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Leaders of 1863 uprising against Russia to be reburied

22.11.2019 13:30
The remains of leaders and insurgents in a 1863 revolt by Poles against Russian rule were set to be reburied in Vilnius, Lithuania, on Friday during commemorations attended by Poland’s top officials.
Polish President Andrzej Duda, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda and Polish First Lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda at a ceremony in  Vilnius Cathedral
Polish President Andrzej Duda, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda and Polish First Lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda at a ceremony in Vilnius CathedralPAP/Piotr Nowak

Polish President Andrzej Duda and First Lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Defence Minister Mariusz Błaszczak as well as Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda were expected to attend the ceremonies.

After a mass in Vilnius Cathedral, the funeral procession was set to head for the Rasos Cemetery, the Lithuanian capital’s oldest and biggest, where the reburial was to take place, Polish state news agency PAP reported.

During the ceremony, the remains of two leaders of the insurgency, Zygmunt Sierakowski and Wincenty Konstanty Kalinowski, as well as of several other participants in the revolt were expected to be laid to rest.

The remains of four of the insurgents set for reburial were discovered by accident during an archaeological dig at the Gediminas Castle Hill in Vilnius in 2017, PAP reported.

An insurgency dubbed the January Uprising broke out on January 22, 1863 when a provisional national government issued a manifesto in which it appealed to all Poles to take up arms against tsarist Russia.

The revolt became the largest and longest of Poland's armed struggles for independence during the 19th century. It comprised more than 1,200 battles and skirmishes fought by some 200,000 insurgents.

Over 30,000 insurgents were killed during the bloody one-year struggle and some 40,000 were deported to Russia’s Siberia region.

Poland ultimately regained independence on November 11, 1918, the day World War I ended, after 123 years of foreign rule.

(jh/pk)

Source: PAP