Kastuś Kalinoŭski & the Rise of the Political Idea of Belarus

kastus_kalinouski.jpg, default, Kastuś Kalinouski on a photograph by Giuseppe Achille Bonoldi, 1862-1863. Colour added by Wikipedia user (Guccee) on December 7, 2022, photo: http://W

#language & literature

A look at the life, legend and lasting legacy of Kastuś Kalinoŭski, the founding father of the Belarusian national idea and Belarusian patriotism – but also a national hero of Poland and Lithuania.

Kastuś Kalinoŭski (Pol. Konstanty Kalinowski) was born in 1838 in Mostowlany (Podlasie region, present-day Poland), which at the time had been part of the Russian Empire for almost half a century. He attended gymnasium in Svislach (present-day western Belarus), before moving to St. Petersburg to study law at the Imperial University. It was here, in the empire’s capital, that Kalinoŭski for the first time engaged in illegal anti-tsarist political activity, becoming a member of a secret society run by Zygmunt Sierakowski and Jarosław Dąbrowski, both Poles.

In the spring of 1862, following a short stay in Vilnius, Kalinoŭski returned to his homeland of Grodna Region, where he engaged in a series of underground activities that eventually made him the leader of the massive insurgency against Russia.

By the spring of 1864, he would be dead: only 26 years old, Kalinoŭski was executed as the most dangerous leader of the January Uprising. Within these two years, however, he had managed to accomplish a lot: forming the foundations of the national idea of Belarus and Belarusian patriotism, leading a massive war effort against the Russian Empire, as well as securing his firm place in the pantheon of independent Belarusian culture.

Here’s a look at the ground-breaking life and odds-beating death of Kastuś Kalinoŭski: a legacy that remains more relevant today than ever.

First Belarusian periodical – ‘Muzhytskaya Praŭda’

An issue of 'Mužyckaja praŭda' - a Belarusian language periodical published by Kalinouski. Photo: Wikimedia

In July 1862, shortly after his return to Grodna Region, Kastuś Kalinoŭski started publishing and circulating a brochure called Muzhytskaya Praŭda (Peasant Truth). Written in Belarusian using the Latin alphabet, the publication was intended to reach the Belarusian peasant masses and support them in their understanding of their national identity, as well as to encourage them to stand up against Russia in the future military insurgency.

In the articles he published in Muzhytskaya Praŭda, Kalinoŭski tried to explain to the Belarusian masses their historical and social position vis-à-vis the Russian Empire (and the Polish Commonwealth). Denouncing Russian hypocrisy with regard to the enslavement of peasants, its exploitative policy of recruitment into the army and the russification ideology of the Orthodox Church, Kalinoŭski called for the empowerment of the peasant masses, bolstering local patriotism and a sense of collective identity. He also tried to communicate, in a language understandable to the often illiterate masses, the basic ideas of the modern democratic state, in which, ‘the nation is not made to serve the government, but it is the government that serves the nation’. This was all quite revolutionary indeed.

All seven issues of the periodical were written by Kalinoŭski himself and signed with the pseudonym Yaśka-haspadar-s-pad-Vilni (roughly ‘Johnny-the-farmer-from-near-Vilnius’). The author himself distributed the copies, taking them into villages and scattering them along country roads. Muzhytskaya Praŭda came down in history as the first Belarusian language periodical publication – with its revolutionary content, it paved the way for a Belarusian sense of identity and the future resistance to imperial oppression.

Education vs. russification

Kalinoŭski recognised the importance of education in the life of Belarusian peasants, and he also associated it with the development and wealth of society. But he was also well aware that, in the context of a peasant society in the early stages of national awareness, the lack of education and access to knowledge in one’s native language was a key element in the process of Russifying the Belarusian masses. This he saw as tantamount to the denationalisation and Russification policies which he believed were at the core of the Great-Russian imperial project in Belarus. ‘In our country, my fellows, they teach you in schools only to read in the Muscovite language; they do it for the purpose of turning you completely into Muscovites’, he claimed.

But just as day and night do not go hand in hand together, so also true education does not go together with Muscovite bondage. As long as it remains, we shall have nothing: there will be no truth, no wealth, no education whatsoever. They will only drive us like cattle – not to our well-being, but to our perdition.

This deep awareness of the nature of Russian imperialism, which he saw as the greatest threat to the Belarusian national cause, was to define much of Kalinoŭski’s activity and future legacy.

The Kalinoŭski Uprising

The emblems of Poland (eagle) and Litwa-Belarus (pahonya); Pgoto: wikimedia — The emblems of Poland (eagle) and Litwa-Belarus (pahonya) as symbols of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, used in the run-up to the January Uprising. Photo: wikimedia

The ideas developed in Muzhytskaya Praŭda and Kalinoŭski’s other publications inevitably led to their author’s full political engagement in the January Uprising (known in Belarus as the Kalinoŭski Uprising). The insurgence which broke out in the beginning of 1863 (and lasted until the autumn of 1864) covered large swathes of contemporary Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine – and turned into a regular war with the Russian Empire.

