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 p218  Chapter XXII
The Insurrection of 1863

(The numbers link directly to the sections.)

Neither Lithuania nor Poland gained anything by that hapless insurrection of 1830‑31. The Congress Kingdom of Poland was deprived of its limited autonomy and its army, while the Russian language became mandatory in its higher administrative circles. Much more ruthless, however, was the process of repression and Russification promoted in Lithuania Major.

1. Repressive Measures of Nicholas I

Upon the recovery of the Russian troops, hundreds had been brutally slain at Asmena and other towns in the autumn of 1831. In 1832, the University of Vilnius was closed; and later, its library and other wealth were transferred to Kiev. Participants in the revolt were deported and exiled to the Caucasus or Siberia. Numerous landed estates of the gentry were confiscated and many were deprived of their status in the ranks of the nobility. Russian colonists were transported to and settled in Lithuania. The Russian language was proclaimed the official language of the country. The expression "Northern Provinces of Russia" was substituted for the name of Lithuania in official documents. Monasteries were closed, as at Kaunas, Pazaislis, Panevezys, Ukmerge, Raseiniai, Telsiai. An Orthodox bishop took up residence at Pazaislis. Orthodox temples were established at Kedainiai, Jurbarkas, Ukmerge, Zarasai; they replaced the former Jesuit church at Panevezys and the church of the Piarist Fathers at Raseiniai. The  p219 emphasis placed on the Orthodox religion, which was the faith of the Tsar and the Russian Empire, was expected to aid greatly in the Russification of the Lithuanian people, who were almost entirely Catholic. Priests, who expressed their disapproval at the introduction of Orthodox services into Lithuania Major, were banished.

Furthermore, in spite of the already noticeable decrease in the number of schools, others as at Kalvarija, Padubsya, Kolainiai were suppressed, and in their stead Russian institutions organized, which, however, were visited by few students and few pupils. In 1839, the existence of the Uniates (Orthodox who had reunited with the Catholic Church, but retained their own separate liturgical rites) was declared illegal, and forced conversions were attempted. The Uniate church buildings were seized and given to the custody of the Orthodox; this move had greater effect on the Ruthenian or eastern areas of the historic Grand Duchy than in Lithuania Major, where Uniates were not at all numerous. In 1840, the ancient Lithuanian Statute, which had prevailed for more than two centuries in Lithuania Major and in the provinces of the former Grand Duchy, was abolished. The Academy at Vilnius, for the training of the Roman Catholic clergy, was summarily transferred to St. Petersburg in 1842. Previously, a catechism (1832) had been published, which sought to infiltrate the minds of the young with the doctrine of loyalty to the Tsar and to Russia, which it dishonestly declared to be the native land of the Lithuanians.

A system of Russian espionage was developed to an extensive degree in all centers of Lithuania. In 1839, the people of Lithuania were strictly forbidden to make use of Lithuanian or Polish national costumes under the penalty of severe corporal punishment, which had become an ordinary occurrence under the Tsarist regime.

Both the Lithuanian gentry, who together with the Polish nobility sought to reestablish an independent Polish-Lithuanian Republic, and the suppressed Lithuanian peasantry, endured a great deal during this era of repressive measures. Occasionally, individuals appeared, who attempted to oppose the Tsarist regime. Thus, Valavicius was sent to the gallows in 1833, at Gardinas, for seeking to incite revolt. Similarly, Simon Konarski, after organizing  p220 various revolutionary groups at Vilnius, was put to death in 1839. Nevertheless, no strong revolutionary movement for the independence of Lithuania was able to express itself during the last twenty-four years of Nicholas' reign, not even during the Crimean war.

2. Abolition of Serfdom

Meanwhile, the problem of the serfs in Lithuania, as well as in all the territories under the Tsarist rule, was becoming increasingly uncontrollable. In Lithuania, before the partitions, the peasant-serfs had possessed no rights and were subject to the decrees of either the private landlords, on whose estates they worked, or to the administrators of the Grand Ducal lands. Their condition was only made more desperate, when, after the annexation of Lithuania by Russia, the Grand Ducal estates and the confiscated private estates passed to the Russian Crown and were distributed by Catherine to her officers and officials or placed in the hands of Russian administrators. The new Russian lords, who were in part imitated by the Lithuanian landed gentry, introduced the harsher system of serfdom prevailing throughout the Russian Empire. The Crown peasants were subjected to enormous taxation in addition to prescribed forms of labor. The serfs on private estates were especially exposed to the most arbitrary methods of cruelty. Regardless of family ties, they were sold by proprietors at will, mercilessly flogged, imprisoned, tortured and abused in the most immoral manner. Likewise, the jus primae noctis was exacted from women. Furthermore, the peasants were liable to twenty-five years of military service in the Russian army.

