80 years since the Nazi Evil was destroyed - conquest of Berlin

 Salvete Omnes,

soldiers of the Kosciuszko 1st Infantry Division's Light Artillery Regiment hung the Polish flag on the Siegessäule in Berlin

Late April and early May 1945 was hot around Berlin in Germany.
Soviet Red armies and Polish armies defeated and reduced to ashes the Nazi forces in and around Berlin.

Polish 1st Army tanks and wagon trains, horses also went on to destroy the Nazis

For the Polish people (Christians and Jews alike & others like our Muslim Tatars) the war started on September 1939, and lasted the whole period until that May 8, 1945 (when Breslau - today's Wroclaw - defenders also laid down their arms).
Along the Soviet armies storming Berlin there was the Polish 1st Army.

Some of the soldiers storming Berlin's streets started their war in September 1939, like lieutenant Konstanty Minuszyc, who was a sailor of the Pinsk Riverine Flotilla of the Polish Navy in 1939.

Some of the platoon commanders were former NCO's  of the KOP (see the label -KOP- for more information), who in 1939 fought the Nazi Germans and Soviet Red Army.

Communist Poland's soldier medal for the participation in the capture of Berlin

On May 3 like the Red Army Soviet units, the soldiers of Polish 1st Army also met with the American Army counterparts on the Elbe River. The Nazis were finished for good.

May 2 and then May 8 and thereafter were days of rejoicing for all these boys and young men who finally brought the evil of Nazi Germany to its end. Their wives, sisters, mothers and other loved ones and common citizens were also rejoicing these days of May 1945. 

For war-ravaged Poland, reshaped on so many levels (territory and ethnic make up - Poland became a mono-ethnic state) by Joseph Stalin and with the Polish population declined from 35 million in 1939AD  to circa 23 million in 1946AD, the new era was about to began:  the era of Communist Poland, the anti-Soviet civil war, Stalinist period and social revolution along with industrialization and modernization on many levels unseen prior to 1939. 

Among the amazing developments in 1945-49 period Poland got a brand new western border on the Oder River like in  the early Piast Poland a thousand years ago, and with all these territories that for a 1000 years represented the mythical German Drang nach Osten.  Poland lost many true Polish territories  in the east, like the royal city of Lwow in Red Ruthenia, in Poland since 1340sAD. But perhaps this Stalin's induced quid pro quo helped post-war Poland to survived the Communist era, which happily finally ended in 1989AD ... 

 Ave and  pacem aeternam to all heroes...

What a year! 1000 years of Polish Crown and 80 years of conquest of Nazi Germany - vivat! 

Valete

Constitution that triggered war of 1792

 Salvete Omnes,

some Polish history

in Poland the third of  May  is celebrated as the official state holiday - the May Constitution Day - established  to  commemorate the final of the Polish constitutions passed by the Sejm (the Polish Legislature) not quite in presence of all parliamentarians present in Warsaw on May 3, 1791 AD. It was the first modern constitution in Polish history and actually also the first one in the European history too, being only second to the American constitution. 

The passing of that new constitution for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's Sejm was  opposed by many Commonwealth magnates and nobles. The new constitutional  framework for the Polish Republic was not welcomed by Russian Empire, Prussian Kingdom and Austrian Empire, those three powers that in 1772AD already took some parts of the Polish realm (known the the First Partition of Poland).

Empress Catherine II, the ruthless enlightened ruler of the Russian Empire, had the rebellion or confederacy (of some of the Polish-Lithuanian magnates, like Franciszek K. Branicki in the painting below,  and noblemen) organized in the winter of the following year ( formally declared in April 1792), and then these Commonwealth confederates commonly and jointly known as the Targowica Confederation called for the Russian intervention. 

And thus in the late spring of 1792 the Russian invasion commenced and a war started known nowadays as the Polish-Russsian war of 1792.

