Pokłosie powstania 1863–1864 r.: nieortodoksyjna refleksja

Today, in Lithuanian, Polish, Belarusian and even Ukrainian society, the January Uprising has become a symbol of the ‚ fight for freedom’. This article attempts to answer the question: did/do Polish, Lithuanian, Belarusian and Jewish societies really have anything to glorify? In other words, from the perspective of nineteenth and early twentieth century nationalisms (and therefore not from an academic perspective), was the uprising in any way useful to them? Or to put it another way, did it do more good or harm? For all non-dominant ethnic groups, the uprising brought new repression and discrimination (although sometimes discrimination against one group objectively benefited another group), and with the exception of the Poles, it is difficult to see the impact of this historical event as a positive image in the process of nationalising the masses until World War One. The fact that such an image was created later is simply an‚ invented tradition’. The fact that a positive image of the uprising was ‚invented’ later in Lithuanian or Belarusian societies does not mean that it did not (or does not now) influence the mobilisation of the masses, but it is not a direct consequence of the uprising, but a narrative constructed by later generations.