The date of 11 November 1918, being the day on which Poland regained its independence, is a symbolic date. Exactly on that day, an armistice ending the First World War was concluded in a wagon in the forest of Compiègne.

On 30 January 1930, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) decided to launch the largest resettlement operation in the entire history of the Soviet Union, still referred to today as the 'kulak deportation'.

On the night of 6 to 7 July (24/25 June old style) 1866, 5,000 kilometres east of their homeland, a group of January insurgents sent to Baikal for penal labour stirred up a rebellion, disarmed their guards and tried to forge an escape route to Mongolia.

On 12 February 1833, Aleksander Czekanowski was born in Krzemieniec in Volhynia. He trained as a geologist, but was not given the freedom to pursue his career as he was sent to Siberia at the age of 30 for taking part in the January Uprising.

Prayer of the Bar Confederates before the Battle of Lanckorona, oil painting by Artur Grottger.

The first Siberian fortresses were built by Polish prisoners of war who had been taken captive by Moscow authorities precisely during the war initiated by Stefan Batory.