Kościuszko Uprising (1794): Poland's Last Stand Before Partition

The Kościuszko Uprising was a national revolt in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1794 against Russia and Prussia, led by Tadeusz Kościuszko. Launched after the Second Partition had stripped Poland of much of its territory, it won early victories such as Racławice and freed Warsaw and Vilnius, but was crushed by the autumn. Its defeat led directly to the Third Partition of 1795, which erased the Commonwealth from the map for more than a century.

Background: a state in danger

By the late eighteenth century the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was weak and under heavy Russian influence. The first of the Partitions of Poland in 1772 had taken almost a third of its land. Reformers responded with the Constitution of 3 May 1791, which strengthened the monarchy and parliament and abolished the liberum veto, which had allowed a single deputy to block legislation.

Conservative magnates opposed to the reforms formed the Confederation of Targowica in 1792 and invited Russian intervention. In the short Polish-Russian War of 1792 the Polish army fought bravely, with Kościuszko distinguishing himself at the Battle of Dubienka, but King Stanisław August Poniatowski joined the Targowica side and the war was lost. In 1793 Russia and Prussia carried out the Second Partition, leaving a small rump state under Russian troops.

Kościuszko was already a respected soldier. Born in 1746 in Lithuania, he had served in the American Revolutionary War, designing the fortifications at Saratoga and West Point, and had returned to Poland in 1784. After 1792 he went into exile in Saxony and France, where Polish patriots began to plan an insurrection.

The uprising begins

The trigger came when the Russian authorities ordered reductions in the Polish army in early 1794, and a cavalry brigade under General Antoni Madaliński refused to disband. On 24 March 1794 Kościuszko proclaimed the insurrection on the Market Square in Kraków, swearing an oath to the nation and taking the title of Supreme Commander. The Act of Insurrection called on all citizens to fight for independence and the integrity of the country.

Kościuszko gathered a small army of regular soldiers and called up peasant volunteers. Many peasants, lacking firearms, came armed with war scythes, their blades straightened and mounted vertically on poles. These kosynierzy, or scythemen, became the symbol of the uprising.

Racławice and the risings in the cities

On 4 April 1794 Kościuszko met a Russian corps under General Alexander Tormasov near the village of Racławice, north of Kraków. In the decisive moment, peasant scythemen charged a Russian artillery battery and captured its guns. One of them, Wojciech Bartosz Głowacki, was said to have smothered the fuse of a cannon with his cap; he was ennobled for his bravery and died of wounds received later in the campaign.

The battle was militarily modest, but its political effect was large. On 17 and 18 April the people of Warsaw rose against the Russian garrison, with the shoemaker Jan Kiliński among the leaders, and drove the Russians out of the city after heavy street fighting. On 22 and 23 April Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, rose under Colonel Jakub Jasiński.

On 7 May 1794 Kościuszko issued the Proclamation of Połaniec, which granted peasants personal freedom, reduced their labour dues and protected them from eviction. It did not abolish serfdom, and many landowners resisted it, but it was the most radical social measure ever made in the Commonwealth.

Defeat

The insurgents faced overwhelming odds once Prussia joined Russia. On 6 June 1794 Kościuszko was defeated at Szczekociny by a combined Russian and Prussian army, and Kraków fell to the Prussians on 15 June. In July and August Prussian and Russian forces besieged Warsaw, but the defenders held, and a rising in Greater Poland behind Prussian lines forced the siege to be lifted in early September.

Russia then sent fresh armies under General Alexander Suvorov. On 10 October 1794 Kościuszko tried to stop a Russian force under General Ivan Fersen at Maciejowice before it could join Suvorov. The Poles were defeated, and Kościuszko was badly wounded and taken prisoner.

On 4 November Suvorov stormed Praga, the fortified suburb of Warsaw on the east bank of the Vistula. After the defences fell, Russian troops killed many of the defenders and inhabitants and set fire to the district. Estimates of the dead vary from several thousand to about 20,000, including many civilians. Warsaw capitulated the next day. The last insurgent forces surrendered at Radoszyce on 16 November 1794.

Key people

• Tadeusz Kościuszko (1746–1817), Supreme Commander of the uprising, combined military leadership with ideas of civic equality shaped by the American and French revolutions.
• Jan Kiliński (1760–1819), a Warsaw master shoemaker, led townspeople in the April rising and later served on the insurgent council.
• Wojciech Bartosz Głowacki became the best-known peasant hero of Racławice.
• Alexander Suvorov (1730–1800), Russia’s most celebrated general, crushed the uprising and was made a field marshal for it.
• Stanisław August Poniatowski (1732–1798), the last king of Poland, stayed in Warsaw during the uprising but had little influence over it.

Consequences

The defeat sealed the fate of the Commonwealth. On 24 October 1795 Russia, Prussia and Austria signed the final agreement of the Third Partition, dividing the remaining territory among themselves. Stanisław August abdicated on 25 November 1795 and died in St Petersburg in 1798.

Kościuszko was held in St Petersburg until the death of Catherine the Great in 1796. Her son Paul I released him after he swore not to fight Russia again. He travelled to the United States, where he was a friend of Thomas Jefferson, and later lived in France and Switzerland. He died in Solothurn in 1817 and was buried in Wawel Cathedral in Kraków.

Myths and facts

• “Finis Poloniae.” Kościuszko was reported to have cried “the end of Poland” as he fell at Maciejowice. He later denied it in a letter, and historians treat the phrase as a story spread by others.
• The uprising was a peasant revolution. Peasant scythemen became its emblem, but the leadership came mainly from the gentry and officers, and the Połaniec reforms stopped short of ending serfdom.
• Racławice was a great battle. It involved only a few thousand soldiers on each side. Its fame comes from its symbolic role rather than its size.

Legacy

The uprising became a founding legend of modern Polish patriotism, showing nobles, townspeople and peasants fighting side by side. Later revolts, such as the November Uprising of 1830, drew on its memory. The Kościuszko Mound in Kraków was raised in his honour between 1820 and 1823, and the vast Racławice Panorama, painted by Jan Styka and Wojciech Kossak in 1894, is now displayed in Wrocław.

Kościuszko is also honoured in the United States and elsewhere as a fighter for liberty; Australia’s highest mountain, Mount Kosciuszko, was named after him in 1840.

Timeline

• 1793: Russia and Prussia carry out the Second Partition of Poland.
• 1794, 24 March: Kościuszko proclaims the uprising in Kraków.
• 1794, 4 April: Victory over the Russians at Racławice.
• 1794, 17–18 April: The people of Warsaw expel the Russian garrison.
• 1794, 7 May: The Proclamation of Połaniec eases serfdom.
• 1794, 6 June: Defeat at Szczekociny; Kraków falls on 15 June.
• 1794, 10 October: Kościuszko is wounded and captured at Maciejowice.
• 1794, 4 November: Suvorov storms Praga.
• 1794, 16 November: The last insurgent forces surrender at Radoszyce.
• 1795, 24 October: The Third Partition is agreed.

Why it matters

The Kościuszko Uprising was the Commonwealth’s final attempt to save its independence by force of arms. Its failure ended the Polish-Lithuanian state, but the ideals and heroes of 1794 sustained Polish national identity through 123 years of partition.