Tadeusz Kościuszko

"Kościuszko" redirects here. For other uses, see Kościuszko (disambiguation).

Tadeusz Kościuszko
Portrait by Kazimierz Wojniakowski
Years of service	1765–94
Rank	Generał dywizji
Battles / wars	American Revolutionary War, Polish-Russian War of 1792, Kościuszko Uprising

Andrzej Tadeusz Bonawentura Kościuszko (Template:IPAr; February 4, 1746 – October 15, 1817) was a Polish military leader. He is a national hero in Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, and the United States. He led the 1794 Kościuszko Uprising against Imperial Russia and Kingdom of Prussia as Supreme Commander of the National Armed Force (Najwyższy Naczelnik Siły Zbrojnej Narodowej).

Prior to commanding the 1794 Uprising, he had fought in the American Revolutionary War as a colonel in the Continental Army. In 1783, in recognition of his dedicated service, he had been brevetted by the Continental Congress to the rank of brigadier general and had become a naturalized citizen of the United States.

There are several Anglicized spellings of Kościuszko's name. Perhaps the most frequently-occurring is Thaddeus Kosciusko, though the full "Andrew Thaddeus Bonaventure Kosciusko" is also seen. In Lithuanian, Kościuszko's name is rendered as Tadas Kosciuška or Tadeušas Kosciuška. In Belarusian, it is Тадэвуш Касцюшка (Tadevuš Kaściuška).

Life

Early life

Kościuszko's birthplace

Family coat-of-arms

Kościuszko was born in the village of Mereczowszczyzna, today near the town of Kosava, Belarus. The area lay within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He was the son of Polish noble Ludwik Tadeusz Kościuszko and Tekla, née Ratomska. He was the youngest child in a family whose lineages are traced to Lithuanian and Ruthenian nobility and to a 15th–16th–century courtier of King Sigismund I the Old, Konstanty Fiodorowicz Kostiuszko. At the time of his birth, the family possessed modest holdings in the Grand Duchy. His first language may have been Belarusian, and he was christened in both the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic religions. As a result of the dual baptisms, he bore the names Andrei and Tadeusz.

In 1765 King Stanisław August Poniatowski created the Szkoła Rycerska (Knight Academy) to educate officers and state officials. Kościuszko enrolled on December 18, 1765, becoming a member of the Corps of Cadets. Since the school emphasized liberal arts as well as military subjects, he also took courses in world history, the history of Poland, philosophy, Latin, the Polish, German and French languages, and law, economics, geography, arithmetic, geometry and engineering. Upon graduation, he was promoted to captain.

France

In 1769 Kościuszko and his colleague Orłowski were granted a royal scholarship and on October 5 they set off for Paris. There Kościuszko briefly studied in the Academy of Fine Arts, but soon realized that the career of a painter was not what he dreamed of. As a foreigner he could not apply for any of the French military academies, and he lacked the funds to study engineering. For five years, however, Kościuszko educated himself as an extern, frequenting lectures and the libraries of the Paris military academies. His exposure to the Enlightenment there, coupled with the religious tolerance practiced in the Commonwealth, would have a strong influence on his later career.

First return

By the First Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, in 1772, the adjoining countries of Russia, Prussia and Austria annexed large swaths of Polish-Lithuanian territory and acquired influence over the internal politics of the reduced Poland and Lithuania. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was forced to cut back its Army to 10,000 men, and when Kościuszko finally returned home in 1774, there was no place for him in the Army. He took a position as tutor in the family of a provincial governor and fell in love with his pupil Ludwika Sosnowska. They eloped but were overtaken by her father's retainers. Kościuszko received a thrashing at their hands — an event which may have led to his later antipathy to class distinctions. In autumn of 1775 he decided to emigrate.

Dresden, Paris

In late 1775 Kościuszko arrived in Dresden, where he wanted to join either the Saxon court or the elector's army. However, he was refused and decided to travel back to Paris. There he was informed of the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, in which the British colonies in North America revolted against the crown and started the fight for independence. The first American successes were well publicized in France and the cause of the revolutionaries was openly supported by the French people, whose government also supported the Americans.

