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ADAM MICKIEWICZ, THE NATIONAL POET OF POLAND
(Published 1911)
*Daily News*.--"Miss Gardner's able study... Lovers of the heroic in
history will be grateful to Miss Gardner for her account of this noble
enthusiast." (Rest of review, of more than a column, analysing the
matter of the book.)
*Scotsman*.--"So little is known in this country about Polish literati
that a book which tells the moving story of the greatest among the poets
of Poland is sure of a welcome from student readers. The present
interesting volume--while it is instructive in no small measure as to
the scope and character of Mickiewicz's poetry and literary work--draws
so lively a picture of the persecutions and sufferings and of the
unconquered spirit of the poet that its human interest easily overbears
mere questions of literature. ... The work, at once discriminating and
enthusiastic, will warmly interest all sympathetic students of Slavonic
popular literature." (Rest of review analyses matter of the book.)
*Westminster Gazette*.--"Miss Gardner tells the story with excellent
insight and sympathy. ... The author's description of the four parts of
this poem gives a vivid idea of its far-reaching scope, its passionate
energy, and intensity of patriotism." (Rest of review, three-quarters of
a column, analyses matter of book.)
*Birmingham Daily Post*.--"We are very glad to see that Miss Gardner has
at last produced a well-documented and impassioned study of the life and
achievements of Mickiewicz. ... Miss Gardner has done a fine and useful
piece of work." (Rest of review, a column, analysis of matter of book,
and calling attention to the importance of work upon Poland.)
*Manchester Guardian*.--"Miss Gardner, a devoted and accomplished
student of Polish literature, has performed a considerable service in
making better known the life and work of the most famous of Polish
poets. ... His pathetic story is told in great detail and with deep
sympathy by Miss Gardner. ... Some of her prose renderings are of great
beauty--often with the wild and wayward beauty which we associate with
Chopin." (Rest of review, three-quarters of a column, analysis of matter
of book.)
*New Age*.--"A real work of love, honest and thorough." (Rest of review,
of about a column, analysis of matter of the book.)
*Cambridge Review*.--"Miss Gardner... gives us a remarkably true picture
of the relations between the poet and his country. ...Miss Gardner has
realized fully what she attempted, and indeed few countrymen of the poet
could perform the task better."
*Bulletin Polonais*.--"Une étude biographique et littéraire très
substantielle, très bien documentée, conçue très methodiquement et
écrite avec beaucoup de charme et de clarté. ... C'est à notre
connaissance le premier livre anglais qui traite avec tant d'ampleur et
tant de conscience une question d'histoire littéraire polonaise. Nous
espèrons que Mile. Gardner ne se bomera pas à ce brillant coup d'essai."
*Academy*.--"Miss Gardner has done a real service." (The rest of a very
long and sympathetic review is an analysis of the matter of the book.)
*Tablet*.--"In these days, when the reader is embarrassed by the
abundance of books that are not wanted... it is well to meet with a work
at once so necessary and so well done. ... When great poetry has waited
so long for appreciation, and a story full of interest has been left
untold, we might welcome any attempt to supply the deficiency. But in
this case the work is so admirably done that it would be welcome, though
we had other biographies or critical appreciations of the Polish poet.
This remarkable work... Apart from the purely biographical interest,
which is of a high order, there is much that throws new light on the
tragic pages of modern Polish history. ... It may be hoped that this book
will do something to awaken a new interest in the history and literature
of Poland." (Rest of review, about a column, analysis of matter.)
*Standard*.--"This is the first attempt which has been made in our
language to capture the imagination by a critical study of the fine
character and high achievements of Adam Mickiewicz. Miss Monica Gardner
writes exceedingly well--with knowledge, with sympathy, and with vision.
... The book... is a capable bit of work, and it certainly succeeds in
giving the reader a realistic and impressive picture of a man who loved
Poland with an undivided heart." (Rest of review, about three-quarters
of a column, analysis of matter.)
*Athenæum*.--"One would have been grateful for a moderate biography of
Poland's national poet; Miss Gardner's work merits a more distinguished
adjective, and therefore is doubly worthy of attention." (Rest of review
analysis of matter.)
*Glasgow Herald*.--"The intensely tragic story is set forth by Miss
Gardner with skill equal to her sympathy. ... What an inspiration
Mickiewicz was, and is, may be readily gathered from the translations
given by Miss Gardner, magnificent even as prose. ... The book is
singularly interesting as the story of a man and a nation and as giving
a vivid glimpse of a poetry almost unknown in Britain." (Rest of review,
about three-quarters of a column, analysis of matter.)
*Yorkshire Post*.--"This book of Miss Gardner's should appeal powerfully
to English readers because its subject has the provocations of novelty;
because the work is gracefully and sympathetically written, with
discerning and intimate knowledge of fact and of character, and yet
discriminating and just; and because it embodies once more the story,
especially dear to our hearts, of the struggle of a patriotic race for
freedom and national existence." (Rest of review, about three-quarters
of a column, analysis of matter.)
