Bronisław Szwarce secured his place in the history of the January Uprising, even though on 22 January 1863 — the day it commenced — he was languishing in prison, something that would forever rank as a huge personal tragedy for him. He remained devoted to the cause of national liberation until his very last days, finding expression for his loyalty both through action and by putting pen to paper.
His life story is inscribed upon his tomb in the January Insurgents’ Quarter at Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv. On the stone tomb, topped with a cross, is an open book similarly cut from stone and upon it one can read:
“History – 1863. BRONISŁAW SZWARCE Member of the First National Government. Captured by the enemy on 22 July 1862. Seven years in the dungeons of Shlisselburg. Twenty-three years in the deserts of Turkestan and the icy wastes of Siberia. Son of an 1831 exile. Born in France on 8 October 1836 in Lochrist (Brittany). Died in Lviv on 17 February 1904. He left behind three children rescued from life-threatening Siberian and Tsarist captivity. He served his Homeland and Humanity faithfully, selflessly and steadfastly to the end.”
Bronisław Antoni Szwarce was born into a Polonized family of Saxon origin, with strong Polish patriotic traditions. His grandfather had fought under Kościuszko, and his father — a member of the Patriotic Society — was a participant in the November Uprising, after which he was forced into exile, ending up in France. In the autumn of 1844, Bronisław began his school life at the Paris ‘Collège Bourbon’, eight years later going on to study the École Centrale. He also attended lectures at the Paris military school founded by Ludwik Mierosławski. After graduating as an engineer, he left France and for a short time was in Austria, thereby hoping to be closer to his ancestral homeland. Following persistent efforts on his part— being the son of a Polish insurgent — he was granted permission to enter the Kingdom of Poland, where he worked as a construction labourer on the Warsaw to St Petersburg Railway, being stationed in Białystok.
Affiliated with the radical “Reds” faction, Szwarce began organizing underground circles in the spring of 1861. He distributed clandestine pamphlets and leaflets, including some written in Belarusian, and contributed his own articles to them. His activities came under the close scrutiny of the tsarist police, who placed him under constant surveillance. Faced with the threat of deportation, he was warned of his impending arrest and illegally fled to Warsaw, living there in a conspiratorial safe house, under an assumed name.
By mid-1862 he had become a member of the central authorities of the Polish underground state — the Central National Committee— representing its radical left wing. Within the Committee he fulfilled various roles, serving as director and secretary of the Chancellery, head of the Treasury Department, interim head of the Provincial Affairs Department, as well as taking part in the work of the Foreign Relations and Police Departments. He also oversaw the distribution of underground press and pamphlets and served as editor of the clandestine journal Ruch (“Movement”).
On 23 December 1862, just one month before the outbreak of the uprising, Szwarce was detained in Warsaw following a dramatic street chase during which he brandished a pistol. For this he was arrested and imprisoned in the Warsaw Citadel. His detention posed a grave threat to the Central Committee, but — as stated in official reports –
“Szwarce, during both the interrogation and the field court martial, did not admit to being a member of any secret organization nor to any criminal anti-government activity, stubbornly refusing to reveal any details of crimes committed by either himself or his associates.”
Locked up in his prison cell, Szwarce suffered most of all from the knowledge that he was not able to join the fight alongside his fellow insurgents. He expressed this anguish in verse:
“Poland has risen up! And I… I am not there!”
He was sentenced to death, but owing to the intervention of Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III — Szwarce was a French citizen — his sentence was commuted to indefinite hard labour in Siberia. Initially, however, as a “person in the highest possible risk category” he was confined in the Shlisselburg Fortress near St Petersburg, where he was to spend over seven years. Showcasing his literary talents in the vividly written memoir Seven Years in Shlisselburg (Lviv, 1893) he offered up a detailed account of his place of confinement and the grim realities of prison life.
He attracted a certain infamy as one of few prisoners who made somewhat desperate attempts at escape from Shlisselburg. Using just a single rusty nail, Szwarce spent endless nights trying to bore a hole through his ceiling in hope of breaking through to the attic. His plan came to nothing after more than a month of effort, when a candle accidentally set alight the wooden floorboards of the attic above. This led to an even further tightening of his prison regime. In an effort to combat the prison apathy, he read extensively — having obtained special permission to do so – studied Russian, and, above all, composed his memoirs in verse, a task made all the more difficult due to the chronic shortage of writing materials.
In 1870, after the closure of the “secret prison,” Szwarce was transferred to the fortress at Verny (present day Almaty, Kazakhstan). Four years later, a decision was made to send him the Tomsk Governorate, where — in spite of police surveillance — he undertook activities with the Red Cross organization of Narodnaya Volya (“People’s Will”). For this activity he was again exiled in 1884, this time to Tunka in the Irkutsk Governorate. He was to marry there and father three children, although his wife died not long afterwards. After finally obtaining permission to exit Siberia, he was not afforded the right to take his children with him. In defiance of this order, he proceeded to smuggle them out — prompting authorities to put out dispatches claiming that “the French revolutionary has kidnapped three Russian children.”
Throughout the entire length of his thirty years spent in prisons and exile, Szwarce retained his unbreakable demeanour, abiding to the principle of:
“Never thank them nor ask for anything more;— if they give, well good; if not, then to hell with them! One can pay dearly for any concession or favor.”
After wandering on foot and by cart for over six months, he arrived happily in Galicia in 1892. He settled first in Kraków, later moving to Lviv, where he gained recognition as a memoirist, historian, and journalist — passionately defending the legacy of the January Uprising. His funeral became a major national and political demonstration, with dense crowds following his coffin through the streets.
Sadly, 120 years on, his gravestone lies in a woeful condition – it has been afforded no attention in terms of conservation, and is therefore in dire need of restoration.