An emblem designed as the coat of arms of the 1863 January Uprising, has been projected on the façade of the Presidential Palace in Warsaw to mark the 159th anniversary of the outbreak of the revolt, Polish President Andrzej Duda said in a Twitter post.
Commemorative ceremonies took place in the town of Wiązowna, near the capital Warsaw, as well as in Vilnius, Lithuania, and Lviv, Ukraine.
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 czarist Russian.
The insurgency 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-long struggle and some 40,000 were deported to Russia’s far-eastern Siberia region.
Poland ultimately regained independence on November 11, 1918, the day World War I ended, after 123 years of foreign rule.
(ał)
Source: PAP