The movement, which led to the liberation of the serfs in 1861, gained ever greater momentum in the earlier years of the nineteenth century. In 1800, apparently spurred on by sympathy towards the serfs, Bishop Kasakauskas of Vilnius, issued a plea to the landed gentry to manifest a more humane treatment for the peasants. The carefully worded ukase of Tsar Alexander I, allowing the liberation of the serfs, with grants of land, produced as little result in Lithuania as it did throughout the Russian Empire.  p221 Several boyars, as Ignatius Karpis of Joniskis, did release several thousand peasants, who were soon afterwards again reduced to their servile status. The revolutionary ideas of France, the actual abolition of serfdom in Lithuania Minor under Prussian occupation (1807) and in the Duchy of Warsaw (which also included the Lithuanian Suvalkai area), greatly influenced the attitude of the Lithuanian land­owners. Oginski, in his projects for the restoration of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, had even suggested the emancipation of the serfs.

When serfdom was abolished in Estonia, Courland and the Vidzeme province of Livonia in 1816‑17 and 1819, the Lithuanian gentry showed a renewed interest in the matter. They were especially active at the district dietines in the Ukmerge sector. However, their decision was by no means unanimous at the Diet of Vilnius government, with the result that the rescript, issued by the Tsar to the Governor-General (1818) concerning an investigation of the gentry's attitude towards the abolition of serfdom, bore no further fruit.

During his reign, Tsar Nicholas I, in spite of his thorough absolutist form of repression, introduced various laws and reforms with the purpose of alleviating the sorry plight of the peasants within the Russian Empire. His efforts to restrict the authority of the landed proprietors, and to regulate the buying and selling of serfs, were of little practical value. The peasants remained without any rights and possessed scarcely any method of recourse against the impositions of the landlords. Consequently, revolts and outbreaks of the peasant-serfs continued to increase in number with each year throughout the Russian Empire. It is estimated that over five hundred such uprisings took place during the reign of Nicholas I.

With the accession of Tsar Alexander II (1855‑1881), the immediate work which led to the emancipation of the serfs was inaugurated. Through his initiative a committee of Russian nobles was formed at St. Petersburg to discuss the problem (1856). The majority of this committee favored only the taking of some steps to ameliorate the condition of the peasants. However, in August, 1857, the landed gentry of the Lithuanian provinces of Gardinas,  p222 Kaunas and Vilnius informed the Tsar of their willingness to release their serfs and permit them to retain their homes, but insisted upon remaining in possession of the title to the land. Thereupon, three months later, Alexander II delegated the Lithuanian gentry to form local committees within their respective governments in order to plan the introduction of some reform in the lives of the serfs. Similarly, soon afterwards, the Tsar commissioned the nobility of other provinces under Russian rule for the same task. The projects of these various committees were presented at St. Petersburg in 1859, and within two years, on February 19, 1861, the Manifesto, abolishing serfdom under private landlords⁠1 throughout the Russian Empire, was issued.

According to the Tsar's Edict of 1861, the peasants were destined to obtain not merely their personal freedom, but also plots of land at a definite rental and with the privilege of becoming owners of this area by redeeming it within 49½ years. All contracts between peasants and landlords concerning the division of the land were to be completed in two years, during which time the former were to remain under obligation to the latter. The peasants were to make payments to the exchequer, while the government agreed to reimburse the gentry immediately.⁠2 The gentry were permitted to retain a minimum of one‑third of their respective estates. To make possible the various arrangements, and to settle the different difficulties and disagreements that certainly would arise, the office of a so‑called Arbiter of Peace, with numerous district branches, was established.

However, due to some unfortunate occurrences, where the landed gentry sought to transfer the peasants to less fertile soil or release them without land, the suspicions of the serfs were aroused. Consequently, few were the contracts made between serfs and landlords in Lithuania. To enforce the details of the reform, the Lithuanian proprietors summoned the aid of Russian troops to their estates, with the result that the Lithuanian peasants were flogged, imprisoned, and even exiled. Their possessions were destroyed  p223 in villages where the soldiers were garrisoned. Executions, within the limits of the Kaunas government alone, totaled several hundred. Proceedings were interrupted by the outbreak of the insurrection of 1863.

