Polish Jacobins (or Huguenots) was the name given to a group of late 18th-century radical Polish politicians by their opponents.
The group formed during the Great Sejm as an offshoot of the Forge of Hugo Kołłątaj (Kuźnia Kołłątajska, and hence their alternate name of Huguenots (Hugoniści)), and later the Patriotic Party (Stronnictwo Patriotyczne). The Polish Jacobins played a significant part in the preparation of the 1794 Warsaw and Wilno Uprisings during the Kościuszko Uprising. Under the name of Association of Citizens Offering Help and Assistance to the National Magistrate for the Good of the Homeland (Zgromadzenie Obywateli Ofiarujących Pomoc i Posługę Magistraturom Narodowym w Celu Dobra Ojczyzny) they formed a political club (based on French Jacobin Club) which became part of the provisional government of Poland (Temporary Provisional Council, Radza Zastępcza Tymczasowa). For their support for lynching supporters of the Targowica Confederation, they were abolished by Tadeusz Kościuszko, but as the uprising neared its defeat they were reactivated under the name of Association for Supporting the Revolution and the Cracow Act (Zgromadzenie dla Utrzymania Rewolucji i Aktu Krakowskiego). After the third partition of Poland, many Jacobins emigrated and joined the Polish Legions in Italy. Many of those who remained in Poland took part in various conspirational organizations, such as the Association of Polish Republicans (Towarzystwo Republikanów Polskich). Eventually, some prominent Jacobins like Józef Zajączek became part of the government of the Duchy of Warsaw and later Congress Poland. During the November Uprising they were reactivated as the Patriotic Society (Towarzystwo Patriotyczne), founded by Joachim Lelewel. Polish Jacobins slowly became absorbed into other groups of the Great Emigration, although traces of their ideas were visible not only in the January Uprising but also in Józef Piłsudski's Polish Socialist Party (Polska Partia Socjalistyczna).
Their political views had much in common with French Jacobins. They supported the French Revolution and wanted to transplant most of its ideals to Poland, to abolish monarchy and serfdom, equalize the privileges of the various social classes, nationalize property (as a temporary measure for funding the war), and limit the privileges of the Catholic Church (although unlike radical French Jacobins, their stance was not anti-Christian).
Andrzej Tadeusz Bonawentura Kościuszko was a Polish-Lithuanian military engineer, statesman, and military leader who then became a national hero in Poland, the United States, Lithuania, and Belarus. He fought in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth's struggles against Russia and Prussia, and on the U.S. side in the American Revolutionary War. As Supreme Commander of the Polish National Armed Forces, he led the 1794 Kościuszko Uprising.
The Kościuszko Uprising, also known as the Polish Uprising of 1794, Second Polish War, Polish Campaign of 1794, and the Polish Revolution of 1794, was an uprising against the Russian and Prussian influence on Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, led by Tadeusz Kościuszko in Poland-Lithuania and the Prussian partition in 1794. It was a failed attempt to liberate the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from external influence after the Second Partition of Poland (1793) and the creation of the Targowica Confederation.
Prince Józef Antoni Poniatowski was a Polish general, minister of war and army chief, who became a Marshal of the French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars.
Hugo Stumberg Kołłątaj, also spelled Kołłątay, was a prominent Polish constitutional reformer and educationalist, and one of the most prominent figures of the Polish Enlightenment. He served as Deputy Chancellor of the Crown between 1791–92. He was a Roman Catholic priest, social and political activist, political thinker, historian, philosopher, and polymath.
The Third Partition of Poland (1795) was the last in a series of the Partitions of Poland–Lithuania and the land of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth among Prussia, the Habsburg monarchy, and the Russian Empire which effectively ended Polish–Lithuanian national sovereignty until 1918. The partition was the result of the Kościuszko Uprising and was followed by a number of Polish–Lithuanian uprisings during the period.
The Patriotic Party, also known as the Patriot Party or, in English, as the Reform Party, was a political movement in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the period of the Four-Year Sejm of 1788–1792, whose chief achievement was the Constitution of 3 May 1791. The reformers aimed to strengthen the ailing political machinery of the Commonwealth, to bolster its military, and to reduce foreign political influence, particularly that of the Russian Empire. It has been called the first Polish political party, though it had no formal organizational structure. The Party was inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution, and its name, proudly used by themselves, was a tribute to the Dutch Patriots.
Prince Józef Zajączek was a Polish general and politician.
Stanisław Mokronowski (1761-1821) was a prominent member of the Polish landed gentry of Bogoria coat of arms. A general of the Polish Army and a royal Chamberlain, Mokronowski took part in both the Polish–Russian War of 1792 and Kościuszko's Uprising of 1794.
Tomasz Maruszewski (1769–1834) was a prominent participant in the Kościuszko Uprising.
Józef Rufin Wybicki was a Polish nobleman, jurist, poet, political and military activist of Kashubian descent. He is best remembered as the author of "Mazurek Dąbrowskiego", which was adopted as the Polish national anthem in 1927.
The Warsaw Society of Friends of Science was one of the earliest Polish scientific societies, active in Warsaw from 1800 to 1832.
Jan Kazimierz Czyński (1801–1867) was a Polish independence activist, lawyer by education, writer and publicist, fighter for the emancipation of the Jews, trade supporter, utopian socialist, and radical democrat. He went into exile after the Russian government issued a bounty for his capture.
Józef Kalasanty Szaniawski was a Polish philosopher and politician.
The History of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1764–1795) is concerned with the final decades of existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The period, during which the declining state pursued wide-ranging reforms and was subjected to three partitions by the neighboring powers, coincides with the election and reign of the federation's last king, Stanisław August Poniatowski.
The Constitution of 3 May 1791 is an 1891 Romantic oil painting on canvas by the Polish artist Jan Matejko. It is a large piece, and one of Matejko's best known. It memorializes the Polish Constitution of 3 May 1791, a milestone in the history of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and a high point of the Polish Enlightenment.
Kazimierz Konopka was a Polish Jacobin, secretary of Hugo Kołłątaj, officer in the Polish Legions, aide-de-camp of Jan Henryk Dąbrowski. He gained notoriety for his involvements in the unrest and hangings in Warsaw during the Kościuszko Uprising.
Kołłątaj's Forge was a group of social and political activists, publicists and writers from the period of the Great Sejm in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
The Friends of the Constitution was the first modern Polish political party, formed in May 1791, shortly after the adoption of the Constitution of 3 May 1791, by the efforts of the Patriotic Party. The purpose of the Friends of the Constitution was to defend the reformed political system and to introduce further reforms.
The siege of Warsaw of 1794 was a joint Russian and Prussian siege of the capital of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, during the Kościuszko Uprising in the summer of 1794. It ended with the Polish victory when, after a two-month siege, the Prussian and Russian army ended the siege and withdrew from Warsaw.
Tadeusz Antoni Mostowski was a Polish writer, journalist, literary critic and politician.
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