POLAND: A STUDY IN NATIONAL IDEALISM
(Published 1915)
*Evening Standard*.--"Miss Monica Gardner's eloquent book is a little
epic of sorrow and courage. The picture that it paints is pitiful and
splendid. ... The book must be read for itself. The author has a style
that has caught fire from its subject, and a grace and restraint that
make the book an appeal to all lovers of literature, as well as to every
generous heart." (Rest of review, three-quarters of a column, analysis
of matter.)
*Spectator*.--"Her eloquent and touching book. ... Miss Gardner gives us
an excellent account, enriched by many spirited translations, of the
principal works of these remarkable poets." (Rest of review, two columns
and a half, a laudatory analysis of matter.)
*T. P.'s Weekly*.--"The admirable historical summary in Monica Gardner's
Poland. ... The author has written a book that must be read. ... The
position of Poland is one of the important questions to be settled by
this war, and we cannot know too much of the soul of a country that,
divided among spoilers, still retained national unity." (Rest of review,
three-quarters of a column, analysis of matter.)
*Pall Mall Gazette*.--"Her well-written and brilliant book. This book
deals with more than the soul of a nation. It speaks for the spirit of a
people. ... Miss Gardner is steeped in Polish literature, and her
account of these great poets is intensely interesting. ... Her
description of Poland during the last hundred years is full of pathos
and power. There is no straining after effect; the facts are
ineffaceable; and this brief story brings out into bold relief the
sufferings, sorrows, sacrifices, struggle, and strength of the Polish
race. ... This book is an eloquent description of a great people." (Rest
of review, three-quarters of a column, analysis of matter.)
*World*.--"At present the only kind of 'War Book' that seems to us
really worth reading is that of which the conflict now going on is
rather the occasion than the cause. Such, we may say, is _Poland: a
Study in National Idealism_, by Monica M. Gardner. ... Clearly Miss
Gardner has not been hurried into producing this admirable volume by the
mere war, but only gives out in season the enlightening result of what
she long previously assimilated and made her own. This book really
reveals Poland." (Rest of review analysis of matter.)
*Outlook*.--"In this little volume a faithful and fearless picture is
given of her [Poland's] struggle for independence." (Rest of review,
about a column, analysis of matter.)
*Daily News*.--"Miss Gardner's sensitive and accomplished little study.
... Miss Gardner's extremely spirited renderings." (Rest of review,
column and a half, analysis of matter.)
*Manchester Guardian*.--"For the first time in England we are able to
read books on Poland by an author who has made a special study of that
country. To those who know not Poland this book will be a revelation."
(Rest of review analysis of matter.)
*Birmingham Daily Post*.--"We render Miss Gardner the tribute of deep
gratitude for introducing us to a noble literature." (Rest of review,
three-quarters of a column, analysis of matter.)
*The Venturer*.--"Miss Gardner has done well to give us this book. It
is not large in bulk, but it is no exaggeration to call it a great
book."
*Expository Times*.--"Let us read and follow the course of the war. Let
us read and understand what must be when the war is over. Let us read
Monica M. Gardner's delightful book on Poland. It is both literary and
historical." (Rest of review quotation from the book.)
*London Quarterly Review*.--"The book is a real contribution to the true
understanding of Polish character and Polish aspirations." (Rest of
review analysis of matter.)
*Tablet*.--"This masterly critical appreciation of a great national
literature. ... This welcome work on the tragic story of the Polish
people and on the glories of their great national literature is
singularly happy in the opportuneness of its appearance. For however
much other books may be neglected, there is naturally a great demand for
books that offer any information on matters connected with the war. In
most cases, no doubt, what is called war literature is scarcely
literature in the strict sense of the word. But here, happily, we have a
book of rare literary merit ... and it comes before us when it meets a
present need. ... Miss Gardner, in this fascinating little book on
Poland, enables English readers to understand the tragic story of the
Polish people, their unbroken spiritual unity, and their undaunted hope
in the future of their country." (Rest of review, two columns and a
half, analysis of matter.)
*Times*.--"Miss Gardner is an instructed and cultivated student of
Poland."
POLAND ("PEEPS AT MANY LANDS")
(Published 1917)
*Daily Telegraph*.--"To their popular series of travel books called
'Peeps at Many Lands' Messrs. Black have now added a volume on _Poland_,
by Monica M. Gardner. The more we know of Poland and the Polish people
the better our understanding of the causes of the war. ... The book is
as good reading as any fiction, and the most austere critic must admit
its relevance to the task of 'getting on with the war.'"
*Spectator*.--"Young people should read Miss Monica Gardner's short and
interesting book on _Poland_. ... English readers know very little about
the Poles, and this book deserves attention, for we cannot as a nation
afford any longer to neglect Poland."
*Common Cause*.--"The little volume gives a most vivid and delightful
picture of Poland as it was before the war, with its spacious steppes
and wonderful forests, and it tells of the nation's struggle for freedom
against overwhelming odds. The book deals largely with the manners and
customs of the people in modern times, which the writer makes extremely
interesting; but it tells also the main events in the history of the
unfortunate kingdom from early days."
*Globe*.--"Miss Gardner tells in a most touching way the picturesque
story of that unhappy land."
