Polish Revolt 1863

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Main Events:

Praying on the battle ground-shows the importance of religion at the time.

• Poles living in Austrian-ruled Galicia and Prussia supported the revolt; they organised volunteer detachments, and gave financial aid to the insurgents (although the insurgents were never able to coordinate).
• Support for the uprising was strong among Poles in Right-Bank Ukraine, who were largely from the nobility. But appeals to Polish patriotism could not sway the largely peasant Ukrainian population to join the revolt, mainly because most peasants continued to associate them with the lords and systems of serfdom.
• However, some peasants did support the cause, and rebels did gain some support among the artisan, worker, lower gentry, and official classes in the cities. A few peasant revolts occurred against the large landlords in rural areas.
• Ukrainian intelligentsia largely refused to cooperate, as they didn't want to re-establish the borders of the old Polish Commonwealth.

Polish fighters- ready for rebellion

• The uprising broke out at a moment when general quiet prevailed in Europe, and though there was a public outcry in support of the Poles, powers such as France, Britain and Austria were unwilling to disturb the calm.
• The potential revolutionary leaders did not have sufficient means to arm and equip the groups of young men who were hiding in forests to escape Alexander Wielopolski's order of conscription into the Russian army.
• Altogether about 10,000 men rallied around the revolutionary banner; they were recruited chiefly from the ranks of the city working classes and minor clerks.
• To deal with these ill-armed units the Russian government had at its disposal an army of 90,000 men under General Ramsay in Poland.
• The provisional government counted on a revolutionary outbreak in Russia, where the discontent with the autocratic regime seemed at the time to be widely prevalent.
• It also counted on the active support of Napoleon III, particularly after Prussia, foreseeing an inevitable armed conflict with France, made friendly overtures to Russia in the Alvensleben Convention and offered assistance in suppressing the Polish uprising.
• The uprising was finally crushed by Russia in 1864.
• 396 persons were executed and 18,672 were exiled to Siberia.
• The 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.

Fighting in the houses- a woman is caught in the midst

• Russian chauvinists took advantage of the tense circumstances to frighten the government and to discredit liberals and radicals, who were largely sympathetic, at least initially, to Polish claims for more autonomy.
• Peasant disturbances and rise in discontent among radical intelligentsia frightened the regime as well.
• This served to strengthen conservative and reactionary tendencies in Russian government and society.
• Another impact was that Petr Valuev forbade publication of popular religious and educational texts in Ukrainian, and the repression of individual Ukrainian activists.

The beginning:

Conclusion

• After the Russian Empire lost the Crimean war and was weakened economically and politically, unrest started in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
• In Vilnius 116 demonstrations were held in 1861. In August 1861, protests in Vilnius ended in clashes with the Imperial Russian Army.
• In spite of Russian police and Cossack interference, a symbolic meeting of hymn-singing Poles and Lithuanians took place on the bridge across the Niemen River.
• After a series of patriotic riots, the Russian (regent) of Tsar Alexander II, General Karl Lambert, introduced martial law in Poland on 14 October 1861. Public gatherings were banned and some public leaders were declared outlaws.
• The future leaders of the uprising gathered secretly in St. Petersburg, Warsaw, Vilnius, Paris and London. After this series of meetings two major factions emerged. The Reds represented united peasants, workers, and some clergy, while The Whites represented liberal minded landlords and intelligentsia of the time.
• In 1862 two initiative groups were formed for the two components of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

What is the revolt of 1863?

• The lead-up to the Polish uprising of 1863 had been in the making for several years, and some of the underlying tensions that led to rebellion actually dated back several decades.
• The uprising began as a spontaneous protest by young Poles against conscription into the Imperial Russian Army. It was soon joined by high-ranking Polish-Lithuanian officers and various politicians.
• The insurrectionists, severely outnumbered and lacking serious outside support, were forced to resort to guerrilla warfare tactics.
• Public executions and deportations to Siberia led many Poles to abandon armed struggle and turn instead to the idea of "organic work": economic and cultural self-improvement.

Russia wins. Angry Poland.

The Polish Revolt 1863