Kraków Uprising
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The Kraków Uprising (Polish: powstanie krakowskie, rewolucja krakowska; German: Krakauer Aufstand; Russian: краковское восстание) of 1846 was an attempt, led by Polish insurgents such as Jan Tyssowski and Edward Dembowski, to incite a fight for national independence. The uprising was centered on the city of Kraków, the capital of a small state of Free City of Krakow. It was directed at the powers that partitioned Poland, in particular the nearby Austrian Empire. The uprising lasted about nine days and ended with an Austrian victory.
Background
The uprising was primarily organized and supported by members of the Polish nobility and middle class, who desired the restoration of Polish independence after the 1795 partitions of Poland ended its existence as a sovereign state; there was also support for various political and social reforms (such as the demands for the emancipation of peasants and an end to serfdom).<ref name="Dowe2001-171-172"/><ref name="Dowe2001-173"/> Many of the insurgents' ideas were developed in exile by activists from organizations such as the Polish Democratic Society.<ref name="Dowe2001-173"/><ref name="Deck-partyka2006"/> The uprising was supposed to take place in other locations, but poor coordination and arrests by authorities broke many other cells, most notably in Greater Poland.<ref name="Dowe2001-173"/><ref name="MagocsiSedlar1974-133"/> The uprising was also supported by some local peasants from the Free City and the miners of the Wieliczka salt mine.<ref name="Dowe2001-174"/> The Free City of Krakow, nominally independent, was a central place for pro-Polish independence activists to discuss their plans.<ref name="LERSKI1996-90"/>
Initial success
The uprising began on the night of 20 February 1846.<ref name="LERSKI1996-90"/> It was successful in a short term, briefly taking over the city of Kraków.<ref name="Dowe2001-171-172"/><ref name="Dowe2001-174"/> Faced with riots, demonstrations and barricades, a small Austrian force in the city under General Ludwig Collin quickly retreated.<ref name="Rocznik Biblioteki Polskiej Akademii Nauk w Krakowie"/><ref name="Davies2005"/> A provisional government formed on 22 February.<ref name="Davies2005"/> That day it issued a radical "Manifesto for the Polish Nation", in which it ordered the end of many elements of serfdom, such as corvée, declared universal suffrage, and other revolutionary ideas inspired by the French Revolution.<ref name="LERSKI1996-90"/><ref name="Davies2005"/><ref name="Nance2008"/>
Most of the uprising was limited to the Free City of Krakow, where its leaders included Jagiellonian University philosophy professor Michał Wiszniewski, and lecturer and lawyer Jan Tyssowski, who declared himself a dictator on 24 February (Tyssowski was assisted by radical democrat, acting as his secretary, Edward Dembowski, who according to some<ref name="Nance2008"/><ref name="MagocsiSedlar1974-134"/> might have been the real leader of the revolutionary government).<ref name="Dowe2001-174"/><ref name="Dybiec1970"/><ref name="LERSKI1996-616"/> On 27 February a struggle for power developed, and Wiszniewski, after a failed attempt to take power, was exiled by Tyssowski and Dembowski within a matter of hours.<ref name="Dowe2001-174"/><ref name="Davies2005"/>
Suppression
Austrian forces in the area were led by Ludwig von Benedek.<ref name="Dowe2001-174"/> The revolutionaries, despite some support from the Free City and its immediate surroundings, fared badly in the wider countryside.<ref name="LERSKI1996-90"/> They had up to 6,000 volunteers, but many were badly trained and poorly armed.<ref name="Davies2005"/> The rebels suffered a defeat on 26 February at the Battle of Gdów and were quickly dispersed by von Benedek's forces.<ref name="Deck-partyka2006"/><ref name="Davies2005"/><ref name="Rusinowa1986"/> The Polish commander, Colonel Jakub Suchorzewski, was criticized for poor leadership, and for not taking sufficient precautions despite scout reports of an approaching enemy force.<ref name="AnusiewiczWimmer1973"/> The battle was very short, as the Polish forces collapsed almost immediately, with most of the infantry captured or killed by the peasants accompanying the Austrian forces.<ref name="Rusinowa1986"/>