Kalinoŭski was a member of two insurgent leaderships – for Belarus and for Lithuania – during the uprising; in the summer of 1863, he rose to the position of the Commissar Plenipotentiary, which effectively made him the chief leader of all forces fighting on the territories of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Rozkaz komisarza Rządu Narodowego na województwo grodzieńskie, 1863, fot. http://Wikimedia.org — The National Government 's decree for the Grodna region, written in the Belarusian language, 1863, photo: http://Wikimedia.org

In this capacity, Kalinoŭski announced the document known as Prikaz (Decree, 1863), which, according to Belarusian historian Siarhei Ablameika, was the first administrative document written in Belarusian since the time of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In it, Kalinoŭski warned against attempts by Russian authorities to form militia units in villages and promised land ‘for eternity’ to all peasants who wanted to join the insurgents. In a strategic political move, he endorsed the Uniate Church as the only viable alternative to Catholic and Orthodox Churches in Belarus.

In January 1864, Kalinoŭski, betrayed by one of his soldiers, was arrested by the Russians and imprisoned in Vilnius Dominican Church. There he wrote his most famous works, including Letters from Beneath the Gallows as well as the poem ‘Maryska Charnabreva’.

The birth of the Belarusian national idea

Kastuś (Konstanty) Kalinouski, photographed in 1864, photo: wikimedia

It was in the Letters from Beneath the Gallows but also in his other, earlier publications that Kalinoŭski formulated the rudiments of what later came to be described as the modern Belarusian national idea. As scholars note, Kalinoŭski was the first to emphasise the distinct and consistent existence of historical Belarus (as part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania), as well as endorsing its contemporary political sovereignty and independence from Russia (but also from Poland). Thus, for the first time in history, Belarus was perceived as a sovereign and subjective political entity with its own agency.

These issues, as Siarhei Ablameika shows, repeatedly came to the surface in Kalinoŭski’s tense relations with the Polish leadership of the uprising in Warsaw. Kalinoŭski consistently stressed Lithuania’s and Belarus’s separateness from Poland proper and opposed any attempts to pull them under Warsaw’s hegemony. As Ablameika insistently argues, Kalinoŭski saw the future relations between Poland and Belarus (and Lithuania) purely in terms of a federation. In this striving, Kalinoŭski was seen by his Polish contemporaries as a difficult radical, a ‘maniac of the peasant nation’, as well as ‘a staunch “Lithuanian” separatist’.

The name Belarus

The cover of Siarhey Ablameika's book about Kastuś Kalinouski — The cover of Siarhei Ablameika's book about Kastuś Kalinouski, published by Radio Svaboda. Photo: public domain

Kalinoŭski’s vision of the Belarusian nation relied on peasants and petty gentry whom he saw, by virtue of being speakers of Belarusian, as the carriers of Belarusian patriotism and as potential participants in the future insurgency. As Ablameika claims, Kalinoŭski is also to be credited with fixing and popularising of the name ‘Belarus’ and ‘Belarusian’ in the political discourse (the name replaced the older political idea, that of ‘Litwa’ [Lithuania], Grand Duchy of Lithuania). It was this name that was then taken over and immortalised in poetry by such poets as Frantsishak Bahushevich and later, Yanka Kupala and Yakub Kolas.

It was precisely at the time of the uprising that the territorial area of Belarus was finally established in its geographical contours. For Kalinoŭski, as Ablameika suggests, its territorial scope was virtually identical with the range of the use of the Belarusian language. This is pretty much the same Belarus as we see on the map today.

The fight for truth

Perhaps most importantly, Kalinoŭski was the first political activist for whom the struggle against the Russian Empire was tantamount to the fight for truth. Truth – and freedom – for Kalinoŭski were at stake in the insurgents’ fight: ‘Hence, folks, just as soon as you hear that your brothers from around Warsaw are fighting for truth and freedom… go and join, in your masses, the fight for your human and national rights, for your homeland’. The truth, construed as the greatest value in life, comes up also in Kalinoŭski’s only extant poem, whose protagonist, quite blasphemously indeed, claims that he ‘will sooner renounce happiness and Heaven than the Truth’.

Such locutions have effectively placed the fight with the Russian regime in the framework not only of political struggle (this or that ruler) but, above all, within a moral and ethical perspective: making it a matter of conscience and justice, transposing it into the sphere of good and evil. This understanding of the Belarusian fight would set the tone for the tradition of Belarusian patriotism.

