attempt to derail the Polish national movement, he brought forward to January the
conscription Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to Ancient history, antiquity and it continues in some countries to th ...
of young Polish activists into the
Imperial Russian Army The Imperial Russian Army (russian: Ру́сская импера́торская а́рмия, tr. ) was the armed land force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian Ar ...
for 20-year service. That decision is what triggered the January Uprising of 1863, the very outcome that Wielopolski had wanted to avoid. The rebellion by young Polish conscripts was soon joined by high-ranking Polish-Lithuanian officers and members of the political class. The insurrectionists, as yet ill-organised, were severely outnumbered and lacking sufficient foreign support and forced into hazardous
guerrilla tactics Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run tacti ...
. Reprisals were swift and ruthless. Public executions and deportations to
Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part ...
eventually persuaded many Poles to abandon armed struggle. In addition, Tsar Alexander II hit the landed gentry hard and, as a result, the whole economy, with a sudden decision in 1864 for finally abolishing serfdom in Poland. The ensuing breakup of estates and destitution of many peasants convinced educated Poles to turn instead to the idea of "
organic work Organic work ( pl, praca organiczna) was a phrase adopted from Herbert Spencer by 19th-century Polish Positivists to denote the concept that the nation's vital powers should be devoted to labour ("work from the foundations"), rather than to fruitle ...
", economic and cultural self-improvement.


Background

Despite the Russian Empire's loss of the
Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...
and weakened economic and political state, Alexander II warned in 1856 against further concessions with the words "forget any dreams". There were two prevailing streams of thought among the population of the Kingdom of Poland. One had patriotic stirrings within liberal-conservative usually landed and intellectual circles, centred around Andrzej Zamoyski and hoped for an orderly return to the constitutional status before 1830; they became characterised as the '' Whites''. The alternative tendency, characterised as the '' Reds'', represented a democratic movement uniting peasants, workers and some clergy. For both streams central to their dilemma was the ''peasant question''. However, estate owners tended to favour the abolition of serfdom in exchange for compensation, but the democratic movement saw the overthrow of the Russian yoke as entirely dependent on an unconditional liberation of the peasantry. Just as the democrats organised the first religious and patriotic demonstrations in 1860, covert resistance groups began to form among educated youth. Blood was first to shed in Warsaw in February 1861, when the Russian Army attacked a demonstration in
Castle Square Castle Square may refer to: *Castle Square, Sheffield, England *Castle Square, Warsaw Castle Square ( pl, plac Zamkowy) is a historic square in front of the Royal Castle – the former official residence of Polish monarchs – located in Wars ...
on the anniversary of the Battle of Grochów. There were five fatalities. Fearing the spread of spontaneous unrest, Alexander II reluctantly agreed to accept a petition for a change in the system of governance. Ultimately, he agreed to the appointment of
Aleksander Wielopolski Margrave ( pl, margrabia) Aleksander Ignacy Jan-Kanty Wielopolski (born 1803 in Sędziejowice, Kraków Department, Duchy of Warsaw, died 1877 in Dresden, Kingdom of Saxony, German Empire) was a Polish aristocrat, owner of large estates, and t ...
to head a commission to look into Religious Observance and Public Education and announced the formation of a State Council and self-governance for towns and
powiats A ''powiat'' (pronounced ; Polish plural: ''powiaty'') is the second-level unit of local government and administration in Poland, equivalent to a county, district or prefecture ( LAU-1, formerly NUTS-4) in other countries. The term "''powiat ...
. The concessions did not prevent further demonstrations. On 8 April, there were 200 killed and 500 wounded by Russian fire.
Martial law Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to an emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory. Use Martia ...
was imposed in Warsaw, and brutally-repressive measures were taken against the organisers in Warsaw and Vilna by deporting them deep into Russia. In Vilna alone, 116 demonstrations were held in 1861. That autumn, Russians had introduced a state of emergency in Vilna Governorate,
Kovno Governorate Kovno Governorate ( rus, Ковенская губеpния, r=Kovenskaya guberniya; lt, Kauno gubernija) or Governorate of Kaunas was a governorate ('' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire. Its capital was Kaunas (Kovno in Russian). It was form ...
and
Grodno Governorate The Grodno Governorate, (russian: Гро́дненская губе́рнiя, translit=Grodnenskaya guberniya, pl, Gubernia grodzieńska, be, Гродзенская губерня, translit=Hrodzenskaya gubernya, lt, Gardino gubernija, u ...
. The events led to a speedier consolidation of the resistance. Future leaders of the uprising gathered secretly in St. Petersburg,
Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officiall ...
, Vilna,
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...
and
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
. Two bodies emerged from those consultations. By October 1861, the urban "Movement Committee" (Komitet Ruchu Miejski) had been formed, fllowed in June 1862 by the Central National Committee (''CNC''). Its leadership included Stefan Bobrowski, Jarosław Dąbrowski, Zygmunt Padlewski, Agaton Giller and
Bronisław Szwarce Bronisław Antoni Szwarce (October 7, 1834 The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979)–February 18, 1904) was a Polish engineer and political activist. Born in France to Polish immigrants and educated there. He graduated from the ...
. The body directed the creation of national structures that were intended to become a new secret Polish state. The CNC had not planned an uprising before the spring of 1863 at the earliest. However, Wielopolski's move to start conscription to the Russian Army in mid-January forced its hand to call the uprising prematurely on the night of 22–23 January 1863.


