Konstanty Kalinowski

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Wincenty Konstanty Kalinowski
Кастусь Каліноўскі.jpg
Born(1838-02-02)2 February 1838
Mostowlany, present day Poland
Died22 March 1864(1864-03-22) (aged 26)
Vilnius, Lithuania
NationalityPolish, Lithuanian, Belarusian
Alma materSaint Petersburg State University
Parents
  • Szymon Kalinowski (father)
  • Veronica Rybinskaya (mother)
RelativesVictor Otan Kalinowski (brother)
FamilyKalinowski family

Wincenty Konstanty Kalinowski, also known as Vincent Kanstancin Kalinoŭski (Belarusian: Вінцэ́нт Канстанці́н Каліно́ўскі) or Kastuś Kalinoŭski (Belarusian: Касту́сь Каліно́ўскі[1]), Konstanty Kalinowski (Polish) and Konstantinas Kalinauskas (Lithuanian) (2 February [O.S. 21 January] 1838 – 22 March [O.S. 10 March] 1864), was a 19th-century Belarusian[2][3][4] writer, journalist, lawyer and revolutionary. He was one of the leaders of the Polish, Lithuanian and Belarusian national revival and the leader of the January Uprising in lands of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

One of several participants in the failed January Uprisings, Kalinowski is especially reverred in Belarus where he is seen as an icon of Belarusian nationalism.[5]

Life[]

Konstanty Kalinowski, 1863
A sheet with a fragment of Kalinowski's "Letters from under the gallows" in Belarusian Łacinka

Kastuś Kalinoŭski was born in Mastaŭliany, in Grodnensky Uyezd (present day Mostowlany in Poland) to a szlachta family. The Kalinowski family hailed from the region of Mazovia (Polish: Mazowsze) and bore the Kalinowa coat of arms. His father, Szymon, was a manager of the Mastaŭliany farm and manor. His older brother,  [be] would become a historian. In 1849 his father, Szymon bought a folwark near Świsłocz (now Svislach in Belarus) where Kastuś grew up.[6]

After graduating from a local school in Świsłocz in 1855, Kalinowski entered the faculty of Medicine of the University of Moscow as an external student.[6] After one semester he moved to St. Petersburg, where his brother was and joined the faculty of Law at the University of St. Petersburg. Along with his brother Victor, he got himself involved in Polish students' conspiracies and secret cultural societies, headed by Zigmantas Sierakauskas and Jarosław Dąbrowski. After graduating in 1860, Konstanty traveled to Vilna where he unsuccessfully applied to join the civil service under  [ru].[6]

Literary work[]

Konstanty then returned to the area of Hrodna in 1861. Konstanty started publishing  [be] (Peasants' Truth), the first newspaper in Belarusian, written in Łacinka, first published in June 1862.[7] The Peasants' Truth was issued seven times until 1863.[6] Konstanty also published two other Polish language newspapers.[8] Konstanty was more aligned with the Reds faction which represented a democratic movement uniting peasants, workers, and some clergy rather than the more moderate Whites.[6]

In his literary work, Kalinoŭski underlined the need to liberate all people of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from Russia's occupation and to conserve and promote the Greek-Catholic faith and Belarusian language. He also promoted the idea of activisation of peasants for the cause of national liberation, the idea that was until then dominated by the gentry. He favored the good traditions of democracy, tolerance and freedom of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, as opposed to national oppression of cultures dominated by Imperial Russia:

While the Polish Council gives all fraternal peoples self-help, the Muscovite not only does not do so, but even where Poles, Lithuanians and Belarusians lived, he opens Moscovite schools, and in these schools they teach in Moscovite language, where you will never hear a word in Polish, in Lithuanian or in Belarusian, as the people want [...][9][10]

It must be noted that it's not been there is some academic debate about which texts to attribute to Konstanty.[5] Konstanty was unhappy with the timing and objectives of the January Uprising, which broke out on January 23rd 1863. There had been a growing rift between him and other leaders of the uprising in Warsaw.[6]

After the outbreak of the January Uprising, he was involved in the secret Provincial Lithuanian Committee in Vilnius (Prowincjonalny Litewski Komitet w Wilnie). Soon he was promoted to the commissar of the Polish government for the Grodno Voivodeship. His writings made him popular both among the peasants and the gentry, which enabled the partisan units under his command to grow rapidly. Because of his successes he was promoted to the rank of Plenipotentiary Commissar of the Government for Lithuania (Komisarz Pełnomocny Rządu na Litwę), which made him the commander-in-chief of all partisan units fighting in the areas of today's' Eastern Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine.