*Aberdeen Journal*.--"To the 'Peeps' series of attractive books ... has
been added this dainty volume on _Poland_ by Monica M. Gardner, well
known as the author of _Adam Mickiewicz_ and _Poland: a Study in
National Idealism_. That the war must have a vital effect on the destiny
of Poland is universally acknowledged, and now is the time to study the
characteristics of the Poles. ... The chapter devoted to Polish National
Customs is quite fascinating, and 'A Day in Cracow' presents vivid
glimpses of the chief city of 'Austrian' Poland. The vexatious character
of the rule in 'Prussian' Poland is effectively exposed. Miss Gardner
possesses a clear and pleasing style well suited to a popular and
well-timed book."
*Tablet*.--"With the fate of Poland once again in the melting-pot of a
European war, Miss Monica Gardner's sympathetic account of its people
and cities in Poland may be confidently recommended as the work of one
who knows and loves her subject. It is a work which, small as it is,
deserves the attention of readers young and old."
*Polish Review*.--"Miss Monica Gardner's little book on Poland in the
'Peeps at Many Lands' ought to be in the hands of all in this country
who want to get to the heart of Poland. The authoress both knows and
feels her subject, and her lively picturesque style ... makes her pages
interesting both to young and old."
THE ANONYMOUS POET OF POLAND
(Published 1919)
*Spectator*.--"Miss Gardner has followed up her monograph on Mickiewicz
with an admirable companion study of Zygmunt Krasinski, the 'Unknown' or
'Anonymous' Poet of Poland, second only to Mickiewicz in genius, and, in
virtue of his personality, his strange gift of prescience, and the
romantic and tragic conditions of his life, appealing to a wider
audience than his great contemporary. He came on his father's side of an
ancient, noble, and wealthy Polish family, related to the House of
Savoy; his mother was a Radziwill. A precocious only child, he was
brought up in his father's palace in Warsaw and on his country estate at
Opinogóra. Vincent Krasinski had fought with distinction in the Polish
Legion under Napoleon; he was a commanding figure in the autonomous
Kingdom of Poland until 1828, when he was the only member of the Senate
of the Polish Diet who voted for the death-penalty at the trial of the
Poles implicated in the Decembrist rising of 1825. More than that, when
the students of the University at Warsaw deserted their lecture-rooms
_en masse_ to attend the funeral of the patriotic Bielinski in the
folio-wing year, Zygmunt Krasinski was forbidden by his father to join
them, and peremptorily ordered to go to his work. This invidious
isolation blasted Zygmunt's youth and affected his whole career. He had
to be removed from the University, was sent with a tutor to Geneva in
1829, and never saw Poland again save as a conquered province of Russia.
His father transferred his allegiance to Nicholas I, migrated to St.
Petersburg, was held in high honour by the Tsar and execrated by his
fellow-countrymen. Later on he effectually thwarted Zygmunt's desire to
join in the rising of 1830, and by his persistence forced him into a
reluctant _mariage de convenance_. Zygmunt Krasinski was undoubtedly in
a painful position, for he could not openly declare himself without
still further compromising his father's position. He hated his father's
policy, but he loved the man who had trained him to love his country,
and, above all, he feared him. It was a new and tragic variant on _odi
et amo_, which drove Zygmunt Krasinski into a strange life of
compromise, evasion, and sacrifice. To put it brutally, he was not a
fighting man; so far as action went, he feared his father more than he
loved his country, and there was a sting of truth in the bitter taunt
addressed to him by his brother-poet Slowacki: 'Thou wert afraid, son of
a noble.' He was often conscious of his weakness as when he wrote to
Henry Reeve in 1830: 'I am a fool, I am a coward, I am a wretched
being, I have the heart of a girl, I do not dare to brave a father's
curse.' But it is right to remember that he was physically a weakling,
tormented by ill-health, neurotic, and half-blind from his nineteenth
year. Torn in two by the conflict between filial duty and the desire to
serve his country, always dreading the worst for himself, never free
from the apprehension that he would end his days in Siberia, he took
refuge in anonymity as the only means of salving his conscience and
sparing his father. The curious and self-protective devices by which he
secured secrecy were sometimes more ingenious than dignified. Some of
his works were put forth under the names or initials of his friends. The
secret was most loyally kept, but others suffered. According to his
biographer, his poems were penal contraband, and many of his countrymen
were sent to Siberia for possessing them. What Krasinski sacrificed was
fame, publicity, above all peace of mind. He envied those of his
contemporaries who fought and died for their country. He was not a hero,
and he knew it. The heroes of his poems and plays were always soldiers,
men of action, and in his most original work, the extraordinary
_Undivine Comedy_, he levelled the most damaging indictment against the
self-centred egotism of the poet that has ever been penned by a man of
letters. And the bitterness of the portrait is only heightened by the
fact that it was largely inspired by self-criticism; his letters and his
life afford only too frequent justification for the recurrent comment of
the mocking spirit in the play on the melodramatic pose of the hero:
'Thou composest a drama.'