Call to arms in the Kingdom of Poland

The uprising broke out at a moment when general peace prevailed in Europe, and although there was vociferous support for the Poles, powers such as France, Britain and Austria were unwilling to disturb the international calm. The revolutionary leaders did not have sufficient means to arm and equip the groups of young men hiding in forests to escape Alexander Wielopolski's order of conscription into the Russian Army. Initially, about 10,000 men rallied around the revolutionary banner. The volunteers came chiefly from city working classes and minor clerks, but there was also a significant number of the younger sons of the poorer '' szlachta'' (nobility) and a number of priests of lower rank. Initially, the Russian government had at its disposal an army of 90,000 men, under Russian General Anders Edvard Ramsay, in Poland. It looked as if the rebellion might be crushed quickly. Undeterred, the CNC's provisional government issued a manifesto in which it declared "all sons of
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
are free and equal citizens without distinction of creed, condition or rank". It decreed that land cultivated by the peasants, whether on the basis of rent or service, should become their unconditional property, and compensation for it would be given to the landlords out of State general funds. The provisional government did its best to send supplies to the unarmed and scattered volunteers, who, in February, had fought in eighty bloody skirmishes with the Russians. Meanwhile, the CNC issued an appeal for assistance to the nations of Western Europe that was received everywhere with supportive sentiments from
Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of ...
to
Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of th ...
. The
Confederate States of America The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States or the Confederacy was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confeder ...
sympathethised with the Polish-Lithuanian rebels and viewed their struggles analogous. Italian, French and Hungarian officers answered the call. Pope
Pius IX Pope Pius IX ( it, Pio IX, ''Pio Nono''; born Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti; 13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878) was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878, the longest verified papal reign. He was notable for convoking the First Vatican ...
ordered special prayers for the success of Catholic Poles in their defence against the Orthodox Russians and was generally active in raising support for the Polish rebellion. The historian
Jerzy Zdrada Jerzy Władysław Zdrada (born 26 November 1936 in Częstochowa) is a Polish historian and politician. Biography He is a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences and a professor at the Jagiellonian University since 1993. As a historian, he specia ...
records that by the late spring and the early summer of 1863, there were 35,000 Poles under arms facing a Russian Army of 145,000 in the Polish Kingdom.


