One of the most viewed and referenced pages on the previous website was Mervyn de Plater's short biography on Emilia. It is republished by popular demand.
Countess Emilia (1806-1831), daughter of Count Francis-Xavier Broel-Plater and Anna nee Mohl was born in Vilnius on the 13th November 1806. As a young girl she was was appalled by the lot of the peasants and endeavoured to find out about their problems by mingling with them – learning about their habits and customs and singing their folk-songs. At the same time she saw the plight of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth under the heel of Russia and the suppression of freedom of speech and worship and Polish customs and she wondered why her countrymen were not rising up to throw the oppressor out. She was very much influenced by courageous women such as Joan of Arc and tried to pattern her life on them. She also became involved with the secret meetings of Vilna youth who were plotting against the oppressor.
In 1831 when news of an uprising against Russia in Warsaw was received in Vilna, Emilia was immediately filled with patriotic fervour and, became one of the leaders of the insurrection there. She dressed herself as a man and after a church service appealed to the people to rise up for the Fatherland. Her cousins Lucien and Ferdinand admitted her into a conspiracy to capture the Dynaburg Fortress and presented her with a small hunting rifle but their endeavour was not successful.
Emilia and her cousins joined up with different sections of the insurrectionary army and Emilia became associated with her cousin Cezary Plater and went to the detachment of the Wilkomierz Riflemen under Karol Zaluski and after that to Constantine Parczewski's detachment of partisans. Much was written about her activities in the struggles which followed.
After the arrival in Lithuania of General Chlapowski, where he organised the detachments into the regular army, Emilia was mentioned as Commander of the 1st Company of the 1st Lithuanian Regiment, known later as the 25th Infantry Regiment of the Line. Emilia distinguished herself in battles at Kowno and Szawle and she was given the rank of Captain in the field. It was written about her in the field at Kowno by A.E. Odyniec "Your name in Polish and Lithuanian history will sound eternally as a song amidst the battle". When Chlapowski's force was divided, she refused to make her escape with the columns heading for the Prussian border and decided to make her way to Warsaw with her cousin Cezary. In the course of this journey she became ill from exhaustion and was taken to a peasants cottage and then later to the mansion house of Ignatius Ablamowicz. In two letters from the 30th September 1831 addressed to one of her aunts, Emilia wrote words of farewell to her and other close relatives. She died at Justianow on the 23rd December 1831 and was buried in an unused cemetery at Kopciowa, near Kapciamiestis, in a tomb which is still in existence today.
It is recorded in the Polish Dictionary of Biography that –
Her movable assets were confiscated by the Russian Government. Reports about her romantic involvement in the insurrection appeared in the Warsaw and Poznan press. In March 1832 there appeared the immensely popular poem by Mickiewicz "The Death of a Colonel" in which Emilia was stylised as an ideal commander, idolised by the soldiers and the people. In Paris, the Cirque Franconi presented her in the spectacular "The Poles of 1831" as though she was the new Joan of Arc.
Further publicity was given to her by her devoted cousins, Cezary and Ladislas. Joseph Straszewicz published three successive versions of her biography in French. Verse was dedicated to her in French, German, Italian, English and Hungarian by fellow-countrymen, Mickiewicz, Constantine Gaszynski and Anthony E. Odyniec. Widely disseminated lithographs by F. de Villain and Deveria popularised a conventional silhouette of a delicate, noble 'maiden'. Emilia was entered into the Pantheon of permanent independent heroes. In the 20th century there was dedicated to her the painting of Wojciech Kossak "Emilia Plater in combat with the Cossacks", a novel (1908) by Waclaw Gasiorovski, and a drama in three acts with an epilogue (1931) by Thaddeus Konczynski. In the period between the (two World) wars, the 22nd Infantry Regiment adopted the name of Emilia Plater. Her facsimile appeared on the 20 zloty banknotes of the Bank of Poland as well as on the Bank Issue of the Governor General. She was chosen as the patroness of the 1st Independent Battalion of Women and in the 1st Division named Thaddeus Kosciuszko. Even today, one of the central streets of Warsaw carries her name."
Even in Communist occupied Poland, in 1959 a ship of 10,000 tons was built in the Gdansk shipyards for the Polish Oceanic Line and named the "M.S. Emilia Plater".
Mervyn B. de Plater
Brisbane, October 1998
See also the Wikipedia article on Emilia Plater (ed. note)
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