3. Insurrection of 1863

In Polish settlements under Russian occupation (the Kingdom), Tsar Alexander II, mainly through the mediation of Marquis Alexander Wielopolski II, had introduced a number of reforms and granted a number of concessions. Among them were the restoration of Polish as the official language, the establishment of a Council of State with Polish participation in the administration (1861), and the reopening of the Warsaw University (1862). Nevertheless, under the sponsor­ship of the Radical party, who desired not half-way measures of autonomy, but the immediate independence of Poland in union with Lithuania, various patriotic and violent demonstrations of Polish national spirit appeared. As a matter of fact, attempts were made on the lives of the Viceroy, Grand Duke Constantine, and the vice-president of the Council, Wielopolski (1862). Similar anti-Russian demonstrations occurred in Lithuania through the influence of the Lithuanian gentry, who were quite anxious to gain the restoration of the Polish-Lithuanian Republic. Repressive measures both in Lithuania and in Poland on the part of Russian authorities availed little. In vain did Bishop Valancius of Samogitia, under strong Russian pressure, announce to his subject clergy that the Russian government had decreed to deal severely with all participants and promoters of this movement. Finally, in Poland, Wielopolski, towards the end of 1862, conceived the plan of suppressing the more violent supporters of this national sentiment by immediately drafting the more radical individuals into Russian military service. The attempt to enforce this plan precipitated the insurrection, which began on January 22, 1863.

The Polish youth, rather than face conscription, sought refuge in forests. The conservative party of the Polish gentry joined the ranks of the Radicals. (Wielopolski had refused to guarantee the granting of the autonomous Constitution of 1815.) The Provisional  p224 National Government of the Poles emerged from secrecy. A similar Revolutionary Committee, organized by the Lithuanian gentry, appeared in Lithuania. Appeals, printed in Lithuanian and Polish, were issued to the Lithuanian peasantry, urging their participation in the revolt, promising grants of land and the abolition of class distinctions. But the peasants, distrustful of the nobles because of their experiences since the Manifesto of 1861, responded only a little more favorably than the peasants of Poland. Those of Samogitia and the Panevezys district alone joined the insurgents, who were led by nobles, clergy­men and deserters from the Russian army.

This rebellion possessed poorer hopes for success than the one of 1830‑31. Improperly equipped and improperly organized, occupying forests and villages, the revolutionaries offered mere guerilla warfare to the Russian troops, who were concentrated in the towns. Neither France, nor England, nor Austria, were willing to extend actual assistance, satisfying themselves with the mere exchange of diplomatic notes with Russia.

In May, 1863, Muraviev was sent to Vilnius as the Governor-General of Lithuania⁠3 with rather extensive powers. Previous to his arrival, the Lithuanian rebels had suffered a serious defeat of their strongest forces at Medeikiai, where their leaders, Sierakauskas, Kolyska and others were captured. Muraviev immediately set about inaugurating a plan for the complete suppression of the insurgents. In the market place at Vilnius, he erected the gallows, where the revolutionaries were ceremoniously put to death in broad daylight, as an example to the rest of the population. In all of Lithuania, including the governments of Minsk, Mogilev, Vitebsk, as well as Vilnius, Kaunas and Kaunas, martial law was introduced. The entire country was divided into military districts, each district possessing Commissions of Investigation and Information, and groups of gendarmes. Furthermore, masses of the peasantry were organized into units of Guards, with the duty of watching and observing roads, forests and villages. The inhabitants were strictly prohibited to journey more than 18 miles from their homes. Severe levies were  p225 imposed upon landed proprietors, the clergy and monasteries, all of whom Muraviev regarded as instigators and promoters of the revolt. Bishop Valancius of Samogitia and Bishop Krasinski of Vilnius were ordered to condemn the insurrection publicly. The former, upon ascertaining that an amnesty would be granted, issued a notice to this effect. The latter delayed and was therefore exiled. The possession of arms without permission, gatherings and meetings were forbidden. Registration of the gentry, the clergy and their employees was ordered.

Unable to cope with the measures of Muraviev, the gentry of Vilnius and Kaunas capitulated. The revolutionaries suffered another severe blow when in August, 1863, the promise of a general amnesty was proclaimed. Many others laid down their arms at that time. And when Mackevicius (December, 1863) and Kalinauskas were sentenced to the gallows at Kaunas, the Lithuanian insurrection had practically run its course. Nevertheless, scattered groups still continued the struggle in the forests of the Panevezys area until November, 1864. But by February, 1865, the rebellion both in Lithuania and in Poland was completely quelled.

The havoc wrought by the revolt in Lithuania Major was tremendous. Thousands had been slain in battle or condemned to death. Larger numbers were imprisoned, impressed into the Russian army, exiled to Siberia or to the Russian interior. Estates of refugees and others were confiscated. Some villages as Ybenai, Uspaliai, Miskaiciai in the Kaunas government were completely devastated and left without a single inhabitant.

---

The Author's Notes:

1 Abolition of serfdom on the estates of the Crown was only completed in 1866.

2 This proposed plan of redeeming the land was not compulsory, although after the final settlement the majority of the Lithuanian peasants adopted it.

3 Which included the governments of Vilnius, Kaunas, Gardinas, Vitebsk, Mogilev and Minsk.

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