A tablet marking the Kalinowski's execution site, Lukiškės Square, Vilnius

Last months, execution and interment[]

However, after initial successes against the Russian armies, the Russians moved a 120,000 men strong army to the area and the revolutionaries started to lose most of the skirmishes. Finally Kalinowski was betrayed by one of his soldiers and handed over to the Russians.

He was imprisoned in Vilnius, where he wrote one of his most notable works - the (Pismo z-pad szybienicy), a passionate credo for his compatriots. He was tried by a court martial for leading the revolt against Russia and sentenced to death. On 22 March 1864, at the age 26, he was publicly executed on Lukiškės Square in Vilnius.[6]

Kalinowski's remains, along with others, were clandestinely buried by the Tsarist authorities on the site of a military fortress on top of the Gediminas Hill in Vilnius. In 2019, Kalinowski's remains were excavated and identified, and solemnly reinterred in the Rasos Cemetery on 22 November 2019.[11]

Legacy[]

Kalinowski's legacy is somewhat controversial.[12] During the so-called Jeans Revolution, protesters who disputed the 2006 Belarusian presidential election symbolically renamed October Square, after the Bolshevik revolution, into Kalinovski Square.[13] Kalinovski Square was also the title of a documentary film about these events.

See also[]

Related reading[]

  • Jan Zaprudnik & Thomas E. Bird: Peasant's Truth, the Tocsin of the 1863 Uprising in: Zapisy Belarusian Institute of Arts and Sciences. Vol. 14. New York, 1976.
  • Kastuś Kalinoŭski, commentaries by Jan Zaprudnik and Thomas E. Bird: The 1863 Uprising in Byelorussia: "Peasants' Truth" and "Letters from Beneath the Gallows". Byelorussian Institute of Arts and Sciences, The Krecheuski Foundation, New York, 1980.

References[]

  1. ^ The name Kastuś began to be used in the 20th century.
  2. ^ Per Anders Rudling. The Rise and Fall of Belarusian Nationalism, 1906–1931. Pitt Russian East European Series. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015. Illustrations. p. 37., ISBN 978-0-8229-6308-0
  3. ^ Vasil' Herasimchyk. Kanstantyn Kalinouski: Person and Legend. Hrodna: YurSaPrynt, 2018. 229 pp. [Герасімчык, В.У. Канстанцін Каліноўскі: асоба і легенда / В. У. Герасімчык. – Гродна: ТАА «ЮрСаПрынт», 2018. – 229 с.] (in Belarusian)
  4. ^ Anatol' Mias'nikou. In Spite of Everything He is a Hero. Bielaruskaya Dumka. [Анатоль Мясьнікоў. І ўсё ж ён герой. Беларуская думка] (in Belarusian)
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b Aliaksandr Smaliančuk (2015). "Kastuś Kalinoŭski and the Belarusian National Idea: Research Problems". Journal of Belarusian Studies. 7 (3): 70–78. doi:10.30965/20526512-00703004.
  6. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g Horosko, L. (1965). "Kastus Kalinouski". Journal of Belarusian Studies. 1 (1): 30–35. doi:10.30965/20526512-00101005.
  7. ^ «Мужыцкая праўда»
  8. ^ Michaluk, D (2015). "Polish-Language Clandestine Press Published under the Patronage of Kanstancin Kalinoŭski". Journal of Belarusian Studies. 7 (3): 79–93. doi:10.30965/20526512-00703005.
  9. ^ "Kastus Kalinouski". belarusguide.com.
  10. ^ "Кастусь Каліноўскі. Пісьмы з-пад шыбеніцы". knihi.com.
  11. ^ "President attends January Uprising burials in Lithuania". 22 November 2019.
  12. ^ "Dlaczego Łukaszenka nie lubi powstania styczniowego" (in Polish). Gazeta Wyborcza. 2013-02-15.
  13. ^ Paula Borowska (17 September 2013). "Konstanty Kalinouski: A Contested Hero". Belarus Digest.

External links[]

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