Fort Clinton (West Point), fortified by Kościuszko, and statue of him

Kościuszko House, Philadelphia

Kościuszko's portrait of Thomas Jefferson

American Revolution

Kościuszko came to America on his own, and on August 30, 1776 he presented a Memorial to Congress. He initially served as a volunteer, but on October 18, 1776, Congress commissioned him a Colonel of Engineers in the Continental Army. "He was assigned a black slave named Agrippa Hull, whom he eventually freed." At the recommendation of Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski and General Charles Lee, Kościuszko was named head engineer of the Continental Army.

He was sent to Pennsylvania to work with the Continental Army. Shortly after arriving, he read the United States Declaration of Independence. Kościuszko was moved by the document because it encompassed everything in which he believed; he was so moved, in fact, that he decided to meet Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration. The two met in Virginia a few months later. After spending the day discussing philosophy and other things they shared in common, they became very close friends. Kościuszko was a guest at Monticello on many occasions, and spent prolonged visits there.

Kościuszko's first task in America was the fortification of Philadelphia. His first structure was the construction of Fort Billingsport. On September 24, 1776, Kościuszko was ordered to fortify the banks of the Delaware River against a possible British crossing. In the spring of 1777 he was attached to the Northern Army under General Horatio Gates. As the chief engineer of the army he commanded the construction of several forts and fortified military camps along the Canadian border. His work made substantial contributions to the successful American retreat from the battle of Ticonderoga and the victory at Saratoga in 1777.

After the battle, Kościuszko was regarded as one of the best engineers in American service and George Washington gave him command of military engineering works at the stronghold in West Point. Then he asked to be transferred to the Southern Army, where he also made substantial contributions to the American victories.

After seven years of service, on October 13, 1783, Kościuszko was promoted by Congress to the rank of brigadier general. He also received American citizenship and a grant of land and was admitted to the prestigious Society of the Cincinnati and to the American Philosophical Society. When he was leaving America, he wrote a last will, naming Thomas Jefferson the executor and leaving his property in America to be used to buy the freedom of black slaves, including Jefferson's, and to educate them for independent life and work. Several years after Kosciuszko's death, Jefferson pled an inability to act as executor, an action deprecated by the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and Jefferson historian Merrill Peterson. The U.S. Supreme Court awarded the estate to Kosciuszko's descendants in 1852.

Commonwealth again

Kościuszko, by Juliusz Kossak

In July 1784 Kościuszko set off for Poland, where he arrived on August 12. He settled in his home village of Siechnowicze. The property, administered by his brother-in-law, brought a small but stable income, and Kościuszko decided to limit the servitude of his peasants (corvée) to two days a week, while completely exempting female serfs. This move was seen by local szlachta (nobility) as a sign of Kościuszko's dangerous liberalism.

By that time the internal situation in Poland was changing rapidly. A strong, if still informal, group of politicians advocated for reforms and for strengthening the state. Notable political writers such as Stanisław Staszic and Hugo Kołłątaj argued for granting the serfs and burghers more rights and for strengthening the central authorities. These ideas were supported by a large part of the szlachta, who also wanted to curb foreign meddling in Poland's internal affairs.

Finally the Great Sejm of 1788–92 opened the necessary reforms. One of its first acts was to approve the creation of a 100,000-man army to defend the Commonwealth's borders against its aggressive neighbors. Kościuszko saw this as a chance to return to military service and serve his country in the field that he knew best. He applied to the army and on October 12, 1789, received a royal commission as a major general. As such, he began receiving the high salary of 12,000 złotys a year, which ended his financial difficulties.

The Commonwealth's internal situation and the reforms initiated by the Constitution of May 3, 1791, the first constitution written in the modern era in Europe and second in the world after the American, were seen by the surrounding powers as a threat to their influence over Polish politics. On May 14, 1792, conservative magnates created the Targowica Confederation, which asked Russian Tsarina Catherine II for help in overthrowing the constitution. On May 18, 1792, a 100,000-man Russian army crossed the Polish border and headed for Warsaw, thus opening the Polish-Russian War of 1792.

Defense of the Constitution

Kościuszko wearing order of Virtuti Militari

Virtuti Militari medals, 1792

Although the plan to create a 100,000-man Polish Army was not accomplished due to economic problems, the Polish Army was well-trained and prepared for war.

Before the Russians invaded Poland, Kościuszko was appointed deputy commander of Prince Józef Poniatowski's 3rd Crown Infantry Division. When the Prince became Commander in Chief of the entire Polish Army in May 1792, Kościuszko automatically assumed command of the Division.

