This was discussed at the presentation of the publication in Ukrinform.
Lukasz Adamskyi, the deputy director of the Yuliusz Meroshevskyi Dialogue Center, noted that this episode of history is little known in Ukraine. “The January uprising in history is usually marked as exclusively Polish, but I believe that it is the last joint uprising of our nations against the Moscow Empire. Also, this album shows the past of Ukraine as a European country, and this is important because, in the countries of Western Europe, the past of Ukraine is interpreted through the prism of Russian propaganda and history. It is important to convey to people that Ukraine and Belarus are independent European countries,” Adamsky emphasized.
The editor-in-chief of the Mystetstvo publishing house, Nina Prybyeha, noted that Artur Grottger was born in Lviv, and his paintings are stored in the city art gallery. Grottger’s engravings show the courage of the Polish people in the fight against Moscow invaders. In her opinion, this book is relevant even now, after more than 150 years, because the same invaders came to destroy the Ukrainian land.
Prybyeha noted that in the last two years, the publishing house, in cooperation with the Juliusz Meroshevsky Center for Dialogue, published several books: “Krashanka to Poles and Ruthenians for Easter 1882” by Panteleimon Kulish, “Ukraine of the 18th century in the drawings of Johann Heinrich” and “The struggle against the Russian Empire in engravings Arthur Grottger”.
As Serhii Ponochovny, director of the Mystetstvo publishing house, noted, “Krashanka to Poles and Ruthenians for Easter 1882” was published in two languages - Ukrainian and Polish. “Its main message is that when Ukrainians quarrel with Poles, the eastern state – the Russian Empire – gains strength. The main goal of such joint projects is to unite the Polish and Ukrainian people, and I hope, the Belarusian people,” he said.
“The Struggle against the Russian Empire in Artur Grottger’s Engravings” is a joint publication of the Ukrainian publishing house “Mystetstvo” and the Juliusz Mieroshevsky Center for Dialogue, a Polish state institution established in 2022 by a law of the Sejm to strengthen the dialogue between Poles and the nations of Eastern Europe.
The book edited by Łukasz Adamski publishes drawings by Artur Grottger (1837–1867), a prominent Polish artist of the Romantic era and a native of Galicia, dedicated to the January Uprising (1863-1864) and the events that preceded it.
The January Uprising of 1863-1864 became the largest partisan war in Europe in the 19th century. It had a huge impact on the fate of the Polish, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, and Belarusian nations. After the uprising, the Russian Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Empire, Peter Valuev, banned the publication of religious, educational and educational books in the Ukrainian language (the so-called Valuev circular).
As reported, during a meeting in Lviv on January 11, 2023, the Presidents of Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania signed a declaration in which the war with Russia of 1863-1864 was called “a joint uprising against tyranny and oppression.”
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