An important part of collecting old weapons and armour are souvenirs associated with famous names from the past. Some of these are nothing more than romantic fantasies. Previous owners believed they were belongings of important ancestors. This was dictated by the family tradition, but sometimes this interpretation was made deliberately, for example, to increase the value of an item in one’s possession. However, some of the souvenirs have well documented origins and their attribution is no longer in doubt.
All souvenirs, whether sentimental and romantic or genuine, have played an important role since the mid-19th century in linking the present with the past. In particular, old military artefacts, witnesses of important historical events, became a valuable medium for stimulating and shaping the historical imagination.
This guiding path presents the selection of the some of the most interesting souvenirs.
The first horse is wearing a Turkish horse tack. According to tradition, it belonged to Stefan Czarniecki (1599-1665). Czarniecki was one of the most famous commanders of the 17th century, whose name was included in the Polish national anthem.
The presented horse tack came to the National Museum as a purchase of the Kraków Municipality from the famous Warsaw antiquarian, Gustaw Soubis-Bisier, for the sum of 4,500 rubles (in 1910). According to his information he bought it from the Zaleski family. They received it from the Lubowidzki family, who inherited it from the Hetman’s ancestors, the Czarniecki family.
The first horse wears a Turkish saddle. According to tradition, it belonged to Stefan Czarniecki (1599-1665). Czarniecki was one of the most famous commanders of the 17th century, thanks to whom his name was included in the Polish national anthem.
The horse gear on display came to the National Museum as a purchase of the Krakow Municipality from the famous Warsaw antiquarian Gustaw Soubis-Bisier for the sum of 4,500 roubles (in 1910). According to the information he had, the Zaleski family wanted to sell the horse tack. According to the last owner, the Zaleskis received it from the Lubowidzki family, who inherited it from the Hetman’s ancestors, the Czarniecki family.
It is difficult to decide whether this is true or just a family legend. There is no doubt, however, that this horse equipment is of exceptional beauty and, thanks to its rich decorations, is one of the most beautiful preserved in Polish collections.
One of the horsemen, wearing chain armour, holds an object five metres long in his hand. It looks and is made in the same way as the hussar’s lance, except that instead of an arrowhead and a pennant, it is crowned with a ball, a fan of feathers and silk ribbons. It is a hetman’s banner, usually worn during ceremonial events in his presence, called bunchuk.
The one in the exhibition was found in the 19th century on the estate of the Lubomirski family in Wiśnicz and automatically attributed to the most famous ancestor, Hetman Stanisław Lubomirski (1583-1649). Unfortunately, this cannot be true. Today we know very well that a bunchuk with this appearance appeared at the end of the 17th century at the earliest. It should therefore be associated with Hieronimus Augustus Lubomirski (1647-1706). He was not an outstanding commander, but he became famous for, among other things, the victorious charge of the Hussars against the Swedish troops at the Battle of Kliszów in 1702. Sadly, it was a Pyrrhic victory.
The exhibition does not only contain military memorabilia. Among the most interesting are two fully plastic figures and a plaque depicting the army. They come from the decoration of the sarcophagus of Hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski (1547-1620) from Żółkiew (today Ukraine). He was a distinguished statesman who served in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth not only as Grand Hetman of the Crown, but also as Castellan of Lviv and Voivode of Kiev.
He is a symbolic figure in Polish historiography due to his tragic death in the Battle of Cecora in 1620. It was one of the first serious clashes between Polish and Turkish troops. The objects on display in the exhibition, which emphasise the military merits of the deceased, are connected with another historical figure – Jan III Sobieski, the great-grandson of the Hetman and heir to Żółkiew. Before his death (1696) he ordered the restoration and repair of the damaged decorations. At the beginning of the 19th century some of them were dismantled and placed as historical relics in the collections of the Czartoryski family and other wealthy families.
This fine example of Karacena armour comes from the former collection of the Sapieha princes. Some of the military items in their collection came to the Museum as family souvenirs from their ancestor Stanislaw Jabłonowski (1634-1702), a Krakow castellan and one of the commanders in the famous Battle of Vienna in 1683.
Karacena is one of the best armours of this type in Polish collections, at least in terms of workmanship. Its characteristic feature is the polygonal scales, which also make the armour very heavy, weighing almost 21 kg.
The armour was accompanied by beautiful examples of bracers, i.e. forearm covers, entirely covered with silver sheet and decorated with gilded ornaments at the ends.
