Lwów Eaglets

2025-05-27T14:50:01Z

31.128.67.58: Lviv is Ukrainian city, so the fight was mutual

{{Short description|Polish child soldiers in the Polish-Ukrainian War}}
[[Image:Orleta Eaglets defending the Łyczaków Cemetery during the Siege of Lwów.jpg|thumb|''Lwów Eaglets; Defenders of the Cemetery'', painting by [[Wojciech Kossak]], 1926, oil on canvas, 90 x 120 cm, [[Polish Army Museum]], [[Warsaw]]]]

'''Lwów Eaglets''' ({{langx|pl|Orlęta lwowskie}}) is a term of affection that is applied to the [[Polish people|Polish]] [[Children in the military|child soldiers]] who fought for the city of [[Lwów]] ({{langx|uk|L'viv}}), in [[Galicia (Eastern Europe)|Eastern Galicia]], during the [[Polish-Ukrainian War]] (1918–1919).<ref>{{Cite book|title=Semper Fidelis, The Lwów Eaglets|last=Kuta|first=Stephen Robert|publisher=Loma Publishing|year=2019|isbn=9781916476271|location=Chelmsford, Essex}}</ref>

==Background==
The city now known in Ukrainian as [[Lviv]] ({{langx|pl|Lwów}}) was, before the [[Dissolution of Austria-Hungary]], known as Lemberg and was the capital of [[Karl I of Austria|Emperor Karl]]'s [[Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria]]. [[Polish people|Poles]] were a prevailing ethnic group in the Kingdom overall, but in eastern Galicia, [[Ukrainians]] were a majority (61%), with Poles a significant minority (27%) and dominating the cities along with [[Galician Jews|Jews]].<ref>Timothy Snyder. (2003). ''The Reconstruction of Nations.'' New Haven: Yale University Press. pg. 123</ref> In Lemberg, according to the Austrian census of 1910, 51% of the city's population were [[Roman Catholics]], 28% Jews, and 19% [[Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church|Ukrainian Greek Catholics]]; 86% of the city's population spoke Polish and 11% Ukrainian.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=qxooAAAAYAAJ&q=lemberg New International Encyclopedia, Volume 13]. 1915. ''Lemberg'.' pg. 760</ref>

In the final days of the Habsburg Monarchy, on 1 November 1918, Ukrainian soldiers from Austrian army units occupied Lemberg's public buildings and military depots, raised Ukrainian flags throughout the city and proclaimed the birth of a new [[West Ukrainian People's Republic|Ukrainian state]]. While the Ukrainian minority enthusiastically supported the proclamation, the city's Jewish minority remained mostly neutral towards it and the city's Polish majority were shocked to find themselves under Ukrainian rule.<ref name=Subtelny367>[[Orest Subtelny]], ''[https://archive.org/details/ukrainehistory00subt_0  Ukraine: a history]'', pp. 367–368, University of Toronto Press, 2000, {{ISBN|0-8020-8390-0}}</ref> Reacting to this military revolution, Poles rose up throughout the city. Polish high school students and scouts numbering only 200, organized a small pocket of resistance in a school at the western outskirts and managed to defeat battle-hardened Ukrainian veterans of the Great War with only 64 outdated rifles. After initial clashes, the defenders were joined by hundreds of volunteers, mostly boy scouts, students and youngsters. More than 1,000 people joined the Polish ranks in the first day of the fighting.