Uprising spreads to former Grand Duchy of Lithuania

On 1 February 1863, the uprising erupted in Lithuania. In April and May, it had spread to Dinaburg,
Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...
and
Witebsk Vitebsk or Viciebsk (russian: Витебск, ; be, Ві́цебск, ; , ''Vitebsk'', lt, Vitebskas, pl, Witebsk), is a city in Belarus. The capital of the Vitebsk Region, it has 366,299 inhabitants, making it the country's fourth-largest ci ...
,
Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...
, to the Kiev Governorate, northern Ukraine, and to the Wolynian Voivodship. Volunteers, weapons and supplies began to flow in over the borders from Galicia, in the Austrian Partition, and from the Prussian Partition. Volunteers also arrived from
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
,
Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...
,
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
and Russia itself. The greatest setback was that in spite of the liberation manifesto from the KCN, without prior ideological agitation, the peasantry could not be mobilised to participate in the struggle except in those regions that were dominated by Polish units, which saw a gradual enrolment into the uprising of agricultural workers.


Secret State

The secret Polish state was directed by the Rada Narodowa (RN, National Council) to which the civil and military structures on the ground were accountable. It was a "virtual coalition government" formed of the ''Reds'' and the ''Whites'' and was led by Zygmunt Sierakowski, Antanas Mackevičius and Konstanty Kalinowski. The last two supported their counterparts in Poland and adhered to common policies. Its diplomatic corps was centred on Paris under the direction of Wladyslaw Czartoryski. The eruption of armed conflict in the former Commonwealth of Two Nations had surprised western European capitals, even if public opinion responded with sympathy for the rebel cause. It had dawned on Paris, London,
Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...
and
Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
that the crisis could plausibly turn into an international war. For their part, Russian diplomats considered the uprising an internal matter, and European stability was generally predicated on the fate of Poland's aspiration.


International repercussions

The uncovering of the existence of the Alvensleben Convention, signed on 8 February 1863 by Prussia and Russia in St. Petersburg, to suppress the Poles jointly, internationalised the uprising. It enabled Western powers to take the diplomatic initiative for their own ends.
Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A neph ...
of France, already a sympathiser with Poland, was concerned to protect his border on the
Rhine ), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland , source1_coordinates= , source1_elevation = , source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein , source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland , source2_coordinates= , source ...
and turned his political guns on Prussia with a view to provoking a war with it. He was simultaneously seeking an alliance with Austria. The
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
, on the other hand, sought to prevent a Franco-Prussian war and to block an Austrian alliance with France and so looked to scupper any
rapprochement In international relations, a rapprochement, which comes from the French word ''rapprocher'' ("to bring together"), is a re-establishment of cordial relations between two countries. This may be done due to a mutual enemy, as was the case with Germ ...
between France and Russia. Austria was competing with Prussia for the leadership of the German territories but rejected French approaches for an alliance and spurned any support of Napoleon III as acting against German interests. There was no discussion of military intervention on behalf of the Poles, despite Napoleon's support for the continuation of the insurgency.France, the United Kingdom and Austria agreed to a diplomatic intervention in defence of Polish rights and in April issued diplomatic notes that were intended to be no more than persuasive in tone. The Polish RN hoped that the evolution of the insurgency would ultimately push western powers to adopt an armed intervention, which was the flavour of Polish diplomatic talks with those powers. The Polish line was that the establishment of continued peace in Europe was conditional on the return of an independent Polish state. With the threat of war averted, St. Petersburg left the door open for negotiations but was adamant in its rejection of any western rights to armed conflict. In June 1863, western powers iterated the conditions: an amnesty for the insurgents, the creation of a national representative structure, the development of autonomous concessions across the Kingdom, a recall of a conference of
Congress of Vienna The Congress of Vienna (, ) of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon ...
(1815) signatories and a ceasefire for its duration. That fell well below the expectations of the leadership of the uprising. While concerned by the threat of war, Alexander II felt secure enough with the support of his people to reject the proposals. Although France and Britain were insulted, they did not proceed with further interventions, which enabled Russia to extend and finally to break off negotiations in September 1863.