Could this item actually belong to the famous Hetman? We have no direct evidence, only family tradition, so we should remain sceptical. However, historians still date this type of armour to the reign of Jan III Sobieski, and thus to the years of Jabłonowski’s life.
The exhibition includes several objects whose decoration and inscriptions testify to their use over the centuries. One of them is an 18th-century hussar sabre, unusually decorated with blue paste contrasting with the silver surface of the fittings.
Its blade is also special. There are several symbols on it, including a bust symbolising King Stefan Batory (1533-1586). However, he is not the main hero of this weapon, but another one, this time its actual owner. On the back of the blade there is an inscription made in the 19th century with a gold inlay, in translation: “TO THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF, JAN SKRZYNECKI, VISTULA LEGION 1831”.
The date certainly refers to the November Uprising, and the name of Jan Skrzynecki (1787-1860) is certainly the same as that of its commander-in-chief. This is an example of the use of weapons as symbolic gifts. The custom of presenting sabres with commemorative inscriptions has remained in the Polish army to this day.
A rather inconspicuous object placed in one of the windows of the wooden building has one of the most prestigious provenances of all the objects collected here. It belonged to Charles V (1500-1556), Emperor of the Habsburg dynasty.
This provenance was only revealed a few decades ago, and in rather fortuitous circumstances. Because of its rounded shape, the object was thought to be an armour decoration, a knee guard. The matter was cleared up by the curator of the Imperial Armoury in Vienna, who was visiting Krakow and noticed that one of the Imperial helmets in his collection was missing a visor made in Augsburg of roughly the same size.
Therefore, it is not a knee guard, but part of the helmet’s veil with the image of the mythological Melusina.
Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846-1916), Polish writer and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, is inextricably linked to Polish readers with his novels about the 17th century wars in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. But his oeuvre also includes the novel “In Desert and Wilderness” (orig.: “W pustyni i w puszczy”), which reveals the author’s fascination with Africa. During his travels on the continent, he assembled an interesting collection of North African weapons. The example on display is a knife from the Bilao tribe, with a beautiful leather sheath and an ivory handle topped with a silver head.
This dagger was given by the Nobel Prize winner to another famous Pole, Henryk Siemiradzki (1843-1902), a painter whose monumental “Nero’s Torches” became the beginning of the collection of the National Museum in Krakow and the painting gallery in the Krakow Cloth Hall, which is still decorated today.
Among the many items in the luxury firearms annex, we can see a beautiful pair of pistols from the Royal Factory in Naples. The owners who sold them to the Museum told a story linking them to General Klemens Kołaczkowski (1793-1873), a specialist in fortifications and military engineering, a veteran of the wars of 1812 and 1831.
According to a family legend, the young Kołaczkowski, who was just beginning his military career, received these pistols as a gift from Prince Józef Poniatowski (1863-1813) himself, shortly before his death after the “Battle of Nations” near Leipzig.
Today it is difficult to decide whether the then lowly captain could really receive such a gift from the commander of the Polish army. Kołaczkowski himself, although he fondly remembers the moment when Poniatowski presented him with the Virtuti Militari Cross, completely ignores this gift, although it would undoubtedly have made a great impression on the recipient. It is therefore possible that in this case we are simply dealing with a nice family legend, which is difficult to verify today.
Among the most valuable relics of the Duchy of Warsaw kept in the National Museum in Krakow are the personal belongings of Prince Józef Poniatowski (1763-1813). The nephew of King Stanislaus Augustus was destined for military service from an early age. Raised at the Austrian court of Maria Theresa, he decided to leave the Imperial Army and pursue a career in his homeland at the most difficult time in history. As a general, he took part in the War of 1792 and the Kościuszko Uprising. His greatest fame, however, came from his service with Napoleon and in the years 1809-1813, when he was commander-in-chief of the Polish army. His tragic death in the River Elster after the Battle of Leipzig cemented the prince’s legend and earned him the reputation of a national hero.
This star is not the only souvenir of the famous commander, although it is the most valuable, as it is the only one with a fully confirmed provenance. Other souvenirs associated with Poniatowski include a beautiful, delicately decorated horse dagger, which can be seen in display case 21 (no. 7), and pistols from the Royal Factory in Naples, which Poniatowski is said to have given to General Kołaczkowski, as described above.