After Prussia's betrayal of her Polish ally, the Army of Lithuania did not oppose the advancing Russians. The Polish Army was too weak to oppose the enemy advancing into Ukraine and withdrew to the western side of the Bug River, where it regrouped and counterattacked. Victorious in the Battle of Zieleńce (June 18, 1792), Kościuszko was among the first to receive the newly-created Virtuti Militari medal, Poland's highest military decoration even today.

In the ensuing Battles of Włodzimierz (July 17, 1792) and Dubienka (July 18) Kościuszko repulsed the numerically superior enemy and came to be regarded as one of Poland's most brilliant military commanders of the time. On August 1, 1792, King Stanisław August promoted him to Lieutenant General. But before the nomination arrived at Kościuszko's camp in Sieciechów, the King had joined the ranks of the Targowica Confederation and surrendered to the Russians.

Emigré

Kościuszko at Racławice (April 4 1794, during Kościuszko Uprising). Part of painting by Matejko.

The King's capitulation was a hard blow for Kościuszko, who had not lost a single battle in the campaign. Together with many other notable Polish commanders and politicians he fled to Dresden and then to Leipzig, where the émigrées began preparing an uprising against Russian rule in Poland. The politicians, grouped around Ignacy Potocki and Hugo Kołłątaj, sought contacts with similar opposition groups formed in Poland and by spring 1793 had been joined by other politicians and revolutionaries, including Ignacy Działyński.

On August 26, 1792, the French Legislative Assembly awarded Kościuszko with honorary citizenship of France in honor of his fight for freedom of his fatherland and the ideas of equality and liberty. After two weeks in Leipzig, Kościuszko set off for Paris, where he tried to gain French support of the planned uprising in Poland.

On January 13, 1793, Prussia and Russia signed the Second Partition of Poland, which was ratified by the Sejm of Grodno on June 17. Such an outcome was a giant blow for the members of Targowica Confederation who saw their actions as a defense of centuries-old privileges of the magnates, but now were regarded by the majority of the Polish population as traitors. After the partition Poland became a small country of roughly 200,000 square kilometres and a population of approximately 4 million. The economy was ruined and the support for the cause of an uprising grew significantly, especially since there was no serious opposition to the idea after the Targowica Confederation was discredited.

In June of 1793 Kościuszko prepared a plan of an all-national uprising, mobilization of all the forces and a war against Russia. The preparations in Poland were slow and he decided to postpone the outbreak. However, the situation in Poland was changing rapidly. The Russian and Prussian governments forced Poland to again disband the majority of her armed forces and the reduced units were to be drafted to the Russian army. Also, in March the tsarist agents discovered the group of revolutionaries in Warsaw and started arresting notable Polish politicians and military commanders. Kościuszko was forced to execute his plan earlier than planned and on March 15, 1794 he set off for Kraków.

Kościuszko Uprising

Kościuszko swears oath in Kraków's Market Square, March 24 1794

Main article: Kościuszko Uprising

During the Uprising, Kościuszko was made Naczelnik (Commander-in-Chief) of all Polish-Lithuanian forces fighting against Russian occupation, and issued the famous Proclamation of Połaniec. After initial successes following the Battle of Racławice, he was wounded in the Battle of Maciejowice and taken prisoner by the Russians, who imprisoned him in Saint Petersburg—Kościuszko was held at Prince Orlov's Marble Palace. The uprising ended soon afterwards with the Siege of Warsaw.

Later life

Solothurn house where Kościuszko was living at time of his death

In 1796 Tsar Paul I of Russia pardoned Kościuszko and set him free. In exchange for his oath of loyalty, Paul I also freed some 20,000 Polish political prisoners held in Russian prisons and forcibly settled in Siberia. The Tsar granted Kościuszko 12,000 roubles, which the Polish leader attempted in 1798 to return; the Tsar refused to accept it back as "money from a traitor".

Kościuszko emigrated to the United States, but the following year returned to Europe and in 1798 settled in Breville, near Paris. Still devoted to the Polish cause, he took part in creating the Polish Legions. Also, on October 17 and November 6, 1799 he met with Napoleon Bonaparte. However, he failed to reach any agreement with the French leader, who regarded Kościuszko as a "fool" who "overestimated his influence" in Poland (letter from Napoleon to Fouché, 1807).