Outcome on the ground

Apart from the efforts of
Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...
, diplomatic intervention by foreign powers on behalf of Poland was on the balance unhelpful in drawing attention away from the aim of Polish national unity towards its social divisions. It alienated Austria, which had maintained friendly neutrality towards Poland and not interfered with Polish activities in Galicia. It prejudiced public opinion among radical groups in Russia that until then had been friendly because they regarded the uprising as a social, rather than a national. insurgency. It also stirred the Russian government to ever more brutal suppression of hostilities and repression against its Polish participants, who had grown in strength. In addition to the thousands who fell in battle, 128 men were hanged under the personal supervision of Mikhail Muravyov 'Muravyov the Hangman', and 9,423 men and women were exiled to Siberia, 2,500 men according to Russia's own estimates. The historian Norman Davies gives the number as 80,000 and noted it was the single largest deportation in Russian history. Whole villages and towns were burned down. All economic and social activities were suspended, and the ''szlachta'' was ruined through the confiscation of property and exorbitant taxes. Such was the brutality of Russian troops that their actions were condemned throughout Europe. Count Fyodor Berg, the newly-appointed governor, Namiestnik of Poland, and the successor to Muravyov, employed harsh measures against the population and intensified systematic Russification in an effort to eradicate Polish traditions and culture.


Social divisions laid bare

Insurgents of landed background constituted 60% of the uprising's participants (in Lithuania and Belarus around 50%, in Ukraine some 75%). During the first 24 hours of the uprising, armouries across the country were looted, and many Russian officials were executed on sight. On 2 February 1863 was the start of the first major military engagement of the uprising between Lithuanian peasants armed mostly with scythes and a squadron of Russian hussars outside Čysta Būda, near Marijampolė. It ended with the massacre of the unprepared peasants. While there was still hope of a short war, insurgent groups merged into larger formations and recruited new volunteers.


Evolution of events

The provisional government had counted on an insurgency erupting in Russia, where wide discontent with the autocratic regime then seemed to be brewing. It also counted on the active support of
Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A neph ...
, particularly after
Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...
, expecting the inevitable armed conflict with France, had made overtures to Russia sealed in the Alvensleben Convention and offered assistance in suppressing the Polish uprising. Arrangements had already been completed on 14 February and the British Ambassador to
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...
, Sir Alexander Malet, informed his government that a Prussian military envoy
has concluded a military convention with the Russian Government, according to which the two governments will reciprocally afford facilities to each other for the suppression of the insurrectionary movements which have lately taken place in Poland and Lithuania. The Prussian railways are also to be placed at the disposal of the Russian military authorities for the transportation of troops through Prussian territory from one part of the former Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth to another.
That step by Otto von Bismarck led to protests from several governments and incensed the several constituent nations of the former Commonwealth. The result was the transformation of a relatively insignificant uprising into another "national war" against Russia. Encouraged by promises made by Napoleon III, all provinces of the erstwhile Commonwealth, acting on the advice of Władysław Czartoryski, had taken to arms. Moreover, to Indicate their solidarity, all Commonwealth citizens holding office under the Russian government, including the Archbishop of Warsaw, Zymunt Feliński, resigned their positions and signed their allegiance to the newly-constituted Government, which was composed of the five most prominent representatives of the ''Whites''. The ''Reds'', meanwhile, criticised the Polish National Government for being reactionary with its policy to incentivise Polish peasants to fight in the uprising. The government justified its inaction on the back of hopes of foreign military intervention promised by Napoleon III that never materialised.


