- May 16, 2012
- 421
Will 2013 be the year of the January Uprising for Lithuania?
The lower house of the Lithuanian parliament has accepted for consideration a project that has been put forward to suggest 2013 to be the year of the 1863 January Uprising. The project was supported by 46 MPs and rejected by only one.
The idea was initiated by the head of the lower house of parliament, Irena Degutienė and the minister for foreign affairs, Audronis Ažubalis. According to them, next year we will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Uprising that has had an enormous effect on the history of all three nations: Lithuania, Poland and Belarus.
“The bloody Uprising emphasised that the three nations who have been living alongside each other for hundreds of years, did not accept suppression applied to themselves, their dignity and also demonstrated their desire of leading their own lives by themselves. According to historians this event was of great importance in the European history of Lithuania and has shown what path Eastern Europe wants to take. I am speaking here of mostly Poles, Lithuanians and Belarusians” – said Ažubalis at the lower house of the parliament.
The January Uprising out broke on the 22nd of January 1863 in the Polish Kingdom and the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It lasted up until autumn 1864. The scope of the uprising was contained within only the Russian-occupied grounds which included the former Kingdom of Poland, today’s Lithuania, Belarus and part of Ukraine. The uprising was of a guerrilla war type and throughout its duration, about 1200 battles took place. Despite the initial successes of the guerrillas, the final outcome was adverse to them, taking several thousands of casualties with about 1000 men being sentenced to death penalty, 38,000 sentenced to katorga or sent to Siberia and about 10,000 emigrated. Vilnius was pacified by troops under the command of Murawjow Wieszatiel.
Tłumaczenie Kamil Szwarc w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by Kamil Szwarc within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.