What was Kalinoŭski’s truth? The ‘peasant truth’ of the Belarusian folk? That truth, on the most basic level, lay in recognising the fact that Belarusians exist as an independent nation with its own language, history and culture and the right to form its own independent state. This fact was strongly contested and effectively erased by the Russian imperial project, with its policy of denationalisation and Russification (which would only intensify in the second half of the 19th century).

Perhaps most shockingly, this truth was for Kalinoŭski something worth dying for. As he wrote to the Belarusian nation in the final days of his life: ‘The breast will stop moving, the heart will ache, but there can be no regret in dying for Your truth’ (Letters From Beneath the Gallows).

‘Letters From Beneath the Gallows’

Kalinoŭski’s literary output from the last years of his life, including articles in Muzhytskaya Praŭda and Letters from Beneath the Gallows, with its lively Belarusian language and lofty moral ideals, became one of the most precious gems of modern Belarusian literature. This is especially the case with the two surviving ‘Letters to the Belarusian Nation’ – written while in prison, they were smuggled out and subsequently published in a local underground periodical.

In the letters, which are often seen as his political testament, Kalinoŭski for the last time talks to his people, laying out his vision of Belarusian history, the uprising, as well as the contemporary situation of Belarus in the face of the Russian Empire, including the tasks that would still lie ahead.

But for the most part, the letters constitute a sweeping critique of the ‘Russian order’ imposed in the Belarusian territories, which Kalinoŭski denounces as pure lawlessness based on violence, corruption, and downright theft (subsumed in the maxim ‘Steal, take and remain silent!’) – a process that involved administration, court and military officials at all levels. Kalinoŭski’s argument also includes a brilliant deconstruction of the Russian ideology of ‘brotherhood’ and ‘brotherly protection’ (bratnya apeka) regarding Belarusians, which serves as a key propaganda prop, facilitating the implementation of the policies of effective Russification.

At the time of writing the letters, Kalinoŭski was well aware that his struggle was not quite successful, yet he saw it as an unfinished challenge, one to be continued in the years (and possibly decades) to come. In one of the last paragraphs of the first letter, he says: ‘The work [ahead of us] is not swift or easy, but a satisfying one instead, and one that will lead to the proper end’.

You can watch a spelling bee drill based on Kalinouski's Letters from Beneath the Gallows here.

Maryś… – Kalinoŭski’s love poem

Kalinouski's fiancee Maryja Jamant (second from left), with her parents and sister Jelena. Photo: Wikimedia — Kalinouski's fiancee Maryja Jamant (second from left), with her parents and sister Ludwika. Photo: Wikimedia

Literary and moral qualities also characterise Kalinoŭski’s only extant poem ‘Maryska Charnabreva, galubka maya’ (Black eye-browed Mary, my turtledove). Written in prison, already after the sentence was announced and in the face of impending death, this short poem is a moving reflection on the inevitable passing of all earthly things (including happiness), as well as a confession of unwavering faith in the value of truth, which Kalinoŭski placed above all other things, including the prospect of Heaven.

According to scholars, the eponymous Maria of the poem was Kalinoŭski’s fiancée Mariya Jamant. The two met in Vilnius and, according to Maria’s sister Ludwika Rodziewicz, shared not only a romantic feeling but also the same “ideals of the struggle for national liberation and a dream about the future happiness of the people, a dream for which they were both willing to sacrifice their lives’. Importantly though, Kalinoŭski’s poem is just as much a love letter to his fiancée as it is to his nation.

At the Gallows: ‘We are all equal’

Lukiski square in Vilnius where Kastuś Kaliniuski was executed in March 1864. Photo: Wikimedia

During the Russian investigation, Kalinoŭski admitted to his role in the uprising but did not divulge any information regarding his collaborators (he said he considered such activity a form of espionage, inconsistent with his beliefs). He was sentenced to death by firing squad – a punishment then ‘corrected’ by the infamous General Mikhail Muravyev (the latter made his name with the massive killings of insurgents – which even gained him the monicker Veshatel [Hangman]). As a result, Kalinoŭski was sentenced to death by hanging – a punishment deemed beneath a nobleman and thus considered a form of humiliation.

On 22 March 1864, in a famous reaction to the reading of the execution sentence in Lukiškės Square in Vilnius, which referred to the prisoner as a nobleman, Kalinoŭski reportedly cried: ‘There is no nobility here. All are equal’. These famous last words, spoken by Kalinoŭski at the gallows, may be seen as further proof of his relentless spirit and radically democratic opinions.

