Zygmunt Sierakowski

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Zygmunt Sierakowski 1862

Zygmunt Erazm Gaspar Józef Sierakowski ( pseudonym Dołęga , Russian Сигизмунд Игнатьевич Сераковский Sigismund Ignatievich Sera Frankowski , born May 6, jul. / 18th May  1826 greg. In Lisów , volhynian governorate , Russian Empire ; † June 15 jul. / 27. June  1863 greg. in Wilna , Vilnius Governorate , Russian Empire) was a staff officer of the Russian army , PolishGeneral and leader of the Polish January Uprising in Samogitia .

Life

Zygmunt Sierakowski was born in the village of Lisów, which is now Lisowe ( Лісове ) in the Ukrainian district of Manewytschi in the Wolyn Oblast . In Zhytomyr he graduated from high school in 1843 and from 1845 he studied at the University of Saint Petersburg , where he earned the reputation of a student leader. He was arrested in 1848 on suspicion that he was illegally crossing the Russian-Austrian border and sentenced to serve as a soldier in the Russian army for an indefinite period . First he served in Novopetrovskoje on the Caspian Sea , from September 1849 in Uralsk and from October 1850 in Orenburg . There he found numerous friends among his compatriots and exiles, such as Bronisław Zaleski and Taras Shevchenko , with whom he maintained correspondence in Ukrainian and whom he met personally in Petersburg on March 26, 1858 after Shevchenko returned from exile to the capital befriended him.

In 1852 Sierakowski was promoted to sergeant, stayed briefly in Bashkiria in the summer of 1853 and from 1854 was deployed in Fort-Perowski in the General Government of Turkestan for the expansion of the fortifications. There he got to know the customs of the Kyrgyz and Kazakhs and learned their language. A year after the death of the Russian Emperor Nicholas I , Sierakowski received an amnesty, was promoted to ensign in March 1856 and transferred to the 7th Battalion of the Brest Infantry Regiment.

Sierakowski applied for training at the General Staff Academy in Saint Petersburg, where, after many formal difficulties, he was admitted to the entrance exams, which he passed perfectly. He was admitted to the Academy at the end of August 1857 and completed it within 26 months with distinction and with the rank of captain. In the General Staff Academy he created a group of conspirators against the Russian occupation of Poland, which within a few years included several hundred officers of various ranks and nationalities and passed into the hands of Jarosław Dąbrowski . During his studies he also developed close relationships with the leaders of the Russian left, in particular with Nikolai Chernyshevsky . He began to write together with Nikolai Nekrasow and Nikolai Dobrolyubow in the magazine Sovremennik, which they edited , and published, among other things, on slavery in the United States, with allusions to the problems of serfdom in Russia. In addition, he joined the editorial staff of 1859 of Iassafat Pjatrowitsch Ahryska ( Belarusian Іасафат Пятровіч Агрызка ; 1826-1890) issued newspaper Słowo ( Слово ) that both of Taras Shevchenko and Panteleimon Kulish recognition learned, however, soon of Emperor Alexander II has been banned.

In May 1860 he took part, together with Iwan Wassiljewitsch Vernadski (1821-1884), as the official representative of the Russian army at the International Statistical Congress in London, where he spoke to British War Minister Sidney Herbert for the idea of ​​abolishing corporal punishment in the army. could win. On his further journey through Europe he was able to meet personalities such as Henry Palmerston , Napoleon III in London, Paris, Turin, Berlin and Vienna . and Camillo Cavour talk about liberal reforms and reforms necessary to make things easier for the Russian part of divided Poland. He also met Giuseppe Garibaldi , Giuseppe Mazzini , Alexander Herzen , Ludwik Mierosławski , Joachim Lelewel in Brussels , Józef Bohdan Zaleski in Paris and contacted Seweryn Goszczyński .

Zygmunt Sierakowski in prison 1863

In the summer of 1861, Sierakowski spoke with Karol Majewski and probably also with the leaders of the radical democratic association of Stronnictwo czerwone founded in Warsaw and received the Order of St. Anne III on his return to St. Petersburg . Class. At the same time he received from the Minister of War Nikolai Onufrijewitsch Suchosanet (1794–1871) the order to inspect Russian fortresses in the Northwestern Kraj and won the trust of his successor in office Dmitri Milyutin . In the summer of 1862 he was sent abroad again. In Kiev and Vilnius he broke off his trip to talk to the leaders of the White and Red conspiracies there. He married on July 30th in Kėdainiai , Lithuania . / August 11, 1862 greg. Apolonia Dalewska, whom he had met the previous year in Vilnius, and spent August with her in Warsaw. His further conspiratorial and official “honeymoon” took him via Krakow, Vienna, Leipzig, Breslau, Posen and Berlin to Paris and finally, without his wife, to Algiers in November 1862 , where he met Aimable Pélissier . On Christmas Eve of that year in Warsaw he shared details of the arrests of arms buyers in Paris with members of the National Central Committee (Polish: Komitet Centralny Narodowy "KCN") and advocated a plan for an uprising in Lithuania, but insisted on postponing the outbreak. Together with Jakub Gieysztor (1827–1897) he went to Vilna.

After the outbreak of the January uprising of the Polish independence movement against the division of Russia , Sierakowski was appointed head of the armed forces in the Kovno governorate and won the battle of Ginietyny on April 21, 1863 . From May 7th to May 9th he commanded his troops in the three-day battle of Birże , which ended with the collapse of his unit. He himself was seriously injured, became a Russian prisoner of war and was taken to hospital in Vilnius, where he was operated on twice. On June 11 jul. / June 23, 1863 greg. he was sentenced to death by a military tribunal. Despite the intervention of the British ambassador in Saint Petersburg, the governor general Mikhail Muravyov-Wilensky approved the death sentence with the consent of the emperor. The execution by hanging took place on June 27, 1863 in Lukiškės Square in Vilnius. His body was buried on Castle Hill in Vilnius and rediscovered by Lithuanian archaeologists in 2017.

Web links

Commons : Zygmunt Sierakowski  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Zygmunt Erazm Gaspar Józef Sierakowski officer and commander in the January Uprising in the Polish Biographical Dictionary; accessed on August 15, 2018 (Polish)
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Entry on Zygmunt Sierakowski in the Encyclopedia of the History of Ukraine ; accessed on August 15, 2018 (Ukrainian)
  3. ↑ a b Zygmunt Sierakowski - leader of the January uprising in Samogitia ; accessed on August 15, 2018 (Polish)
  4. ↑ Article on Zygmunt Sierakowski in day.kiev from May 17, 2013; accessed on August 15, 2018 (Ukrainian)
  5. ↑ a b Short biography Zygmunt Sierakowski on lenta.ru from July 29, 2017; accessed on August 15, 2018 (Russian)
personal data
SURNAME Sierakowski, Zygmunt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sierakowski, Zygmunt Erazm Gaspar Józef (full name); Dołęga; Сераковский, Сигизмунд Игнатьевич (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Staff officer of the Russian Army, Polish general and leader of the Polish January Uprising in Samogitia
DATE OF BIRTH May 18, 1826
PLACE OF BIRTH Lisów , Volyn Governorate , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH June 27, 1863
Place of death Vilnius , Vilnius Governorate , Russian Empire