Kościuszko remained politically active in Polish émigré circles in France and in 1799 was a founding member of the Society of Polish Republicans. However, he did not return to the Duchy of Warsaw and did not join the reborn Polish Army allied with Napoleon. Instead, after the fall of Napoleon's empire in 1815 he met with Russia's Tsar Alexander I in Braunau. In return for his prospective services, Kościuszko demanded social reforms and territorial gains for Poland, which he wished to reach as far as the Dvina and Dnieper Rivers in the east.

Latin plaque on Solothurn house, living in which Kościuszko "gave up his great soul".

Alexander asked him to go to Warsaw. However, soon afterwards, in Vienna, Kościuszko learned that the Kingdom of Poland created by the Tsar would be even smaller than the earlier Duchy of Warsaw. Kościuszko called such an entity "a joke"; and when he received no reply to his letters to the Tsar, he left Vienna and moved to Solothurn, Switzerland, where his friend Franciszek Zeltner was mayor. Suffering from poor health and old wounds, on October 15 1817 Kościuszko died there of typhoid fever. Two years earlier, he had emancipated his serfs.

Kościuszko's body was embalmed and placed in a crypt at Solothurn's Jesuit Church. His viscera, removed in the process of embalming, were separately interred in a graveyard at Zuchwil, near Solothurn, except for the heart, for which an urn was fashioned. In 1818 Kościuszko's body was transferred to Kraków, Poland, and placed in a crypt at Wawel Cathedral, a pantheon of Polish kings and national heroes. Kościuszko's heart, which had been preserved at the Polish Museum in Rapperswil, Switzerland, was in 1927, along with the rest of the Museum's holdings, repatriated to Warsaw, where the heart now reposes in a chapel at the Royal Castle. Kościuszko's other viscera remain interred at Zuchwil, where a large memorial stone was erected in 1820 and can be visited today, next to a Polish memorial chapel.

Commemorations

Kościuszko monument, Wawel, Kraków, Poland

Kosciuszko statue, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C.

As a national hero in Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, and the United States, Kościuszko has given his name to many places around the world. The Polish explorer Count Paweł Edmund Strzelecki named the highest mountain in continental Australia, Mount Kosciuszko, for him; the mountain is now the central point of Kosciuszko National Park.

He has also given his name to Kosciusko, Mississippi and Kosciusko, Texas; Kosciusko County, Indiana; Kosciusko Island in Alaska; New York State's two Kosciuszko Bridges (in Latham on I-87 just north of Albany; and on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway); Kosciuszko Street (BMT Jamaica Line); the Kosciuszko Bridge that crosses the Naugatuck River in Naugatuck, Connecticut; Kosciuszko Street in Brooklyn, New York; Kosciuszko Street in Manchester, New Hampshire; Kosciuszko Street in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania; Kosciuszko Way in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Kosciuszko Park in Stamford, Connecticut; Kosciuszko Street in South Bend, Indiana, Kosciusko Street in Woburn, Massachusetts, and Thaddeus Kosciusko Way in downtown Los Angeles, California.

Monmouth, Illinois, was to be called Kosciuszko after that name was drawn from a hat around 1831. It was decided that Kosciuszko would be too hard to pronounce, so Monmouth was selected as an alternative.

There is a Kościuszko Monument at the entrance to Kraków's Wawel Castle, where he was laid to rest. Its replica was erected in Detroit, Michigan in 1978 (pictured). There is an equestrian statue of him at Kosciuszko Park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, across from the Polish Basilica of St. Josaphat, and other statues, in Boston Public Garden; Scranton, Pennsylvania; Chicago's Museum Campus on Solidarity Drive; Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C.; the United States Military Academy at West Point; Williams Park in St. Petersburg, Florida; and Red Bud Springs Memorial Park in Kosciusko, Mississippi; in Kosciuszko Park in East Chicago, Indiana; and (with Kazimierz Pułaski) in Poland, Ohio, a village named in honor of the two heroes of the American Revolution.

Kosciuszko statue, erected 1978 in Detroit—a gift from the people of Krakow, Poland, in celebration of the United States Bicentennial.

Kosciuszko statue, Boston Public Garden, Boston, Massachusetts

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, his Revolutionary War home is preserved as Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial, administered as part of Independence National Historical Park; and a monument to him stands at the corner of Benjamin Franklin Parkway and 18th Street. Hamtramck, Michigan, has a Kosciuszko Middle School; Winona, Minnesota has Washington-Kosciuszko Elementary School; Chicago, a public park named for him in Logan Square; and East Chicago, Indiana, a public park (with statue), a school and a neighborhood, all bearing Kosciuszko's name. Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania has a Polish Falcons Sportsman's Club named after Kosciuszko. There is a Kosciusko Way in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In Grand Rapids, Michigan, there is a club called Kosciuszko Hall.

