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The Polish American Community Celebrates Its Heroes of Independence -- George Wasington, Tadeusz Kościuszko and Kazimierz Pułaski
This richly colored chromolithograph—issued in Cleveland in 1894 as a premium for the Polish‑American weekly Jutrzenka—celebrates the 100‑year jubilee of Tadeusz Kościuszko’s 1794 national uprising. At the very center the Madonna and Child, hailed by the banner Ave Maria Regina Regni Poloniae, sit upon clouds amid a cortege of Polish saints, symbolizing the traditional title “Queen of Poland.” Beneath them a Gothic high‑altar scene shows a kneeling congregation presenting Poland’s crown and banners while a ribbon pleads Polskiej Maryo przyczyń się za Ojczyzną naszą (“Mary of Poland, intercede for our homeland”).
Flanking the sacred scene are two historical battle tableaux: on the left Kościuszko’s victory at Racławice (1794), on the right King Jan III Sobieski’s relief of Vienna (1683). Above, an American bald eagle spreads its wings over twinned shields—one bearing the stars‑and‑stripes and the motto LIBERTY, the other quartered with the Polish White Eagle and Lithuanian Vytis—signaling the fraternity of the American and Polish republican causes. Within laurel wreaths under the eagle appear three oval portraits: George Washington in the center, with fellow Revolutionary War heroes Kazimierz Pułaski (left) and Tadeusz Kościuszko (right).
The side panels also display the full succession of Polish monarchs from Mieszko I to Stanisław August and additional nineteenth‑century patriots. The following is a partial list of named portraits:
- Kazimierz (Casimir) Pułaski (1745 – 1779): Polish noble and cavalry leader who fought for American independence and is honored as the “Father of the U.S. Cavalry.”
- Tadeusz Kościuszko (1746 – 1817): Polish engineer and general who served in the American Revolution and later led the 1794 national insurrection against Russia and Prussia.
- Jan III Sobieski (1629 – 1696): King of Poland‑Lithuania best known for commanding the allied army that broke the Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683.
- Mieszko I (c. 935 – 992): First historical ruler of Poland who accepted Christianity in 966, laying the foundations of the Polish state.
- Bolesław I Chrobry (the Brave) (967 – 1025): Duke and first crowned King of Poland, famed for military expansion and support of missionary Bishop Adalbert.
- Kazimierz III Wielki (the Great) (1310 – 1370): Last Piast king, celebrated for legal reforms, castle‑building, and founding the University of Kraków.
- Władysław II Jagiełło (c. 1352 – 1434): Grand Duke of Lithuania who became King of Poland and victor over the Teutonic Order at Grunwald in 1410.
- Stanisław August Poniatowski (1732 – 1798): Enlightenment monarch and last king of Poland whose reign ended with the Third Partition in 1795.
- Adam Mickiewicz (1798 – 1855): Romantic poet and nationalist thinker regarded as Poland’s national bard.
- Hugo Kołłątaj (1750 – 1812): Enlightenment priest, educational reformer, and co‑author of the Constitution of 3 May 1791.
- Prince Józef Poniatowski (1763 – 1813): Nephew of the last king, a brilliant Napoleonic field‑marshal who died covering the French retreat at Leipzig.
Gothic side panels contain a visual “gallery of Polish history,” progressing downward from the earliest Piast and Jagiellonian rulers through the elective kings to the last monarch, Stanisław August Poniatowski. Nested ovals at the foot of the sheet portray nineteenth‑century poets, statesmen and soldiers who kept the national idea alive during the partitions. Altogether the print forms a devotional‑patriotic tableau linking religious faith, historical sovereignty and the trans‑Atlantic struggle for liberty—a potent emblem for Polish immigrants in the United States at the close of the nineteenth century.
The full title translates as follows: Souvenir of the Hundredth Anniversary of Tadeusz Kościuszko’s Uprising. Premium issued by the Polish weekly Jutrzenka, Cleveland, Ohio.
Rarity
The print is unrecorded.
It is likely inspired by a similar print published in Chicago in 1891 which celebrated the 100 year anniversay of the Polish Constitution adopted on May 3, 1791, entitled Pamiatka obchodu konstytucyi 3go maja 1791-1891, published in Chicago by S.F Czaplinski and Pelagia Majewska, for which the only known surviving example is in the Library of Congress.
Jutrzenka (“The Morning Star”) debuted in Cleveland in April 1893 as a Polish‑language weekly published by the Polish Publishing Company and, after 1894, by the Jutrzenka Publishing Company. Its founding editor, the journalist and dramatist Alfons Chrostowski, cast the paper as an independent voice for the city’s rapidly growing Polish enclave in the Warszawa neighborhood.
From 1899, Jutrzenka was run by Aleksander E. Wielowiejski, whose long tenure gave the paper a stable literary style and an enduring reputation for lively reportage, serialized fiction, and commentaries on events in partitioned Poland. Throughout the 1890s the paper’s masthead proudly proclaimed it to be “organ niezależny” (an independent organ), signalling freedom from both political parties and the Roman Catholic hierarchy—a position reflected in its sympathetic coverage of the emerging Polish National Catholic movement and of parish conflicts over lay property rights.
By 1918, changing tastes within a maturing immigrant community and the sudden demand for daily news of an independent Poland encouraged consolidation within Cleveland’s Polish‑language press. In June of that year Jutrzenka was absorbed by its younger competitor Polonia w Ameryce (Polonia).