I would say this lawful and needful act of Polish Sejm ( Parliament) in May 1791 might have been the 'final straw that broke the camel's back,' i.e., it led to the Russian invasion,  a defensive war, cowardly  betrayal of the undefeated Polish Crown army in the field  by king Stanislaw August  and the so called reformers,   and in consequence eventually  the 2rd  partition  of the Commonwealth, then the Kosciuszko Insurrection of 1794 and the final Third Partition of Poland of 1795.

 the very young commander of the Crown Army, Jozef A. Poniatowski

Tadeusz Kosciuszko, commander of one of the divisions and  a veteran of the American Revolution

Pawel Grawbowski, commander of the 3rd infantry Regiment of the Duchy army

We can only guess and wander about the alternative history here, namely what could have happened if Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth politicians and patriots stayed put for a few more years?
What if  the Great Sejm of 1788-92 ended without any new constitution and with no substantial reforms and thus the weak Polish state, with 900 thousand strong Jewish minority,  continued as the Russian protectorate until the coming of Napoleon and the Napoleonic war?
One could also speculate, not without a reason,  that the Prussians were behind all of this newly found courage suddenly displayed by Polish weak  king and his advisors in 1789-91, as  the Prussians themselves  were in fact  the ones who did benefit the most from the war between Polish state and Russian Empire, and the Prussians ended taking new Polish provinces, and in 1794-5 joined Russia  in fighting and then ending the Commonwealth.

Valete

Zygmnut Ajdukiewicz - a painter

 Salvete Omnes,

To the market with geese

*
May peace return to the people of Ukraine while my Moslem friends shall diligently celebrate the month of Ramadan until sundown April 20.

Easter is coming  - may peace come to the people of Ukraine

 alas,today we should take a quick look at the available works of Zygmunt Ajdukiewicz (1861-1917), the cousin of Tadeusz Ajdukiewicz.

first, this series of works that where illustrating the life of Tadeusz Kosciuszko, hero of Poland and USA, published in a book and can be had from the Polish national library site  Polona.

Kosciuszko's 'dworek - Mereszowszczyzna according to our illustrator

Kosciuszko and George Washington - American Revolutionary War

battle of Dubienka

Kosciuszko thanking his troops

Raclawice battle

Maciejowice battle and capture of Kosciuszko

and the genre paintings, including two from the National Museum in Warsaw

and a historical illustration - a knightly tournament

Valete

Monuments to Tadeusz Kosciuszko - hero of 'two eagles'

Salvete Omnes,
this is as good time as any to bring here the images of various equestrian monuments dedicated to general Tadeusz Kosciuszko, hero of Poland (White Eagle) and United States (Bold Eagle), hence the hero of two eagles.

but I am going to start with this monument - erected at the Lafayette Park, Washington DC (and copy in Warsaw). It was sculpted by a Polish sculptor Antoni Popiel and dedicated by the US president William Howard Taft  on May 11, 1910.

 this wonderful monument has been damaged and defaced by the protesters and rioters in the BLM /George Floyd killing protest past weekend in DC.
 
There is this little subtitled video about it .  And his famous last will demanding
that his estate executor would purchase black slaves with the funds from his estate and liberate them et al. It is so ironic, isn't it? Nota bene even our friends the Russians put this article about this travesty.
Back to the monuments 
Chicago, Illinois - sculpted by a Polish artist Kazimierz Chodziński  and erected in 1904.

 

 

Detroit, Michigan - a replica -  the original was sculpted by a Polish sculptor Leonard Marconi for the royal city of Krakow and destroyed by the Germans in 1940 etc - a blog article on the monument with more pictures.
 
Milwaukee, Wisconsin - (Poles in Milwaukee)
 sculpted by Gaetano Trentanove in 1904 and was a gift from the Polish National Alliance, dedicated on June 18, 1905.
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Krakow, Poland - the original sculpted( 1/4 size) by a Polish sculptor Leonard Marconi, finished after Marconi's death by Antoni Popiel and cast in 1900,  and destroyed by the Germans in 1940, a replica was made in the Saxon (the Soviet East German) city of Dresden and gifted to the city of Krakow in 1960.


 
 
Końskie, Poland  - sculpted by Wojciech Durek  in  1946.


 there is also one in Chorzele, Poland.
Valete