"_The Undivine Comedy_, a prose drama, though prompted by the events of
1830, makes no mention of Poland. It is a double tragedy in which the
central figure, Henryk, after wrecking his home life by his egotism,
assumes the leadership of his class, aristocratic and decadent, against
a communistic rising led by Pankracy, a Mephistopheles who is not sure
of himself. Henryk goes down in the struggle, but his conqueror falls in
the hour of triumph with the words 'Vicisti Galilaee' on his lips. The
scenes from the domestic tragedy are strangely moving: the sequel, in
which the influence of _Faust_ is obvious, is chiefly noteworthy for the
flashes of prescience in which the _Walpurgisnacht_ of brutal, revolting
humanity fore-shadows with a strange clairvoyance the outstanding
features of the democratic upheaval in Russia. But it is a drama of
hopelessness: 'the cry of despair,' as Mickiewicz called it, 'of a man
of genius who recognizes the greatness and difficulty of social
questions' without being able to solve them. _The Undivine Comedy_ is
'the drama of a perishing world': it was only in his later works that
Krasinski's belief in the ultimate resurrection of Poland emerged. In
_Iridion_, another prose drama, we have his first direct appeal to his
nation, though it is cast in the form of an allegorical romance, in
which the men and women are rather symbols than portraits. The hero is a
Greek in Rome in the time of Heliogabalus, Rome standing for Russia.
Beginning with this drama, and increasingly developed in his later
poems, is to be found Krasinski's abiding conviction that Poland's
salvation consists in the abjuring of vengeance--that the political
redemption of the world would be achieved by her sufferings, as mankind
was redeemed by the sufferings of Christ. The agony of Poland was not
regarded by him as merited for any crimes in the past. She was an
innocent victim, and the greater the wrong inflicted on her, the greater
was the chance of her ultimate victory. In what was the darkest hour of
his life, in 1846, when the Galician peasantry, incited by Austrian
propagandists, rose and massacred the Polish nobles and Austria annexed
Cracow, he wrote: 'That last span of earth torn from us by the fourth
partition has more than anything else advanced our cause. Every wound
inflicted on something holy and good becomes a far deeper wound, by the
reflection of the Divine Justice that rules history, on him who
inflicted it.' And again: 'There was never a nation in such sublime
circumstances, in such favourable conditions, who was so near, from the
cross on which she hangs, to heaven whither she must ascend.' It will be
readily understood that this panegyric of suffering, coming from a man
who had not fought for his country or suffered forfeiture of his wealth,
did not appeal to all Polish patriots. The gospel of pardon and the
acceptance of pain revolted men like Kamienski and Slowacki, who
resented the tone of the Psalms of the Future, in which Krasinski's
distrust of democratic propaganda found impassioned utterance. His
appeal to his countrymen to adopt the watchword of love and not that of
terrorism was ineffective; but the catastrophe of 1846, though it
shattered his health, did not shatter his belief that Poland's
resurrection depended on each Pole's personal purity of heart and deed.
His last national poems are prayers for goodwill. In 'Resurrecturis' his
answer to the eternal mystery of undeserved pain is that the 'quiet
might of sacrifice' was 'the only power in the world which could crush
Poland's crushing fate,' As the late Professor Morfill well said of him,
Krasinski 'always stood by the open grave of his country,' and the
somewhat cloudy mysticism in which he found his chief consolation is too
rarefied for robuster minds. Yet his hope never wholly failed: the
saying that he quoted to encourage his friend Soltan--'_speravit contra
spem_: that is a great and holy word of the sacred Scriptures'--might
stand for his motto; and a saying from one of his poems, as Miss Gardner
not unjustly contends, might well be his epitaph: 'If you would mark him
out by any sign, call him a Pole, for he loved Poland. In this love he
lived and in it died.'
"Krasinski died in Paris, where he had also been born, in 1859, only
outliving his father by three months, in which he was engaged on a
memoir, never completed, in vindication of the memory of the man who had
dominated his earthly existence. He had many devoted friends who advised
and helped him, acted as his amanuenses, and, as we have seen, shielded
him by assuming authorship of his works. In turn he was the generous
friend of all Polish patriots in distress, whatever were their politics.
Deeply susceptible from his boyhood, he was profoundly influenced by
three women: Mme. Bobrowa, to whom he dedicated his _Undivine Comedy_
and other works; the beautiful and unhappy Countess Delphina Potocka,
immortalized by her friendship with Chopin, who both before and for
several years after Krasinski's marriage was his Egeria, and to whom he
inscribed a series of love lyrics and the mystical poem 'Dawn,' in which
two exiles on the Lake of Como dream of the resurrection of their
nation. The idealistic nature of Krasinski's love for Delphina Potocka,
as compared with his infatuation for Mme. Bobrowa, is emphasized by his
latest biographer. She was his Beatrice, and the figure of the woman he
loved constantly merges in that of his eternal mistress, Poland. The
third woman was his wife, Elzbieta Branicka, whom he married
reluctantly, treated coldly for years, but came in the end to respect
and love for her goodness and forbearance, repairing his neglect in the
beautiful poems of repentance and gratitude addressed to her in the last
years of his troubled life. Miss Gardner's translations, especially
those from Krasinski's prose works, are done with spirit and no little
skill. The difficulties of the poems are greater, but she has given us
at any rate a good idea of their mystical eloquence. She has made
excellent use of the already extensive literature on the subject,
culminating in the complete edition of his works published in 1912, the
year of Krasinski's centenary. And she has drawn freely from the
remarkable letters written in French to Henry Reeve, whom he met in
Geneva in 1830--when Reeve was a romantic, enthusiastic youth 'with the
face of a beautiful girl'--and corresponded with for several years. More
than sixty years later these letters were handed over by Henry Reeve to
Krasinski's grandson, and published in Paris in 1902 with a Preface by
Dr. Kallenbach, of Lwow University, the chief authority on Krasinski."