‘Kastuś rhymes with Belarus’

Yanka Kupala is considered the gretaest Belarusian poet of the 20th century, photo: Wikimedia

The relevance of Kalinoŭski’s legacy was early recognised by independent Belarusian culture, in particular poetry. Kalinoŭski’s name appears in the 19th century in works by Frantsishak Bahushevich and Adam Hurynovich, at a time when the Belarusian language was banned from publication. He was also an important presence in the Belarusian literature of the 20th century. Again, it was specifically in poetry, as one scholar noted, that the often-employed rhyme Kastus-Belarus served as ‘a powerful reflector highlighting the role of Kalinoŭski as the nation’s favourite’. Poems about Kalinoŭski or dedicated to him were written by such diverse writers as Aleś Dudar, Larysa Heniyush, Maksim Tank, Aleś Hurlo, Uladzimir Karatkevich and Nil Hilevich, to name only a few.

But Kalinoŭski’s influence, even if it does not come up by name, can be traced throughout the entire Belarusian national literature, including such canonical poems of Belarusian patriotism as Yanka Kupala’s ‘A khto tam idzye’ . A song version of the poem by the band Lapis Trubetskoy, titled 'Nie byc' skotam' (To Not Be Cattle) seems a likely borrowing from Letters from Beneath the Gallows, where skatsina (cattle) is a staple reference.

Kalinoŭski is also, as literary scholar Arnold McMillin shows, an important presence in the most recent Belarusian poetry from the period following the collapse of the Soviet Union, making a covert or overt appearance in poems by Andrei Khadanovich and many others.

Belarusian band Lapis Trubetskoy performing their song composed to the poem by Yanka Kupala 'A khto tam idzie' at the EuroMaidan protest in Kiiv, Ukraine.

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Ляпис Трубецкой – Не быць скотам | Live Еўрамайдан

(Anti-)Polish Kalinoŭski in BSSR?

Film poster of a Soviet movie about Kastuś Kalinouski from 1928. Photo: Wikimedia

In the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (1920-90), Kalinoŭski was celebrated as a revolutionary and a national hero of socialist Belarus. His life’s struggle was celebrated in Soviet theatre productions (by E. Mironovich, 1923) and films (directed by U. Hardzin, 1927) – portraying him as a fighter for the freedom of peasants and an enemy of the tsarist regime.

An important trait of the Soviet cult of Kalinoŭski was his anti-Polishness, which, however, has little historical foundation. Kalinoŭski was brought up in Polish culture (and used Polish in much of his letter correspondence) and, as has already been shown, he was certainly attached to the political tradition and freedoms of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth – even if his political activity was pointing to a future where Belarus was to be treated as an independent political entity.

Poignant proof of Kalinoŭski’s Polish sympathies can be found in his poem ‘Yashche Polshcha ne propala’, which shows how the author adapted the conceptual framework of Polish patriotism and nationalism and employed them in his struggle for Belarus. Written in the Belarusian Latin alphabet at the time of the January Uprising, the poem itself is an adaptation of The Song of the Legions (also known as the Dąbrowski Mazurka). It closely echoes the Mazurka’s lyrics, claiming that ‘Poland has not yet perished / As long as we still live’, and calls on the insurgents to ‘retake what the renegade rogues [pahan] have taken from us’.

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The official funeral of the leaders of the January Uprising, Kastuś Kalinouski and Zygmunt Sierakowski, with Polish and Lithuanian head of state in attendance. 22 January 2019. Photo: Grzegorz Jankowski/KPR

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Kalinoŭski’s testament: “You will only be happy, when…”

A copy of the last page from Kastuś Kalinouski's the second Letter from beneath the Gallows. Photo: Wikimedia

In the last sentence of his Letter from Beneath the Gallows, which has often been seen as a manifesto of the Belarusian national idea, Kalinoŭski states: ‘For I say to you from beneath the gallows, my people, that only then will you live happily when no Muscovite remains over you.’

This message is still relevant today – over a century and a half after these words were written in a Vilnius prison. In fact, the 160 years that have passed since – with new waves of Russification in the tsarist, Soviet and now Lukashenka regimes – have only aggravated its purport and significance. In recent years (2020-23), with Lukashenka’s unprecedented crack-down on opposition, but also on independent journalists, resulting in mass emigration out of the country and imprisonment of political enemies, it has become clear that under Moscow’s rule not only freedom (an independent state) but also the very survival of Belarusian culture and identity is under threat.

Meanwhile – as Belarus under Lukashenka’s dictatorship spirals further into full support and complicity in Putin’s war against Ukraine – Kalinoŭski’s name and legacy are perhaps best exemplified in the Polk Kalinoŭskaha, a military unit which has been fighting in Ukraine against Russia’s army. This struggle ‘for our freedom and yours’ may decide not only the future of independent Ukraine but also the survival of Belarus as an independent nation.

Main sources: Syarhey Ablameika, Kalinoŭski i palityčnae naradzhennye Bielarusi, Radio Svaboda, 2020 [pdf in Blr]; Kastus' Kalìnoŭskì ì nacyâtvorčy pracès u Belarusi (Kastuś Kalinoŭski and the nation-building process in Belarus), Minsk, 2015.

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