Romuald Traugutt

It was only after Polish General Romuald Traugutt had taken matters into his own hands on 17 October 1863 to unite all classes under a single national banner that the struggle could be upheld. His restructuring in preparation for an offensive in spring 1864 was banking on a European-wide war. On 27 December 1863, he enacted a decree of the former provisional government by granting peasants the land they worked. The land was to be provided by compensating the owners through state funds after the successful conclusion of the uprising. Traugutt called upon all Polish classes to rise against Russian oppression for the creation of a new Polish state. The response was moderate since the policy came too late. The Russian government had already begun working among peasants to grant them generous parcels of land for the asking. The peasants who had been bought off did not engage with Polish revolutionaries to any extent or provide them with support. Fighting continued intermittently during the winter of 1863–1864 on the southern edge of the Kingdom, near the Galician border, from where assistance was still forthcoming. In late December in the Lublin Voivodeship, General Michał Heydenreich's unit was overwhelmed. The most determined resistance continued in the Świętokrzyskie Mountains, where General Józef Hauke-Bosak distinguished himself by taking several cities from the vastly superior Russian forces. However, he too succumbed to a crushing defeat on 21 February 1864 which presaged the end of the armed struggle. On 29 February, Austria imposed martial law, and on 2 March, the tsarist authorities brought in the
abolition of serfdom The abolition of slavery occurred at different times in different countries. It frequently occurred sequentially in more than one stage – for example, as abolition of the trade in slaves in a specific country, and then as abolition of slavery ...
in the Polish Kingdom. Both events neutralised Traugutt's concept of developing the uprising with a general mobilisation of the population in the Russian partition and reliance on assistance from Galicia. In April 1864, Napoleon III abandoned the Polish cause. Władysław Czartoryski wrote to Traugutt: "We are alone, and alone we shall remain". Arrests eliminated key positions in the secret Polish state, and those who felt threatened sought refuge abroad. Traugutt was taken on the night of 10 April. After he and the last four members of the National Council, Antoni Jezioranski, Rafał Krajewski, Józef Toczyski and Roman Żuliński, had been apprehended by Russian troops, they were imprisoned and executed by hanging on 5 August at the Warsaw Citadel. That marked the symbolic closure of the Uprising. Only Aleksander Waszkowski, the head of the Warsaw insurgency eluded the police till December 1864, but he too joined the list of "the lost" in February 1865. The war consisting of 650 battles and skirmishes with 25,000 Polish and other insurgents killed, had lasted 18 months. The insurgency persisted in Samogitia and Podlasie, where the
Greek Catholic The term Greek Catholic Church can refer to a number of Eastern Catholic Churches following the Byzantine (Greek) liturgy, considered collectively or individually. The terms Greek Catholic, Greek Catholic church or Byzantine Catholic, Byzantine C ...
population, outraged and persecuted for their religious observance, "''Kryaki'' (those baptised into the Greek Orthodox Church), and others like the commander and priest Stanisław Brzóska, clung the longest to the revolutionary banner until the spring of 1865. File:Zygmunt Szczęsny Feliński 06.jpg, Archbishop of Warsaw Feliński File:Romuald Traugutt 111.PNG, Romuald Traugutt File:Stanisław Brzóska (original photo portrait).jpg, Fr. Stanisław Brzóska (original photo portrait)


Decades of reprisals

After the collapse of the uprising, harsh reprisals followed. According to official Russian information, 396 persons were executed and 18,672 were exiled to Siberia. Large numbers of men and women were sent to the interior of Russia and to the
Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historica ...
, Urals and other remote areas. Altogether about 70,000 persons were imprisoned and subsequently exiled from Poland and consigned to distant regions of Russia. The abolition of serfdom in early 1864 was deliberately enacted in a move designed specifically to ruin the ''szlachta''. The Russian government confiscated 1,660 estates in Poland and 1,794 in Lithuania. A 10% income tax was imposed on all estates as a war indemnity. Only in 1869 was the tax reduced to 5% on all incomes. It was the only time that peasants paid the market price for the redemption of the land (the average for the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War ...
was 34% above the market price). All land taken from Polish peasants since 1864 was to be returned without rights of compensation. Former serfs could sell land only to other peasants, not to ''szlachta''. Ninety percent of the ex-serfs in the empire who actually gained land after 1861 were confined to the eight western provinces. Along with
Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
, Polish landless or domestic serfs were the only people who were eligible for land grants after serfdom had been abolished. All of that was to punish the ''szlachta'' for its role in the uprisings of 1830 and 1863. In addition to the land granted to the peasants, the Russian government gave them a forest, pasture and other privileges, known under the name of ''servitutes'', which proved to be a source of incessant irritation between the landowners and peasants over the ensuing decades and impeded economic development. The government took over all church estates and funds and abolished monasteries and convents. With the exception of religious instruction, all teaching in schools was ordered to be in Russian. That also became the official language of the country, to be used exclusively in all offices of central and local government. All traces of former Polish autonomy were removed, and the Kingdom was divided into ten provinces, each with an appointed Russian military governor under the control of the Governor-General in Warsaw. All former Polish government functionaries were deprived of their positions and replaced by Russian officials. According to George Kennan, "thousands of Polish insurgents" were transported to the " Nerchinsk silver-mining district... after the unsuccessful insurrection of 1863".