KOSCIUSZKO
A BIOGRAPHY
KOSCIUSZKO
A BIOGRAPHY
BY
MONICA M. GARDNER
AUTHOR OF "ADAM MICKIEWICZ"; "POLAND; A STUDY IN NATIONAL
IDEALISM"; "THE ANONYMOUS POET OF POLAND," ETC.
LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET W.C. 1
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
First published in 1920
(All rights reserved)
TO
WIESLAWA CICHOWICZÓWNA
I AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATE THIS
BOOK UPON THE NATIONAL
HERO OF HER
COUNTRY
PREFACE
The appearance of an English biography of the Polish patriot, Tadeusz
Kosciuszko, requires no justification. Kosciuszko's name is prominent in
the long roll-call of Polish men and women who have shed their blood,
sacrificed their happiness, and dedicated their lives to gain the
liberation of Poland. We are now beholding what it was not given to them
to see, the fruit of the seed they sowed--the restoration of their
country to her place in the commonwealth of the world. It is therefore
only fitting that at this moment we should recall the struggle of one of
the noblest of Polish national heroes, whose newly risen country is the
ally of England and America, and whose young compatriots fought with
great gallantry by the side of British and American soldiers in the war
that has effected the deliverance of Kosciuszko's nation.
M. M. G.
CONTENTS
Preface 17
Note on the Pronunciation of Names 21
CHAPTER
I. The Youth of Kosciuszko 23
II. The Fight for American Freedom 37
III. The Years of Peace 53
IV. The First Fight for Poland 71
V. The Eve of the Rising 87
VI. The Rising of Kosciuszko--I. 96
VII. The Rising of Kosciuszko--II. 129
VIII. The Russian Prison 159
IX. Exile 173
List of Books Consulted 204
Index 205
NOTE ON THE PRONUNCIATION OF
POLISH NAMES
C==ts.
C, ci,==a soft English ch.
Ch==strongly aspirated h, resembling ch in Scotch loch.
Cz==ch, as in charm.
Dz==j.
J==y.
L==a peculiarly Polish letter, roughly speaking to be pronounced
between u and w.
Ó==oo, as in mood.
Rz==the French j, as in Jean.
S, si,==a slightly hissed and softened sound of sh.
W==v.
Z, zi==French j.
The stress in Polish falls almost invariably on the penultimate
syllable.
KOSCIUSZKO
CHAPTER I
THE YOUTH OF KOSCIUSZKO
The great national uprisings of history have for the most part gone down
to time identified with the figure of a people's hero: with some
personality which may be said in a certain manner to epitomize and
symbolize the character of a race. "I and my nation are one": thus
Poland's greatest poet, Adam Mickiewicz, sums up the devotion that will
not shrink before the highest tests of sacrifice for a native country.
"My name is Million, because I love millions and for millions suffer
torment." If to this patriotism oblivious of self may be added an
unstained moral integrity, the magnetism of an extraordinary personal
charm, the glamour of a romantic setting, we have the pure type of a
national champion. Representative, therefore, in every sense is the man
with whose name is immortally associated the struggle of the Polish
nation for her life--Tadeusz Kosciuszko.
Kosciuszko was born on February 12, 1746, during Poland's long
stagnation under her Saxon kings. The nation was exhausted by wars
forced upon her by her alien sovereigns. Her territories were the
passage for Prussian, Russian, and Austrian armies, traversing them at
their will. With no natural boundaries to defend her, she was surrounded
by the three most powerful states in Eastern Europe who were steadily
working for her destruction. In part through her own impracticable
constitution, but in greater measure from the deliberate machinations of
her foreign enemies, whether carried on by secret intrigues or by the
armed violence of superior force, Poland's political life was at a
standstill, her parliament obstructed, her army reduced. Yet at the same
time the undercurrent of a strong movement to regeneration was striving
to make itself felt. Far-seeing men were busying themselves with
problems of reform; voices were raised in warning against the perils by
which the commonwealth was beset. New ideas were pouring in from France.
Efforts were being made by devoted individuals, often at the cost of
great personal self-sacrifice, to ameliorate the state of the peasantry,
to raise the standard of education and of culture in the country. Under
these conditions, in the last years of the independence of Poland,
passed the childhood and youth of her future liberator.
Kosciuszko came of a class for which we have no precise equivalent, that
ranked as noble in a country where at that time the middle classes were
unknown, and where the ordinary gentry, so long as they had nothing to
do with trade, showed patents of nobility, irrespective of means and
standing. His father, who held a post of notary in his Lithuanian
district and who owned more than one somewhat modest estate, was
universally respected for his upright character, which, together with
his aptitude for affairs, caused his advice and assistance to be widely
sought through the countryside. Kosciuszko spent his boyhood in the
tranquil, wholesome, out-of-door life of a remote spot in Lithuania. The
home was the wooden one-storied dwelling with thatched, sloping roof and
rustic veranda, in aspect resembling a sort of glorified cottage, that
long after Kosciuszko's day remained the type of a Polish country house.
