Delegacja Miejska

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The members of the committee on a positive photo montage by Karol Beyer (1861)
The funeral of the five protesters who were shot dead on March 2, 1861, organized by the delegation. Painting by Aleksander Lesser

Delegacja Miejska (German: Städtische Delegation , also known as Stadtdelegation ) was a committee formed on February 27, 1861 in Warsaw , which should contribute to calming the tense situation between the Polish population and the Russian occupiers . The delegation was disbanded after a short time.

history

On February 25, 1861, the Russian army shot and killed several demonstrators during a protest by Polish patriots on Warsaw Street Krakowskie Przedmieście . To prevent excesses on the Polish side, a delegation consisting of 14 Warsaw residents from various professional groups was founded two days later. Committee members included well-known personalities such as the banker Leopold Stanisław Kronenberg , the writer Józef Ignacy Kraszewski , the doctor Tytus Chałubiński , the photographer Karol Beyer , the merchant Franciszek Ksawery Szlenkier and the rabbi Dow Ber Meisels . The other members were Teofil Piotrowski, August Trzetrzewiński, Mathias Rosen, Józef Koenig, Jakub Lewiński, P. Józef Stecki, Jakub Piotrowski, Stanisław Hiszpański and P. Jożef Wyszyński.

The delegation called up a vigilante group to maintain public order, replacing the Russian troops that were hated by the population and had patrolled the streets until then. The vigilante group should have a calming effect on the angry residents of Warsaw.

On February 28, 1861, the delegation, together with representatives of the rather conservative agricultural society (Polish: Towarzystwo Rolnicze w Królestwie Polskim ), wrote a declaration to Tsar Alexander II , which the Polish viceroy (“ Namiestnik ”) Mikhail Dmitrijewitsch Gorchakov received on his behalf. The declaration referred to the ardent desire of the Poles to have a self-governing polity like other European states.

On March 2, 1861, the delegation arranged for a peaceful burial of the five killed in the demonstration on February 25 in Warsaw's Powązki Cemetery . On March 17, representatives of the delegation held negotiations on the release of political prisoners held in the Warsaw Citadel prison .

During the short duration of its existence, the committee was under constant pressure from both sides - both the Polish nationalists and the Russian occupation forces. On April 3, the delegation was disbanded on the orders of the Tsar. The approximately five-week period of partial Polish self-government in the city of Warsaw was known as Polskie czasy (Polish Times). The tensions between the Polish population and the Russian regime led to the outbreak of the January uprising at the beginning of 1863 .

References and comments

  1. ↑ Aleksander Lesser (1814-1884) was a Polish painter
  2. ↑ according to Walter Troxler, Daniela Walker and Markus Furrer, Jan Bloch and the International War and Peace Museum in Lucerne , ISBN 978-3-643-80025-1 , Lit Verlag, Münster / Zurich 2010, p. 23
  3. ↑ according to Paul Robert Magocsi, Jean W. Sedlar, Robert A. Kann, Charles Jevich and Joseph Rothschild, A History of East Central Europe: The lands of partitioned Poland, 1795-1918 , Fourth edition, ISBN 0-295-95358-6 , University of Washington Press, 1996, p. 163

literature

  • Danuta Jackiewicz, Karol Beyer. 1818-1877 , from the series: Photographers of Warsaw , Dom Spotkań z Historia and Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie (eds.), ISBN 978-83-62020-48-5 , Warsaw 2012, p. 22 f.
  • Janusz Durko, album Warszawski / Warsaw album. The image of the city from the collections in the Historical Museum of the Capital City of Warsaw , German-Polish edition, Agencja Reklamowo-Wydawnicza A. Grzegorczyk, ISBN 83-86902-73-6 , Warsaw 2000, p. 225