Legacy

These measures of cultural eradication proved to be only partially effective. In 1905, 41 years after Russia crushed the uprising, the next generation of Poles rose once again in the Łódź insurrection, which too failed. The January Uprising was one in a centuries-long series of Polish uprisings. In its aftermath, two new movements began to evolve that set the political agenda for the next century. One, led by the descendant of Lithuanians, Józef Piłsudski emerged as the Polish Socialist Party. The other, led by
Roman Dmowski Roman Stanisław Dmowski (Polish: , 9 August 1864 – 2 January 1939) was a Polish politician, statesman, and co-founder and chief ideologue of the National Democracy (abbreviated "ND": in Polish, "''Endecja''") political movement. He saw th ...
, became the
National Democracy National Democracy may refer to: * National Democracy (Czech Republic) * National Democracy (Italy) * National Democracy (Philippines) * National Democracy (Poland) * National Democracy (Spain) See also * Civic nationalism, a general concept * ...
movement; sometimes referred to as ''Endecja'', its roots lay in Catholic conservatism that sought national sovereignty, along with the reversal of forced Russification and Germanisation by the
Polonisation Polonization (or Polonisation; pl, polonizacja)In Polish historiography, particularly pre-WWII (e.g., L. Wasilewski. As noted in Смалянчук А. Ф. (Smalyanchuk 2001) Паміж краёвасцю і нацыянальнай ідэя ...
of the partitioned territories in the former Commonwealth.Biskupski, M. B. B. Pula, James S.Wróbel, Piotr J. Eds. ''The Origins of Modern Polish Democracy'' "Polish and Polish-American Studies", Ohio University Press, 2010.


Notable insurgents

*
Francišak Bahuševič Francišak Bahuševič ( be, Францішак Багушэвіч, pl, Franciszek Bohuszewicz, – () was a Belarusian poet, writer and lawyer, considered to be one of the initiators of modern Belarusian literature. Biography Bahuševič wa ...
(1840–1900), Belarusian poet and writer, one of the founders of modern
Belarusian literature Belarusian literature ( be, Беларуская лiтаратура, Biełaruskaja litaratura) is the writing produced, both prose and poetry, by speakers (not necessarily native speakers) of the Belarusian language. History Pre-17th centur ...
* Stanisław Brzóska (1832–1865), was a Polish priest and commander at the end of the insurrection. * Saint
Albert Chmielowski Albert Chmielowski (20 August 1845 – 25 December 1916) - born Adam Hilary Bernard Chmielowski - was a Polish nobleman, painter, disabled veteran of the Uprising of 1863, a professed religious and founder of both the Albertine Brothers and Al ...
(1845–1916), founder of the Albertine Brothers and Sisters. * Jarosław Dąbrowski (1836–1871), officer in the Russian Army, left-wing member of the "secret committee" of officers in St. Petersburg. He took over its leadership from Sierakowski. He died in Paris fighting for the
Paris Commune The Paris Commune (french: Commune de Paris, ) was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defende ...
. * Konstanty Kalinowski (also known as Kastus) (1838–1864), was one of the leaders of
Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
n and
Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...
ian national revival and the leader of the January Uprising in the lands of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania. * Saint Raphael Kalinowski (1835–1907), born Joseph Kalinowski in Lithuania, resigned as a Captain from the Russian Army to become Minister of War for the Polish insurgents. He was arrested and sentenced to death by firing squad, but the sentence was then changed to 10 years in Siberia, including a grueling nine-month overland trek to get there. * Apollo Korzeniowski (1820–1869), Polish playwright and father of Joseph Conrad. *
Marian Langiewicz Marian Langiewicz, full name Marian Antoni Melchior Langiewicz (; 5 August 1827, Krotoszyn – 11 May 1887, Istanbul), was a Polish patriot notable as a military leader of the January Uprising in 1863. Biography He was born in the province o ...
(1827–1887), Military Commander of the uprising. He had an English wife, Suzanne, next to whom he was buried in
Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...
. * Antanas Mackevičius (1828–1863), Lithuanian priest who organized some two hundred and fifty men, armed with hunting rifles and straightened scythes. After a defeat near Vilkija, he was captured and taken to the prison in Kaunas. After Mackevičius refused to betray other leaders of the uprising, he was hanged on 28 December 1863. * Ludwik Mierosławski (1814–1878), veteran of the November Uprising and of the Greater Poland uprising (1846), general, strategist, writer and emigrant with wide foreign contacts. * Władysław Niegolewski (1819–1885), was a liberal Polish politician and member of parliament, an insurgent in the Greater Poland Uprising of 1846 and 1848 and of the January 1863 Uprising, and a co-founder (1861) of the Central Economic Society and (1880) the People's Libraries Society. * Francesco Nullo (1826–1863) Italian general who headed the Garibaldi Legion, and that carried huge symbolic value. Nullo died at the Battle of Krzykawka. * Bolesław Prus (1847–1912), leading Polish writer of historical novels. * Anna Henryka Pustowójtówna (1838–1881), alias "Michał Smok", adjutant to Marian Langiewicz. She was of Russian-Polish descent and an activist from 1861. She later took part in the
Paris Commune The Paris Commune (french: Commune de Paris, ) was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defende ...
and the Franco-Prussian War. She died in Paris, and had four children. * François Rochebrune, (1830–1870), one of several French officers in the Uprising, he formed and led a Polish rebel unit called the Zouaves of Death and was promoted to General. * Aleksander Sochaczewski (1843–1923), Polish painter. * Romuald Traugutt (1826–1864), a Lieutenant colonel of German descent in the Russian Army, he was promoted general in the insurrection, was its leader for a spell and held the Foreign Affairs portfolio in the underground government. He was tortured and hanged by the Russians with several of his colleagues.