Kosciuszko's upbringing was of the simplest and most salutary
description. There was neither show nor luxury in his home. The family
fortune had been left to his father in an embarrassed condition: his
father's care and diligence had for the time saved it. The atmosphere
that surrounded the young Kosciuszko was that of domestic virtue, strict
probity. He had before his eyes the example of the devoted married life
of his parents. He went freely and intimately among the peasants on his
father's property, and thus learnt the strong love for the people that
dictated the laws he urged upon his country when he became her ruler.
Unpretending as was his father's household, its practice was the
patriarchal hospitality that marked the manners of the Poland of a
century and a half ago, as it does to-day. Friends and relations came
and went, always welcome, whether expected or unbidden. We have a
delicious letter from Kosciuszko's mother, Tekla, to her husband on one
of the numerous occasions when he was away from home on business, in
which, fondly calling him "my heart, the most beloved little dear Ludwik
and benefactor of my life," she begs him to send her wine, for her house
is filled with "perpetual guests," and will he try and procure her some
fish, if there is any to be had, "because I am ashamed to have only
barley bread on my table."[1] When accommodation failed in the
overcrowded house, the men slept in the barn. In the day they hunted,
shot, rode, or went off in parties, mushroom hunting. If to the pure and
unspoiled influence of his home Kosciuszko owes something at least of
the moral rectitude and devotion to duty from which he never swerved,
the country life of Lithuania, with its freedom and its strange charm,
the life that he loved above all others, has probably a good deal to say
to the simplicity of nature and the straightness of outlook that are
such strongly marked characteristics in this son of the Lithuanian
forests.
His early education was given him by his mother, a woman of remarkable
force of character and practical capacity. Left a widow with four
children under age, of whom Tadeusz was the youngest, she, with her
clear head and untiring energy, managed several farms and skilfully
conducted the highly complicated money matters of the family. Tadeusz's
home schooling ended with his father's death when the child was twelve
years old. He then attended the Jesuit college at the chief town in his
district, Brzesc. He was a diligent and clever boy who loved his book
and who showed a good deal of talent for drawing. He left school with a
sound classical training and with an early developed passion for his
country. Already Timoleon was his favourite hero of antiquity because,
so he told a friend fifty years later, "he was able to restore his
nation's freedom, taking nothing for himself."
[Footnote 1: T. Korzon, _Kosciuszko_. Cracow, 1894; later edition, 1906
(Polish).]
In 1763 the long and dreary reign of Augustus III, the last Saxon king
of Poland, came to an end. Russian diplomacy, supported by Russian
cannon, placed Stanislas Augustus Poniatowski, the lover of Catherine
II, upon the Polish throne in 1764. The year following, Kosciuszko, an
unknown boy of nineteen years of age whose destiny was strangely to
collide with that of the newly elected and last sovereign of independent
Poland, was entered in the Corps of Cadets, otherwise called the Royal
School, in Warsaw. Prince Adam Czartoryski, a leading member of the
great family, so predominant then in Polish politics that it was given
the name of "The Family" _par excellence_, frequently visited Lithuania,
where he held high military command and possessed immense estates. Young
Tadeusz attracted his interest, and it was through his influence that
the boy was placed in an establishment of which he was the commandant
and which, founded by the King, who was related to the Czartoryskis, was
under immediate Royal patronage. Technically speaking, the school was
not a military academy, but the education was largely military and the
discipline was on military lines. Above all, it was a school for
patriotism.
The admission of the candidate was in the nature of a semi-chivalrous
and national function, bearing the stamp of the knightly and romantic
traditions of Poland. On the first day Kosciuszko was formally presented
to the commandant, to the officers and to the brigade to which he was to
belong. He embraced his new comrades, was initiated into the regulations
and duties of the life before him and examined upon his capabilities. On
the following day he gave in his promise to observe the rules, and with
a good deal of ceremony was invested with the deep blue uniform of the
cadet. But this was merely the probation of the "novice," as the
aspirant was termed. A year's test followed, and then if judged worthy
the youth received in the chapel his final enrolment. All his colleagues
were present in full dress carrying their swords. High Mass was sung,
which the "novice" heard kneeling and unarmed. The chaplain then laid
before him his high obligation to his country; subsequently the
proceedings were adjourned to the hall or square, where the brigadier
proffered the neophyte's request for his sword. With the brigadier's
hand on his left arm, on his right that of the sub-brigadier--the
sub-brigadiers being the senior students--the candidate was put through
a string of questions, reminiscent of those administered to a
probationer taking the religious vows. One is typical: "Hast thou the
sincere resolve always to use this weapon which thou art about to
receive in defence of thy country and thy honour?" On the youth's reply,
"I have no other resolve," arms were presented, drums rolled, and the
senior officer girded the new soldier with his sword, and placed his
musket in his hand to the accompaniment of moral formulas. The young man
then made a solemn promise not to disgrace his comrades by any crime or
want of application to his duties. Led to his place in the ranks, he
presented arms, each brigade marched away, led by its brigadier, and the
day concluded with a festive evening.
