Zygmunt Sierakowski

Zygmunt Erazm Gaspar Józef Sierakowski (, ; 19 May 1826, – 27 June 1863, Vilnius) was a Polish leader of the January Uprising in lands of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Biography

Youth and education He was born in in Volhynia as a son of Polish nobleman veteran Ignacy Sierakowski, who has fallen during the November Uprising in Volhynia, and his wife Fortunata née Morawska. Sierakowski grew up in an atmosphere of elevated patriotism. His mother dressed him as a girl, wanting to avoid him being drafted into the Cantonist Battalion as a son of a rebel. He was also influenced by his maternal grandmother, the widow of Kościuszko insurrection veteran Wiktor Morawski. As well as his uncles veterans of the November Uprising Felicjan Koszkowski and Kajetan Celermanth, the latter of whom was a member of Szymon Konarski's conspiracy, and took care of Zygmunt and his mother.

He graduated from a gymnasium in Zhytomyr. He then worked as a tutor at the home of Aleksander Piotrowski. In 1845 he entered the mathematics department of St. Petersburg University, later moving to the department of cameralism. During his studies, he was in contact with a secret patriotic and democratic circle associated with the Union of Polish Youth in Vilnius. He spent his vacations near Vilnius and in Volhynia, where he came into contact with the Ukrainian and Lithuanian peasants.

Forced service in the Russian army On May 3, he was arrested in Pochaiv on charges of intending to cross the border into Galicia. As punishment, he was conscripted into the of the Russian army. He was sent first to the Novopetrovskoye fort on the Caspian Sea, then in September 1849 to Uralsk, and in October 1850 to Orenburg. Then in 1853 he stayed in Bashkiria, and in 1854 on the Syr-Darya River, at Fort-Perovsky (Ak-Mechet). There he studied Kyrgyz customs and language. In 1856 he arrived in St. Petersburg and was assigned to a dragoon regiment. Then in August 1857 he entered the General Staff Academy, from which he graduated in 1859. In the army he reached the rank of kapitan. Most of the later leaders of the Lithuanian conspiracy gathered at the ceremony. He and his wife went to Warsaw, where he had already promised to take command of the future Lithuanian uprising, according to Dalewska's account. They then went to Paris. From there, Sierakowski alone went to Algiers, where he met with Gen. Aimable Pélissier to discuss penal and military matters. He then went to Warsaw, and from there, together with , the leader of the Whites in Lithuania, to Vilnius. On January 5, 1863, he returned to work at the Ministry of War. One of the most precious artefacts found alongside his remains was a wedding ring, which was still on his right arm, with an inscription on the inside of the ring "Zygmund Apolonija 11 Sierpnia / 30 Lipca 1862 r."