Kościuszko / A Biography

by Monica M. Gardner

A barn in the vicinity of the city has long been shown as the place where Kościuszko slept the night before he entered Cracow. The Polish general, Madalinski, who by a ruse had evaded the Russian order to disarm, was the first to rise. At the head of his small force, followed by a hot Russian pursuit, he triumphantly led his soldiers down towards Cracow. At the news of his approach the Russian garrison evacuated the town, and Kościuszko entered its walls a few hours after the last Russian soldier had left it, at midday on March 23 1794. It had been intended to convene the meeting of the citizens at the town hall on that same day; but the Act of the proclamation of the Rising proved to be so erroneously printed that it could not be published, mainly because Kościuszko was not an adept at putting his ideas into writing, and the numerous corrections were too much for the printers. The night was spent by Kościuszko in rewriting the manifesto which was to travel all over Poland, which was to be proclaimed from the walls and pulpits of Polish town and village, and despatched to the governments of Europe. The room yet remains where he passed those hours in the house of General Wodzicki who, when commanded by Russia to disband his regiments, had at Kościuszko's instigation secretly kept them together, paying them out of his own pocket, in readiness for the Rising.

The morning of March 24th dawned With Wodzicki and several other soldiers, Kościuszko assisted at a low Mass in the Capuchin church, where the officiating priest blessed the leader's sword. "God grant me to conquer or die," were Kościuszko's words, as he received the weapon from the monk's hand. At ten o'clock he quietly walked to the town hall. From all quarters of the city dense throngs had poured into the marketplace, and pressed outside the town hall, overflowing on to its steps, surging into its rooms. In front of his soldiers Kościuszko stood before the crowds on the stone now marked by a memorial tablet, upon which on each anniversary of March 24th the Poles lay wreaths. That day, that scene, remain engraved for ever among the greatest of Poland's memories. As far as Kościuszko's gaze rested he saw his countrymen and countrywomen with eyes turned to him as to the deliverer of themselves and of their country, palpitating for the moment that he was about to announce, many of them wearing his portrait and carrying banners with the inscriptions: "Freedom or Death," "For our rights and liberty," "For Cracow and our country," or "Vivat Kościuszko." The drums were rolled, and in the midst of a dead silence the army took the oath of the Rising.

"I, N. N., swear that I will be faithful to the Polish nation, and obedient to Tadeusz Kościuszko, the Commander-in-Chief, who has been summoned by this nation to the defence of the freedom, liberties, and independence of our country. So help me God and the innocent Passion of His Son."

Then Kościuszko himself stepped forward. With bared head, his eyes lifted to heaven and his hands resting on his sword, standing in plain civilian garb before his people, surrounded by no pomp or retinue, in the simplicity that was natural to him, the new dictator of Poland in his turn took his oath:

"I, Tadeusz Kościuszko, swear in the sight of God to the whole Polish nation that I will use the power entrusted to me for the personal oppression of none, but will only use it for the defence of the integrity of the boundaries, the regaining of the independence of the nation, and the solid establishment of universal freedom. So help me God and the innocent Passion of His Son."

He then went inside the town hall. There he was greeted by cries of "Long live Kościuszko ! Long live the defender of our country! "When silence was restored he delivered a speech, the exact terms of which are not accurately recorded; but it is known that he demanded of every class in the country to rally to the national banner—nobles, burghers, priests, peasants, Jews—and that he placed himself at the disposal of his people without requiring of them any oath, for, said he, both he and they were united in one common interest. Then he ordered the formal Act of the Rising to be read. It was received with an outburst of applause, and the clamour of rejoicing rang to the skies.

This Act was in part grafted on Kościuszko's personal observation of the American Declaration of Independence, but only in part. Kościuszko's own intensely Polish soul speaks through the document—the anguish of a Pole at the sight of his country's wrongs, the cry of a desperate but undespairing patriotism, the breathing of the spirit that should bring new life.

"The present condition of unhappy Poland is known to the world"—so the Act opens. "The iniquity of two neighbouring Powers and the crimes of traitors to the country have plunged her into this abyss. Resolved upon the destruction of the Polish name, Catherine II, in agreement with the perjured Frederick William, has filled up the measure of her crimes."

The treatment of Poland at the hands of Russia and Prussia is then recapitulated in accents of the burning indignation that such a recital would necessarily evoke. Of Austria Kościuszko makes no mention, for the reason that he believed, erroneously, as he was to learn by bitter experience, that her sympathies could be enlisted for the national movement.

"Overwhelmed with this weight of misfortune, injured more by treachery than by the power of the weapons of the enemies ... having lost our country and with her the enjoyment of the most sacred rights of freedom, of safety, of ownership, alike of our persons and of our property, deceived and played upon by some states, abandoned by others, we, Poles, citizens, inhabitants of the palatinate of Cracow, consecrating to our country our lives as the only possession which tyranny has not yet torn from us, are about to take those last and violent measures which patriotic despair dictates to us. Having, therefore, the unbroken determination to die and find a grave in the ruins of our own country or to deliver our native land from the depredations of tyranny and a shameful yoke, we declare in the sight of God, in the sight of the whole human race, and especially before you, O nations, by whom liberty is more highly prized than all other possessions in the world, that, employing the undenied right of resistance to tyranny and armed oppression, we all, in one national, civic and brotherly spirit, unite our strength in one; and, persuaded that the happy result of our great undertaking depends chiefly on the strictest union between us all, we renounce all prejudices and opinions which hitherto have divided or might divide the citizens, the inhabitants of one land and the sons of one country, and we all promise each other to be sparing of no sacrifice and means which only the holy love of liberty can provide to men rising in despair in her defence.