The catechism that the cadet learnt by heart and repeated every Saturday
to his sub-brigadier--it was written by Adam Czartoryski--was of the
same patriotic description. Next to the love of God it placed the love
of country. "Can the cadet fear or be a coward?" was one of its
questions, with the response, "I know not how to answer, for both the
word and the thing for which it stands are unknown to me." This was no
mere ornamental flourish: for a dauntless courage is one of the most
distinctive characteristics of the Polish race, whether of its sons or
daughters. No opportunity was lost, even in the textbooks of the school,
to impress upon the students' minds that above all their lives belonged
to Poland. Let them apply themselves to history, said the foreword of an
encyclopædia that Adam Czartoryski wrote expressly for them, so that
they shall learn how to rule their own nation; to the study of law, that
they may correct the errors of those lawgivers gone before them. "You
who have found your country in this most lamentable condition must
people her with citizens ardent for her glory, the increase of her
internal strength, her reputation among foreigners, the reformation of
what is most evil in her government. May you, the new seed, change the
face of your country."
In this environment Kosciuszko spent the most impressionable period of
his youth. Early portraits show us the winning, eager, mobile young face
before life moulded it into the rugged countenance of the Polish
patriot, with its stern purpose and melancholy enthusiasm, that lives as
the likeness of Tadeusz Kosciuszko. Even as a cadet Kosciuszko was
distinguished not merely for his ability, but still more for his dogged
perseverance and fidelity to duty. Tradition say that, determined to put
in all the study that he could, he persuaded the night watchman to wake
him on his way to light the staves at three in the morning by pulling a
cord that Kosciuszko tied to his left hand. His colleagues thought that
his character in its firmness and resolution resembled that of Charles
XII of Sweden, and nicknamed him "Swede." Truth and sincerity breathed
in his every act and word. What he said he meant. What he professed he
did. The strength that was in him was tempered by that peculiar
sweetness which was native to him all his life, and which in later
manhood drew men as by magic to his banners, even as in his school-days
it won the respect and love of his young comrades. The esteem in which
his fellow-cadets held him is illustrated by the fact that on an
occasion when they were mortally offended by some slight put upon them
at a ball in the town they chose Kosciuszko as their spokesman to
present their grievances to the King, who took a personal interest in
the school. Something about the youth attracted the brilliant, highly
cultured sovereign, the man who wavered according to the emotion or fear
of the moment between the standpoint of a patriot or of a traitor. After
that interview he often sent for Tadeusz; and when Kosciuszko passed out
of the school as one of its head scholars or officers, he was
recommended to Stanislas Augustus as a recipient of what we should call
a State travelling scholarship.
In 1768 Kosciuszko's mother died, leaving her two daughters married, the
eldest, spendthrift, and most beloved son out on his own, and Tadeusz
still a cadet. With his mother's death Kosciuszko's financial troubles
began. For the greater part of his life he never knew what it was to
have a sufficiency of means. His brother held the estate and apparently
the control of the family money, that was no considerable sum and had in
latter years diminished. Public affairs, moreover, were now assuming an
aspect that threatened the very existence of Kosciuszko's country.
Catherine II's minister, Repnin, with Russian armies at his back, ruled
the land. The Poles who stood forward in a last despairing attempt to
deliver their country were removed by Russian troops to exile and
Siberia. Then in 1768 rose under the Pulaski father and sons that
gallant movement to save a nation's honour that is known as the
Confederation of Bar. For four years the confederates fought in guerilla
warfare all over Poland, in forest, marsh, hamlet, against the forces of
Russia which held every town and fortress in the country. These things
were the last that Kosciuszko saw of the old Republic of Poland. In the
company of his friend Orlowski, who had been one of four cadets to
receive the King's stipend, he departed from his country in 1769 or 1770
with the intention of pursuing his studies abroad.
Five years passed before Kosciuszko saw his native land again. Very
little is known to us of that stage of his history. It is certain that
he studied in the school of engineering and artillery in Mézières and
conceivably in the Ecole Militaire of Paris. He took private lessons in
architecture from Perronet, and followed up his strong taste for drawing
and painting. Sketches from his hand still remain, guarded as treasures
in Polish national museums. French fortifications engaged his close
attention, and by the time he left France he had acquired the skill in
military engineering that saved a campaign in the New World and that
defended Warsaw in the Old.
It is said that Kosciuszko prolonged his absence abroad rather than
return to see the enslavement of his country without being able to raise
a hand in her defence. For in 1772 Russia, Austria, and Prussia signed
an agreement to partition Poland between them, which, after a desperate
resistance on the part of the Polish Diet, was carried out in 1775.
Austria secured Galicia, Prussia a part of Great Poland and, with the
exception of Thorn and Danzig, what has since been known as "Prussian"
Poland, while to Russia fell the whole of Lithuania.