Influence on art and literature

Falling into the late
romantic period Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
, the events and figures of the uprising inspired many Polish painters, including
Artur Grottger Artur Grottger (11 November 1837 – 13 December 1867) was a Polish Romantic painter and graphic artist, one of the most prominent artists of the mid 19th century under the foreign partitions of Poland, despite a life cut short by incurable ill ...
,
Juliusz Kossak Juliusz Fortunat Kossak ( Nowy Wiśnicz, 15 December 1824 – 3 February 1899, Kraków) was an Austrian Polish historical painter and master illustrator who specialized in battle scenes, military portraits and horses. He was the progenitor of a ...
and Michał Elwiro Andriolli, and marked the delineation with the positivism that followed. * The Polish poet
Cyprian Norwid Cyprian Kamil Norwid, a.k.a. Cyprian Konstanty Norwid (; 24 September 1821 – 23 May 1883), was a nationally esteemed Polish poet, dramatist, painter, and sculptor. He was born in the Masovian village of Laskowo-Głuchy near Warsaw. One of h ...
wrote a famous poem, " Chopin's Piano," describing the
defenestration Defenestration (from Modern Latin ) is the act of throwing someone or something out of a window. The term was coined around the time of an incident in Prague Castle in the year 1618 which became the spark that started the Thirty Years' War. ...
of the composer's
piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
during the January 1863 Uprising, when Russian soldiers maliciously threw the instrument out of a second-floor
Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officiall ...
apartment. Chopin had left Warsaw and Poland forever shortly before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising. * Eliza Orzeszkowa, a leading Polish positivist writer and nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature wrote '' Nad Niemnem'' a novel set in and around the city of Grodno after the 1863 January Uprising. * Józef Jarzębowski has put together material from unknown people who lived through the uprising in his ''Mówią Ludzie Roku 1863: Antologia nieznanych i małoznanych Głosów Ludzi współczesnych''. London: Veritas, 1963. ("Voices from 1863: An Anthology of unknown and little known contemporary Perspectives"). * In the initial draft of '' Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea'' by
Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the '' Voyages extra ...
but not in the published version,
Captain Nemo Captain Nemo (; later identified as an Indian, Prince Dakkar) is a fictional character created by the French novelist Jules Verne (1828–1905). Nemo appears in two of Verne's science-fiction classics, ''Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas'' ...
was a Polish nobleman whose family had been brutally murdered by the Russians during the January 1863 Uprising. Since France had only recently signed an alliance with the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War ...
, for the novel's final version, Verne's editor, Pierre-Jules Hetzel, made him obscure Nemo's motives. * In
Guy de Maupassant Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (, ; ; 5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a 19th-century French author, remembered as a master of the short story form, as well as a representative of the Naturalist school, who depicted human lives, destin ...
's novel ''
Pierre et Jean ''Pierre et Jean'' is a naturalist or psycho-realist work written by Guy de Maupassant in Étretat in his native Normandy between June and September 1887. This was Maupassant's shortest novel. It appeared in three instalments in the Nouvelle Re ...
'', the protagonist Pierre has a friend, an old Polish chemist who is said to have come to
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
after the bloody events in his motherland. The story is believed to refer to the January Uprising.