In Poland, every major town has a street or square named for Kościuszko. Between 1820 and 1823, the people of Kraków built the Kościuszko Mound (Polish: Kopiec Kościuszki w Olkuszu) to commemorate the Polish leader. A similar mound was built in 1861 at Olkusz.

He is the patron of Kraków University of Technology, Wrocław Military University, and countless other schools and gymnasia throughout Poland.

Kościuszko monument in Kosciuszko Park on the South Side of Milwaukee

He was the patron of the 1st Regiment of the Polish 5th Rifle Division, and of the 1st Division of the Polish 1st Army. After World War I the Kościuszko Squadron, and during World War II the 303rd Polish Squadron, were named for him. Two ships have been named for him: SS Kościuszko, and ORP Generał Tadeusz Kościuszko (a former United States Navy frigate that was transferred to Poland).

There are also streets named for Kościuszko in Saint Petersburg, Russia; downtown Belgrade, Serbia (Ulica Tadeuša Košćuška); Budapest, Hungary (Kosciuszkó Tádé utca); and Vilnius, Lithuania (Kosciuškos gatvė). There is a Kosciusko Avenue in Geelong, Victoria and one in Canberra in Australia. There is even a small street named after him in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A Kosciuszko monument in Minsk, Belarus was dedicated in 2005.

Kosciusko mustards are distributed in the United States by Plochman's.

Thomas Jefferson called Kościuszko "as pure a son of liberty as I have ever known."

Mikael Dziewanowski claims he was a "pioneer of emancipation and a spokesman for racial democracy and justice in eighteenth-century America."

The home in Philadelphia, which is part of Independence National Historical Park, was actually his post-Revolutionary home. He lived there when he returned briefly to the USA.

See also

• List of Poles
• Kosciuszko Foundation

References

Manhattan plaque honoring Kościuszko

• Pula, James S. (1998). Thaddeus Kosciuszko: The Purest Son of Liberty. Hippocrene Books. ISBN 0781805767. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Niestsiarchuk, Leanid (2006). Андрэй Тадэвуш Банавентура Касцюшка: Вяртаннегероя нарадзіму (Andrzej Tadeusz Bonawentura Kosciuszko: Return of the Hero to his Motherland) (in Belarusian). ISBN 9856665930. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Nash, Gary B. (2008). Friends of Liberty: Thomas Jefferson, Thaddeus Kosciuszko, and Agrippa Hull. Basic Books. ISBN 9780465048144. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Storozynski, Alex (2009). The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and The Age of Revolution, Thomas Dunne Books,ISBN 978-0-312-38802-7,ISBN 0-312-38802-0
• Manfred Kridl, ed., For Your Freedom and Ours.

External links

• The Peasant Prince (Unknown story of Kosciuszko’s life, liberty and pursuit of tolerance during the age of revolution)Storozynski, Alex (2009). The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and The Age of Revolution, Thomas Dunne Books, ISBN 978-0-312-38802-7, ISBN 0-312-38802-0
• Thaddeus Kosciuszko as an Artist (book about the Polish-American hero.)
• Kosciuszko by Monica Mary Gardner
• The Kosciuszko Foundation. (Polish-American cultural foundation named for General Tadeusz Kosciuszko.)
• Mt. Kosciuszko Inc. Webpage of Australia's Mt. Kosciuszko Association (named for Australia's highest mountain peak).
• About.com feature on Tadeusz Kosciuszko.
• Polish Embassy in the United States: a tribute page.
• US Kosciuszko National Monument web site.
• Kosciuszko Polish-American Historical Society, Inc., of the Valley Ansonia - Derby - Shelton - Seymour, Connecticut.
• Kosciuszko monuments gallery.
• Tadeusz Kościuszko at Find-a-grave.
• Unknown Kościuszko manuscript (Nieznany rękopis Tadeusza Kościuszki).
• Photographs of Mereszowszczyzna manor in Belarus.
• A humorous biographical comic about Kościuszko.
• Will of Thaddeus Kosciuszko.
• Henri La Fayette Villaume Ducoudray Holstein. Le Glaneur Francais, Number One. pp. 251–252.

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