“Warszawianka” (“La Varsovienne”) -- Casimir Delavigne (Lyrics) and Karol Kurpiński (Music)
“Warszawianka” -- Translated into the Polish by Karol Sienkiewicz
“Étude Op. 10, No. 3” -- Frédéric Chopin
Poland has historically been a victim of geography, having the misfortune of setting astride the strategically located North European Plain with no natural borders and powerful, often rapacious neighbors. Throughout its long history, Poland would vary slightly in location and greatly in size as Germany, Prussia, and Austria would redraw her borders for their own benefit, taking a bit of territory for their own use. In 1795, Poland actually ceased to exist when these three states ended their long practice of reducing Poland’s territory piecemeal and simply divided all that then remained amongst themselves. A truly free Poland would not appear again on the map of Europe until 1918.
But there is much more to this story. I will explore just a small bit of it.
When French armies rolled across Europe, sweeping aside those forces seeking to constrain Gallic revolutionary fervor, they engendered a spirit of nationalism survived long after Napoleon sailed away to lonely exile in isolated Saint Helena. In the story at hand, the promises of the French Revolution woke a Polish patriotism that stunned the nations which had erased Poland’s borders for their own benefit. Hundreds-of-thousands of Poles bore arms under Napoleon, and their dreams of freedom did not die with his ambitions.
And that brings us to the Congress of Vienna. Ambassadors from across the whole of Europe gathered in the Austrian capital and made plans to eradicate all that troublesome rubbish about republicanism, liberalism, and revolution once and for all. Eventually, of course, history would prove yet again that some genies cannot be permanently returned to the bottle once released, but the General Treaty of the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna, concluded on 9 June 1815, managed to forestall another major European war for nearly a century before becoming yet another casualty of those angry Guns of August in that annus horribilis of 1914.
But there is much more to this story. I will explore just a small bit of it.
When French armies rolled across Europe, sweeping aside those forces seeking to constrain Gallic revolutionary fervor, they engendered a spirit of nationalism survived long after Napoleon sailed away to lonely exile in isolated Saint Helena. In the story at hand, the promises of the French Revolution woke a Polish patriotism that stunned the nations which had erased Poland’s borders for their own benefit. Hundreds-of-thousands of Poles bore arms under Napoleon, and their dreams of freedom did not die with his ambitions.
And that brings us to the Congress of Vienna. Ambassadors from across the whole of Europe gathered in the Austrian capital and made plans to eradicate all that troublesome rubbish about republicanism, liberalism, and revolution once and for all. Eventually, of course, history would prove yet again that some genies cannot be permanently returned to the bottle once released, but the General Treaty of the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna, concluded on 9 June 1815, managed to forestall another major European war for nearly a century before becoming yet another casualty of those angry Guns of August in that annus horribilis of 1914.
General Treaty of the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna
(9 June 1815)
Thinking to placate the Poles and sedate their nationalist tendencies after Napoleon had been at long last vanquished, the Congress of Vienna, when seeking to restore Europe’s shattered conservative authoritarian order, made a pretense of reestablishing the Kingdom of Poland. Commonly called the Congress Kingdom, the new Poland had all the features liberal Polish patriots so achingly desired -- a written constitution, an elected parliament, a free press, an independent judiciary… . This new Poland would be the most liberal nation in all Europe.
But liberal in name only. Russia was the guarantor of the Congress Kingdom’s freedoms, and nations which care little for their own liberties rarely respect the liberties of others. As soon as that messy business of cleaning up after the French Revolutionary Wars had been concluded to everyone’s satisfaction -- well, I should say to the satisfaction of Europe’s ruling families and factions -- Russia began snatching away all those liberal reforms promised the Poles.
In 1815, in direct violation of the Congress Kingdom’s constitution, Tzar Alexander I dispatched his younger brother Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich to rule unofficially in his name. Other abuses followed. Press freedoms were abolished. Polish officers were replaced with Russian ones. The legislature was disbanded. Polish political and social organizations were outlawed. The tipping point came in 1930.
Time and again throughout the 19th-Century, the political order established by the Congress of Vienna confounded by liberal revolutions of the sort it had thought extinguished. France again experienced yet another of its periodical liberal revolutions. Meanwhile, another liberal revolution detached the Southern Netherlands from the mother country, giving birth to the Kingdom of Belgium. Thinking to use the Polish army to suppress two liberal revolutions, Tzar Nicholas I -- Grand Duke Konstantin’s older brother had been replaced as Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias by Konstantin’s younger brother -- would incite a third liberal revolution, this one far closer to home.
Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich
Grand Duke Konstantin owned a mostly but not entirely unearned reputation as a liberal. Oh, he had in younger days admired the principles of equality and freedom left in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, but he had long ago abandoned those follies in favor of more autocratic practices. It cannot be denied that the grand duke was not truly fond of Poland. Insofar as possible, Konstantin protected his Polish subjects from the whims of his brothers. His attachment to Poland ran beyond the idealist into the emotional. Following the death of his elder brother Alexander, Konstantin was heir to the throne of the tzars. Yet he abdicated in favor of his younger brother Nicholas so that he could marry Polish noblewoman Joanna Grudzińska. Konstantin was not so sufficiently attached to Poland as to avoid the hatred of its people. His first loyalty was ever to Russia, and if Poland had to sacrifice for Russia’s gain, so be it.
Lieutenant Piotr Wysocki
The Polish officer corps had long been resentful of Russian complot within its ranks. Many of these officers had served with Napoleon and were infused with republican idealism. Now the thought of Poles being used as Russian cannon fodder in the far distant Low Countries or France in contravention of the Polish Constitution drove tensions past the breaking point. On 29 November 1830, Lieutenant Piotr Wysocki led officer cadets in an assault on Warsaw’s Belweder Palace, Konstantin official residence. Humiliatingly, the grand duke escaped assassination by fleeing in the guise of a woman. The following day, Warsaw’s civilians joined the uprising, forcing Russian troops to abandon the city. The rebellion spread and within the week,the Polish puppet government became a puppet no longer, and the bulk of the Polish army went over to the insurgents.
The revolution spoke with many voices, and its goals were diverse, ranging from the establishment of a free Polish state to equitable treatment from the tsarist government. But all shared devotion to the liberal Polish constitution and demanded it be honored.
The tzar, unfortunately, had his own goals which in no way overlapped with those of the Poles. On 4 February 1831, Russian troops crossed the Polish border intent on crushing those Polish upstarts. The task proved more difficult than expected. Rather than finding the easy victory they anticipated, Russian generals discovered only setbacks and stalemates. The struggle captured the attention of all Europe. England, Austria, Prussia, and the other monarchical powers viewed with alarm this powerful eruption of fiery republican expression they had thought extinguished 15 years previously. Simultaneously, the oppressed masses victimized by authoritarian governments saw in the Poles evidence that the spirit of liberalism yet endured. The citizenry of both England and France viewed the Polish cause with favor, but their governments were more concerned with maintaining positive relations with the Russian monarchy. And while Prussia and Austria longed for the rapid crushing of the wouldbe revolution, several of the lesser German principalities and states viewed the Polish patriots as heroic.
When news of the uprising reached Paris, the ever excitable and liberty-loving citizens of the City of Light responded with fervent hope. French poet Casimir Delavigne honored the Polish insurgents with a song possessing all the martial spirit of his native nation’s stirring “La Marseillaise”
“Warszawianka” -- “The Lady of Warsaw” -- soon had Polish language edition, being translated by Karol Sienkiewicz, historian, poet, and veteran of the November Uprising. “The Lady of Warsaw” reminds Poles and French alike of their shared historical devotion to Liberté, Equalité, et Fraternité. “Warszawianka” would indeed be a song for the ages.
“Warszawianka”
Today is a day of blood and glory,
Let it be a day of resurrection!
Gazing at France’s rainbow,
The White Eagle launches into flight.
He calls to us from above:
"Arise, oh Poland, break your chains,
Today is a day of your victory or death!"
Hey, whoever is a Pole, to your bayonets!
Live, freedom, oh Poland, live!
Let this worthy battle cry
Sound forth to our foes!
Sound forth to our foes!
To horse! - a vindictive Cossack calls,-
Punish the Polish mutinied companies,
Their fields have no Balkans,
In a trice we shall crush poles a sort».
Stand! This breast will stand for the Balkans:
Your tsar vainly dreams of loot,
From our enemies nothing remains
On this ground, except for corpses.
Hey, whoever is a Pole, to your bayonets!