Gallery

File:A Wielopolski.jpg,
Aleksander Wielopolski Margrave ( pl, margrabia) Aleksander Ignacy Jan-Kanty Wielopolski (born 1803 in Sędziejowice, Kraków Department, Duchy of Warsaw, died 1877 in Dresden, Kingdom of Saxony, German Empire) was a Polish aristocrat, owner of large estates, and t ...
File:Alexandre 2 photo.jpg, Alexander II of Russia File:Z Sierakowski 1863.jpg, Z. Sierakowski 1863 File:Муравьёв-Виленский литография.jpg, Mikhail Muravyov-Vilensky File:Ludwik Mieroslawski 2.jpg, Ludwik Mierosławski File:Polish partisans from 1863.PNG,
Juliusz Kossak Juliusz Fortunat Kossak ( Nowy Wiśnicz, 15 December 1824 – 3 February 1899, Kraków) was an Austrian Polish historical painter and master illustrator who specialized in battle scenes, military portraits and horses. He was the progenitor of a ...
, Polish partisans of 1863 Image:Wegrow.jpg, Battle of Węgrów 1863 Image:January Uprising Russian revision.PNG, Russian soldiers looting a Polish manor Image:Wilno kaplica.jpg, Chapel in Vilnius, erected to commemorate the crushing of the 1863 January Uprising against Russia, picture taken
Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Sergius is a male given name of Ancient Roman origin after the name of the Latin ''gens'' Sergia or Sergii of regal and republican ages. It is a common Christian name, in honor of Saint Sergius, or in Russia, of Saint Sergius of Radonezh, and ...
File:Graves of January Uprising veterans.jpg, Graves of January Uprising veterans at Warsaw's Powązki Cemetery Image:Cross commemorating 70th Anniversary of January Uprising.JPG, Cross commemorating 70th Anniversary of January Uprising


See also

* Menotti Garibaldi * Zouaves of Death *
Insurgence An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion against authority waged by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare from primarily rural base areas. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric nature: small irreg ...
* Polish uprisings * Sybirak * '' The Prisoners'' * International Workingmen's Association


References


Further reading

* * * *


External links


Database of January insurgents

Augustin O'Brien Petersburg and Warsaw: scenes witnessed during a residence in Poland and Russia in 1863–1864 (1864)

William Ansell Day. The Russian government in Poland: with a narrative of the Polish Insurrection of 1863 (1867)

Pictures and paintings dedicated January Uprising
on
YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
* —Polish movie about the uprising (1992) {{Authority control 19th-century rebellions Resistance to the Russian Empire Conflicts in 1863 Conflicts in 1864 Rebellions in Poland 19th century in Belarus History of Ukraine (1795–1918) Wars of independence Political history of Latvia Nationalist movements in Europe Nationalism in Latvia 1863 in Poland 1864 in Poland Polish nationalism Romantic nationalism 1863 in the Russian Empire 1864 in the Russian Empire Alexander II of Russia