Kosciuszko's Monument

Freeman's Journal

21 April 1894

Vienna, March 9.

On the 24th of March it will be a hundred years since Thaddeus Kosciuszko, the last Commander-in-Chief of the Republic of Poland, to whom the well known expressions 'Finis Poloniæ' is attributed, took the formal oath on the Ring Platz in Cracow to fight for the freedom of Poland to his last breath - a vow which he was not able fully to keep.

On the historic spot in question a monument is to be unveiled on the day of the Centenary, and a tablet s to be placed in the chapel of the Cathedral where the hero's sword was blessed before he left, as the Dictator of Poland, to fight the Russians.

It was intended to have a National Polish festival on Commemoration day, and invitations were sent out several weeks back to Russian Poland and the Polish districts of Prussia; but the address of the Cracow Committee was confiscated in Prussia as well as in Russia, and now the same fate has befallen it even in Galicia itself.

This makes it doubtful whether any public festivity will be permitted to take place on the appointed day.

The Poles, however, will not long be deprived of an opportunity for national demonstrations, as a Galician Exhibition, with an International Section, will be held this year in Lemberg, from June to the end of September, and it will hardly be possible for the respective authorities to prevent Poles from Russia and Prussia flocking to the Galician capital.