The uprising was soon suppressed by the Austrian army with help from local peasants.<ref name="wymordowali"/> The peasant counter-revolt, known as the Galician slaughter, was likely encouraged by the Austrian authorities, who exploited the peasants' dissatisfaction with the landowners.<ref name="Dowe2001-171-172"/><ref name="Dowe2001-173"/><ref name="Dowe2001-174"/><ref name="LERSKI1996-427"/> It was ironic, as historian Eric Hobsbawm has noted, that the peasants turned their anger on the revolutionaries, whose ideals included the improvement of peasant situation.<ref name="Anderson2006"/> Instead, most peasants trusted the Austrian officials, some of whom even promised the peasants to end serfdom and pay a stipend for their participation in the militia aimed at quashing the Polish noble insurgents.<ref name="Nance2008"/> In one village, when the rebels tried to persuade the peasants that they would be better off if the Austrians were expelled, the peasants replied that they were familiar with stories of landowner brutality under the Polish Commonwealth and that they were glad they could now complain to the Austrian emperor.<ref name="Judson157-158"/>
It is estimated that about 1,000–2,000 Polish nobility who supported the uprising died in the conflict.<ref name="Dowe2001-173"/> According to Judson, the Austrian military in fact had to intervene at one point to stop the violence and protect the rebels.<ref name="Judson157-158"/>
According to Lerski, Dembowski was apprehended and executed by the Austrians.<ref name="LERSKI1996-90"/> Others, such as Nance, Davies and Zamoyski however provide another account of his death; according to these sources he died on 27 February fighting the Austrian army, after a religious procession with which he attempted to quell the peasants was attacked.<ref name="Davies2005"/><ref name="Nance2008"/><ref name="Zamoyski2000"/> Whatever the case, the government of Tyssowski surrendered, just nine days after taking power, and Kraków was occupied first by Russians (on 3 March), and soon afterward (perhaps on the same day<ref name="Rocznik Biblioteki Polskiej Akademii Nauk w Krakowie"/>), by the Austrians under Collin.<ref name="Dowe2001-174"/><ref name="LERSKI1996-90"/><ref name="LERSKI1996-616"/> (Davies however writes that Russians joined Austrians on 4 March).<ref name="Dowe2001-173"/> Tyssowski, who crossed the Prussian border with about 1,500 soldiers on 4 March, was interned, and later emigrated to the United States.<ref name="Davies2005"/><ref name="LERSKI1996-616"/>
Aftermath
Austria and Russia signed a treaty on 16 November, deciding to end the status of Kraków as the Free City.<ref name="Nance2008"/> Subsequently, Kraków and its surrounding area were annexed to the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, a province of the Austrian Empire, with its capital at Lemberg (Lwów, Lviv).<ref name="Dowe2001-174"/> This violation of the 1815 Treaty of Vienna caused a short lived scandal in European politics of the day.<ref name="Dowe2001-174"/> Kraków would be relegated to the role of a provincial capital in the Empire.<ref name="Białecka2010"/>
Significance
As noted by Anderson, despite its failure, the uprising was seen by some scholars, including Karl Marx, as a "deeply democratic movement that aimed at land reform and other pressing social questions".<ref name="Anderson2010"/> The uprising was praised by Marx and Friedrich Engels for being "the first in Europe to plant the banner of social revolution", and seen by them, as well as some modern scholars, precursor to the coming Spring of Nations.<ref name="Anderson2010"/><ref name="Dowe2001-170"/> This view is common in the Polish historiography.<ref name="Dowe2001-170"/>
The Uprising, and related events in partitioned Poland (namely the Greater Poland Uprising 1846 and the Galician slaughter), were widely discussed in the contemporary European press.<ref name="Dowe2001-171-172"/>
The Austrian Empire, and the Metternich regime, ultimately lost out in the propaganda war that followed the Uprising. The fact that the peasantry supported the Austrians over a return to Polish rule was lost, with the rebels successfully claiming that the Austrians had effectively bought off the peasants and turned them against their national leaders. The conservative Metternich also would struggle to openly admit that peasant violence was justifiable, even if it was in support of the Habsburg Empire.<ref name="Judson157-158"/>
As soon as the Kraków Uprising was put down, the Austrians pacified the insurgent peasantry,<ref name="LERSKI1996-427"/> briefly restoring the feudal order.<ref name="LukowskiZawadzki2006"/> Those peasants who stood down and followed the authorities, like the peasant leader Jakub Szela, were rewarded.<ref name="Wolff2012"/> Nonetheless, in Austria, reforms were spurred by the Kraków Uprising of 1846 and the Spring of Nations in 1848, resulting in the abolishment of serfdom in 1848.<ref name="Anderson2010"/><ref name="Smith2010"/><ref name="Kamusella2007"/><ref name="Stauter-Halsted2005-21"/>
Notable participant
- Walerian Kalinka<ref name="LERSKI1996-237"/>
See also
- Austrian Poland
- Chochołów Uprising, a failed insurrection meant to aid the Kraków Uprising
Notes
Further reading
External links
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