All this Kosciuszko watched from afar in helpless rage and bitterness of
soul. His peace of mind was further destroyed by his increasing
financial difficulties. Little enough of his share of his father's
fortune could have remained to him, and he was in debt. The Royal
subsidy had ceased when the treasury was ruined by reason of the
partition of Poland. Moreover, Stanislas Augustus was never a sure
source on which to rely when it came to the question of keeping a
promise or paying his dues. The greater part of Kosciuszko's career is
that of a man pitted against the weight of adverse circumstance. It was
inevitable that he who threw in his lot with an unhappy country could
have no easy passage through life. In this he resembles more than one of
the national heroes of history; but unlike many another, he never
reached the desired goal. His is the tragedy of a splendid and forlorn
hope. Even apart from the story of his public service his life was
dogged by disappointment and harassing care.
Somewhere in the year 1774 he at last returned home. A youth of
twenty-eight, possessed of striking talent and freshly acquired science,
he now, with his fiery patriotism and character as resolute as ardent,
found himself in the country that he panted to serve condemned to
inaction of the most galling description. The King who had been his
patron was the tool of Catherine II and through her of Russia. Russian
soldiers and officials overran even that part of Poland which still
remained nominally independent, but of which they were virtual masters.
There was no employment open to Kosciuszko. A commission in the minute
army that survived the partition was only to be had by purchase, and he
had no money forthcoming. All that he could do was to retire into the
country, while he devoted his energies to the thankless task of
disentangling the finances that the elder brother, Józef Kosciuszko, was
squandering right and left in debts and dissipation. The relations
between this riotous brother and Tadeusz, himself the most frugal and
upright of youths, were so painful that the latter refused to remain in
the old home that had not yet gone, as it did later, to Józef's
creditors. He therefore in true Polish fashion took up his abode in the
houses of different kinsfolk, often staying with his married sisters,
and especially with that best beloved sister, Anna Estkowa. Between him
and her there was always the bond of a most tender and intimate
affection, to which their letters, still preserved in Polish archives,
bear eloquent testimony.
At this time occurred the first love affair of the hero, who never
married. Among the manor-houses that Kosciuszko visited was that of
Józef Sosnowski. He was Kosciuszko's kinsman and had been his father's
friend. Tadeusz was a constant guest at his house, giving lessons in
drawing, mathematics, and history, his favourite subjects, to the
daughters of the house by way of return for their father's hospitality.
With one of these girls, Ludwika, Kosciuszko fell in love. Various
tender passages passed between them, without the knowledge of the
parents but aided and abetted by the young people of the family, in an
arbour in the garden. But another destiny was preparing for the lady.
The young and poor engineer's aspirations to her hand were not tolerated
by the father whose ambition had already led him into dealings that
throw no very creditable light on his patriotism, and that had
Kosciuszko known he would certainly never have frequented his house.
Over the gaming tables Sosnowski had made a bargain with his opponent, a
palatine of the Lubomirski family, in which it was arranged that the
latter's son should marry Ludwika Sosnowska. Getting wind of the
Kosciuszko romance, he privately bade the girl's mother remove her from
the scenes; and when one day Kosciuszko arrived at the manor he found
the ladies gone.
The bitter affront and the disappointment to his affections were
accepted by Kosciuszko with the silent dignity that belonged to his
character; but they played their part in driving him out of Poland.
Whether the story that Ludwika really fled to take refuge from the
detested marriage imposed upon her in a convent, whence she was dragged
by a ruse and forced to the bridal altar, as long afterwards she told
Kosciuszko, was a romantic invention of her own or an embroidery, after
the fashion of her century, on some foundation of fact, it is impossible
to say; but it is certain that through her unhappy married life she
clung fondly to the memory of her first and young lover. So long after
the rupture as fourteen years his name was a forbidden topic between
herself and her mother, and at a critical moment in Kosciuszko's career
we shall find her stepping in to use her rank and position with
Stanislas Augustus on his behalf.
With home, fortune, hopes of domestic happiness, all chance of serving
his country, gone, Kosciuszko determined to seek another sphere. He left
Poland in the autumn of 1775.
Poverty constrained him to make the journey in the cheapest manner
possible. He therefore went down the Vistula in a barge, one of the
picturesque flat-bottomed craft that still ply on Poland's greatest
river--the river which flows through two of her capitals and was, it is
well said, partitioned with the land it waters from the Carpathians to
the Baltic, On his way down the river he would, observes his chief
Polish biographer, have seen for the first time, and not the last, the
evidence before his eyes that his country lay conquered as his boat
passed the Prussian cordon over waters that once were Polish. Thus he
came down to the quaint old port of Danzig, with its stately old-world
burgher palaces and heavily carved street doors, then still Poland's,
but which Prussia was only biding her time to seize in a fresh
dismemberment of Polish territory.
Dead silence surrounds the following six months of Kosciuszko's life.
Every probability points to the fact that he would have gone to Paris,
where he had studied so long and where he had many friends and
interests. The envoys from America were there on the mission of
enlisting the help of France in the conflict of the States with Great
Britain. We do not know whether Kosciuszko became personally acquainted
with any of them. At all events the air was full of the story of a young
country striving for her independence; and it is not surprising that
when next the figure of Kosciuszko stands out clearly in the face of
history it is as a volunteer offering his sword to the United States to
fight in the cause of freedom.