Wincenty Konstanty Kalinowski | |
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| Born | (1838-02-02)2 February 1838 Mostovlyany, Russian Empire |
| Died | 22 March 1864(1864-03-22) (aged 26) Vilna, Russian Empire |
| Alma mater | Saint Petersburg State University |
| Family | Kalinowski family |
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Konstanty Kalinowski,[a] orWincenty Konstanty Kalinowski (2 February [O.S. 21 January] 1838 – 22 March [O.S. 10 March] 1864), was a Polish writer,[1] journalist, lawyer and revolutionary. He was one of the leaders of the 1863January Uprising on the lands of the formerPolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. He is considered a national hero inPoland,Lithuania andBelarus. Particularly in Belarus, Kalinowski is revered asFather of the Nation and icon ofBelarusian nationalism.[2]
Kalinowski conducted his activities in the spirit of resurrecting the common state of Lithuania, Ruthenia (now Belarus and Ukraine), and Poland in the traditions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.[1]
Kalinowski was born inMostowlany, inGrodnensky Uyezd of theRussian Empire (nowMostowlany, Poland) to aszlachta family. TheKalinowski family hailed from the Polish region ofMazovia and bore theKalinowa coat of arms. His father, Szymon, was a manager of the Mostowlany farm andmanor. His older brother,Wiktor Kalinowski [be] would become a historian. In 1849 his father, Szymon bought afolwark nearŚwisłocz (now Svislach,Belarus) where Konstanty grew up.[3]
After graduating from a local school in Svislach in 1855, Kalinowski entered the faculty of Medicine of theUniversity of Moscow as an external student.[3] After one semester he moved toSt. Petersburg, where his brother was, and joined the faculty of Law at theUniversity of St. Petersburg. Along with his brother Wiktor, he got himself involved in Polish students' conspiracies and secret cultural societies, headed byZygmunt Sierakowski andJarosław Dąbrowski. After graduating in 1860, Konstanty traveled toVilnius where he unsuccessfully applied to join the civil service underVladimir Ivanovich Nazimov [ru].[3]
Konstanty then returned to theGrodno area in 1861. Konstanty started publishingMužyckaja prauda (Peasants' Truth), the first newspaper inBelarusian, written inŁacinka, first published in June 1862.[4] ThePeasants' Truth was issued seven times until 1863.[3] Konstanty also published two otherPolish language newspapers.[5] Konstanty was more aligned with theReds which represented a democratic movement uniting peasants, workers, and some clergy rather than the more moderateWhites.[3]
In his literary work, Kalinowski underlined the need to liberate all people of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth fromRussia's occupation and to conserve and promote theGreek Catholic faith andBelarusian language. He also promoted the idea of activisation of peasants for the cause of national liberation, the idea that was until then dominated by thegentry. He favored the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth's traditions of democracy, tolerance and freedom, as opposed to national oppression of cultures dominated byImperial 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 Muscovite schools, and in these schools they teach inMuscovite language, where you will never hear a word in Polish, in Lithuanian or in Belarusian, as the people want [...][6][7]
There is some academic debate about which texts to attribute to Konstanty.[2] Konstanty was unhappy with the timing and objectives of the January Uprising, which broke out on 23 January 1863. There had been a growing rift between him and other leaders of the uprising in Warsaw.[3]
After the outbreak of the January Uprising, he was involved in the secretProvincial Lithuanian Committee [pl;be-tarask] inVilnius. Soon he was promoted to the commissar of thePolish National Government for theGrodno Governorate. His writings made him popular both among the peasants and the gentry, which enabled thepartisan 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 (Polish:Komisarz Pełnomocny Rządu na Litwę), which made him the commander-in-chief of all partisan units fighting in the areas of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which are in modernLithuania,Belarus, easternPoland andUkraine.
However, after initial successes against the Russian armies, the Russians moved a 120,000 man 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 –Letters from Beneath the Gallows (Pismo z-pad szybienicy), a passionate credo for his compatriots. He was tried by acourt-martial for leading the revolt against Russia and sentenced to death. On 22 March 1864, at the age 26, he was publicly executed onLukiškės Square in Vilnius.[3]
Kalinowski's remains, along with those of others, were clandestinely buried by the Tsarist authorities on the site of a military fortress on top of theGediminas Hill in Vilnius. In 2017, Kalinowski's remains were excavated and identified, and solemnly reinterred in theRasos Cemetery on 22 November 2019.[8]
During the so-calledJeans Revolution, protesters who disputed the2006 Belarusian presidential election symbolically renamedOctober Square, after the Bolshevik revolution, Kalinovski Square.[9]Kalinovski Square was also the title of a documentary film about these events. In Uladzimir Karatkievich's novelKing Stakh's Wild Hunt, one of the principal characters, Andrey Svetsilovich, had a portrait of Kalinowski above his writing desk.
During the2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Belarusian volunteers fighting on the side ofUkraine formed abattalion named Kastuś Kalinoŭski,[10][11] which later transformed into a regiment.
In UkrainianRivne, a street was named after Kalinowski.[12] In June 2024, a memorial plaque in honor of Kalinowski was unveiled in a street named after him inChernihiv.[13]
The Polish Government'sscholarship program for Belarusian students expelled from their studies after theJeans Revolution has been named after Konstanty Kalinowski since 2006.[14]
BelarusianWikiquote has quotations related to:Kastuś Kalinoŭski
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