On this date in 1864, the leadership of Poland-Lithuania’s abortive January Uprising against the Russian tsar was hanged before 30,000 at Warsaw Citadel.
Romuald Traugutt depicted (somewhat ironically) on the 20-zloty note of Soviet bloc Poland.
Romuald Traugutt (English Wikipedia link | Polish) had been a decorated Lieutenant Colonel in the Tsarist army, and a heretofore apolitical man — but he resigned shortly after the outbreak of the doomed national uprising to take up sides against Russia.
This installment of the venerable Russians vs. Poles series was characteristically nasty.
And it ended the way these affairs have ended these last 400 years or so: Russian victory.
In addition to this day’s batch — Traugutt along with (all Polish Wikipedia links) Rafal Krajewski, Jozef Toczyski, Roman Zulinski and Jan Jezioranski — a further 391 were put to death after the war; tens of thousands were deported to Siberia or otherwise scattered in the vast Romanov empire; a war indemnity tax was imposed; and over three thousand estates in Poland and Lithuania were confiscated.
Traugutt has gained some latter-day support in the Catholic Church for beatification.
On this day..
- 1843: Sarah Dazley - 2020
- 1678: Thomas Hellier, "Groans and Sighs" - 2019
- 1939: Las Trece Rosas - 2018
- 1944: The Wola Massacre begins, during the Warsaw Uprising - 2017
- 1549: The Clyst Heath massacre, during the Prayer Book Rebellion - 2016
- 2008: Jose Medellin, precedent - 2015
- 1943: Red Orchestra members, in the Nazi Paradise - 2014
- 1993: Joseph Paul Jernigan, Visible Human Project subject - 2013
- 1623: Daniel Frank, the first hanging in the USA - 2012
- 1909: Georges-Henri Duchemin, matricide - 2011
- 1775: Maharajah Nandakumar, judicially murdered? - 2010
- 1676: Malin Matsdotter and Anna Simonsdotter, ending a witch hunt - 2008