1863–1864 metų sukilimas Rusijos imperijos Šiaurės Vakarų krašte moterų atsiminimuose | Women’s Memoirs about the Insurrection of 1863 in the Northwest Province of the Russian Empire

Abstract

The rebellion that broke out in the Northwest Province (Severo-Zapadnyi Krai) of the Russian Empire in January 1863 and spread over the former lands of the Commonwealth of the Two Nations is not a new topic for historians. The involvement of women in the insurrection of 1863 has also been studied for a long time, with the first research appearing even before the Second World War. So far, Polish, Belarusian, and to some extent Lithuanian, researchers have raised questions about the forms and methods of women’s protests in this insurrection, and the changes in their social role, and analysed women’s memories and images of women. This article is the first to address memoirs of the January insurrection written by women from the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania who observed the events of the insurrection in these lands. The women’s memoirs are analysed here as a whole, in order to reveal some common features. In contrast to previous studies that have looked at women’s memoirs of the rebellion in order to answer questions about the course of the rebellion, the theme of deportations, or women’s ability to balance social activities and family responsibilities during the insurrection, this paper raises the more general question of what women did and did not write about in their memoirs about the insurrection between 1863 and 1864, and why.

Keywords

• Russian Empire
• Poland
• Lithuania
• January Insurrection
• women’s memoirs
• deportations