Dear Poland! Today your children
Have reached happier moments,
Than those when their famous battles
Were crowned by the Kremlin, Tiber and Nile.
For twenty years our heroes
have been scattered by fate over foreign lands,
Now, oh Mother, he who is killed,
Shall sleep on your bosom.
Hey, whoever is a Pole, to your bayonets!
Rise, Kościuszko, strike in hearts,
Which dare to deceive with mercy.
Did that murderer know about mercy,
Which bathed Praga in blood?
Let he now repay for that blood in blood,
Let he, a malicious visitor, sprinkle it over the ground.
Martyr laurels of our brethren
Will grow more magnificent on it.
Hey, whoever is a Pole, to your bayonets!
Fight, oh Pole, a pitched battle,
The proud tsar must lose,
Show him a sacred ring,
A gift of fearless Polish women;
Let this sign of dear vows
Prophesy grave to our enemies,
Let it, bathed in blood in severe fights,
Witness our union with freedom.
Hey, whoever is a Pole, to your bayonets!
Oh Frenchmen! Are our wounds
Of no value for you?
At Marengo, Wagram, Jena,
Dresden, Leipzig, and Waterloo
The world betrayed you, but we stood firm.
In death or victory, we stand by you!
Oh brothers, we gave blood for you.
Today you give us nothing but tears.
Hey, whoever is a Pole, to your bayonets!
You, at least, who have fallen
In foreign lands for your land,
Our brothers, risen from tombs,
Bless your brothers' fight!
Either we win – or we are ready
To build a barrier of our corpses,
To slow down the giant,
Who wishes to bring chains to the world.
Hey, whoever is a Pole, to your bayonets!
Rattle, drums, roar, guns,
On! Children, form a deep line;
Freedom and Glory lead the regiments
Triumph shines on spearheads.
Fly, our eagle, in high flight,
Serve the glory, Poland, and the world!
He who survives will be free,
He who dies is already free!
Hey, whoever is a Pole, to your bayonets!
Live, freedom, oh Poland, live!
Let this worthy battle cry:
Sound forth to our foes!
As we all know from history, the Polish cause was doomed. Attrition favored the massive Russian armies, the Polish military leaders were uneven in ability were not always up the demands of command. The rebellion’s civilian leadership faltered as well. Hoping futility for foreign diplomatic intervention, they refused to press the war as offensively as they might have for fear of offending their European neighbors to the west. Again, in part to avoid offending Europe’s more conservative powers and partially, perhaps, to preserve their own prerogatives, the Polish civilian leadership was slow to implement reform, notably land reform, within those regions under its sway, thereby alienating both its more liberal allies and the peasants who toiled the soil. And the efforts to win the sympathy of conservative European governments availed them nothing. Indeed, both Prussia and Austria closed their borders, ensuring the Poles received no succor from liberal sympathizers abroad.
The Battle of Ostroleka
by Juliusz Kossak, 1873
On 26 May 1831, the Polish army suffered a crushing defeat in the Battle of Ostrołęka. To be sure, the Poles remained in possession of the town at day’s end, its defense proved far more costly than they could afford. The Polish army was saved only by the formidable steadfastness of the famed 4th Regiment of Line Infantry and again by the renowned Józef Bem leading a battalion of mounted artillery on a near-suicidal charge against the Russian forces mustering to crush the remnant of the Polish force. Pursuing the war with vicious cruelty and overwhelming numbers, Russian troops breached the Polish defences protecting Warsaw on 8 September. No hope remained for the Polish cause.
Even in defeat, the Polish army remained proudly defiant. The rump of its forces, some 20,000 or so men, refusing to yield to their Russian oppressors, crossed the Prussian border on 5 October 1831 to stack their arms. Only one man, a Colonel Stryjenski, remained behind to formally surrender to superior Russian forces.
Frédéric Chopin departed his native Poland for Paris less than a month before Lieutenant Wysocki and his brave band of cadets roused Grand Duke Konstantin from his bed in Belweder Palace. Like so many Poles of that troubled era, he would never return to his native land. Yet he never forgot the mother country. It was said by those who knew him that his music was informed by his love of Poland. Chopin believed his Étude Op. 10, No. 3, a piano solo first publically played in Paris only two years after Polish dreams of freedom and equality were crushed, to be his best work. His memories of his lost homeland must have been very dear indeed.
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