==Description==
Among them were many young volunteers, who became known as the ''Lwów Eaglets''. Initially, the term was confined to those who had participated in the [[Battle of Lemberg (1918)|fights]] within the city between 1 and 22 November 1918, and the following siege by the Ukrainian army between 23 November 1918 and 22 May 1919. With time, however, the term's application was broadened, and it is now used for all the young soldiers who fought in the area of [[Eastern Galicia]] for the Polish cause in the Polish-Ukrainian War and the [[Polish-Bolshevik War]]. In addition to the young Polish nationals of Lviv, those fighting in the [[Battle of Przemyśl (1918)|Polish-Ukrainian battle for Przemyśl]] are also frequently referred to as ''Przemyskie Orlęta'' ('"Przemyśl Eaglets").<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kki.pl/pioinf/przemysl/dzieje/1918/obrona2.html |title=Obrona Przemyśla w 1918 roku |language=pl |access-date=21 May 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130902182401/http://www.kki.pl/pioinf/przemysl/dzieje/1918/obrona2.html |archive-date=2 September 2013 }}</ref>

==Cemetery==
[[Image:Luetzenhofer Friedhof 028.JPG|thumb|[[Cemetery of the Defenders of Lwów]]]]

After the Polish-Ukrainian conflict, the Lwów Eaglets were interred at the [[Cemetery of the Defenders of Lwów]] (Polish popular name: {{Lang|pl|Cmentarz Orląt Lwowskich}}), part of the [[Lychakiv Cemetery]]. The Cemetery of the Defenders held the remains of both teenaged and adult soldiers, including foreign volunteers from France and the United States. The Cemetery of the Defenders of Lwów was designed by [[Rudolf Indruch]], a student at the Lviv Institute of Architecture, himself an Eaglet. Among the most notable Eaglets to be buried there was the 14-year-old Jerzy Bitschan, the youngest of the city's defenders, whose name became an icon of the [[Polish interbellum]].

Also resting in the Eaglet's pantheon is the six-year-old Oswald Anissimo who was executed, together with his father, Michał, by Ukrainian militiamen.<ref>{{in lang|pl}} M. Gałęzowski, [http://ipn.gov.pl/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/54766/1-17032.pdf Na wzór Orląt lwowskich] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140522030724/http://ipn.gov.pl/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/54766/1-17032.pdf |date=2014-05-22 }}, Biuletyn [[Institute of National Remembrance|IPN]], nr 11-12/2008, p. 99. Ukrainian military leader [[Dmytro Vitovsky]] threatened [[summary execution]] to all men living in houses from where shots were fired.</ref>

After the annexation of Eastern Galicia by the [[Soviet Union]] in World War II during the [[Soviet invasion of Poland]] and then the [[Polish population transfers (1944–1946)|expulsion of ethnic Poles]] from the province, the graves were destroyed in 1971, and the Cemetery of the Defenders of Lwów was turned into a municipal waste dump and then a truck depot.

After the [[dissolution of the Soviet Union]] and the formation of an independent [[Ukraine]], work began on the restoration of the cemetery despite obstruction from local nationalists. However, Polish support for the 2004 Ukrainian [[Orange Revolution]] greatly weakened local opposition, and the cemetery was officially reopened in a joint Polish-Ukrainian ceremony on 24 June 2005.

The last surviving Lwów Eaglet, Major Aleksander Sałacki (born 12 May 1904), died in [[Tychy]], on 5 April 2008.

==See also==
* [[Battle of Lwów (1918)]]
* [[Battle of Zadwórze]]
* [[Leopold Lis-Kula]]
* [[St Andrew Bobola Church, Hammersmith]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{commons category|Lwów Eaglets}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070416143709/http://www.kresy.co.uk/lwow_eaglets.html Official website]
* [http://www.kresy.co.uk/defenders_of_lwow.html Defenders of Lwow website]
* With the Lwów Eaglets dear to their hearts, [http://www.orleta.co.uk/ Orlęta, Polish Folk Song and Dance Group] recreate an evening [https://www.youtube.com/orletalondon#p/a/u/0/ICKU7lPlOCQ cafe scene in Lwów from the 1920s]

{{Lviv}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lwow Eaglets}}
[[Category:Lviv in the Russian Civil War]]
[[Category:Polish people of the Polish–Ukrainian War]]
[[Category:Children in the military]]
[[Category:Child-related organisations in Poland]]

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Lwów Eaglets