In 1890, the National Museum in Cracow received a unique gift. The donor was the elderly Tytus Kołyszko, who left numerous family heirlooms, including a number of personal items belonging to his father Benedykt. Among them were many exceptional objects, now considered to be historically significant and unique, including the ring, which is exhibited together with the Order of Virtuti Militari in display case no. 23.
Benedykt Denis Kołyszko (born between 1749 and 1754, died in 1834) is remembered in the pages of Polish military history as a major of the National Cavalry in the fight to defend the Constitution of 3 May 1792, and then as a brigadier of the 8th National Cavalry Brigade in the Kościuszko Uprising in 1794. After the defeat he went into exile, and when he returned to the country in 1796 he decided to disappear from public life for many years, only to reappear for a moment in the pages of history during the November Uprising of 1831.
The uniform presented here was worn by Kołyszka in 1794 during the famous Kościuszko Uprising.
This inconspicuous edged weapon may have an interesting past. It is a Polish blade, decorated with the religious invocation “IEZUS MARIA IOZEF”, which can be found on Hussar sabers, for example, but with an ivory handle typical of Russian Cossacks.
There are incomplete inscriptions on the back and one of the sides of the blade, indicating that the blade was shortened to fit the current handle. The inscription on the blade used to read “DEATH OR VICTORY”, so it could be associated with the period of national struggles in the 18th century. This is confirmed by the list of battles from 1794 engraved on the back: “Racławice, Połańce, Kobylany, Szczekociny, Narew, Praga &”. We can therefore safely assume that it is a Polish sabre captured by the Russians during the Kościuszko Uprising and remounted.
Among the battles listed on the back there is also a fragment of the name and rank of the probable owner, but unfortunately only the last three letters: “ski brigadier”.
Among the possible historical figures, the interpretation accepted was that the sword belonged to General Piotr Jaźwiński, but he did not take part in all the battles mentioned above. However, archival research proves that this name most likely belonged to another hero of the period, General Antoni Madaliński (1839-1805).
Tadeusz Kościuszko (1746-1817) is probably the first national hero of Poland (as well as a hero of the United States), who earned this name as a result of the fight for the independence of the Republic of Poland and became a legend during his lifetime. The exhibition includes several souvenirs of this famous commander, the most striking of which is a peasant’s coat of arms.
This coat was used in the battle of Szczekociny on 6 June 1794, and then became a painting and historical evidence of Tadeusz Kościuszko’s actions aimed at gaining a positive opinion among the peasantry, which resulted in the creation and effective use of the famous scythes, which spread fear among the Russian troops.
The robe is accompanied by a Hussar uniform made according to Hungarian patterns, which used to belong to the adjutant of the commander, Józef Horoch (1770-1845).
Display case 25 contains a luxurious pistol cartridge made in the Versailles factory of Nicolas Boutet during the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte. While admiring this work of gunsmithing, rich in Empire motifs, it is easy to overlook the double-barrelled flintlock pistol next to it. It is a little older, dating from the second half of the 18th century, as evidenced by the inscriptions and marks on the barrels. It was made in the Belgian factory of Liege and then framed and decorated by a Parisian gunsmith called Brifaud.
We do not know under what circumstances the gun became part of Polish history. It was given to General Stanisław Gawroński (1784-1860) by General Tadeusz Count Tyszkiewicz (1774-1852). Both were veterans of the Napoleonic Wars and then of the November Uprising, the defeat of which forced them to emigrate to Paris, where they both died and were buried. It can therefore be hypothesised that the gun never left France before the middle of the 19th century. After the general’s death, it was bequeathed to a Władysław Bielski, and finally entered the Museum’s collection as a unique general’s souvenir.
Another Parisian item linked to Polish history is a uniform ordered in the French capital by Franciszek Paszkowski. Brigadier General Franciszek Maksymilian Paszkowski (1778-1856) was an important and well-known figure in Krakow, but a rather controversial military man whose decisions aroused mixed feelings both among his contemporaries and among his later critics and historians. In Cracow, he is best known as a writer and author of the biography of Tadeusz Kościuszko and as the initiator of the construction of the Kościuszko Mound.
This uniform, an example of the elegance and style of the Polish army at the beginning of the 19th century, dates back to 1812, the time of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe.
That year, on 25 May, Franciszek Paszkowski was appointed brigadier general and soon took part in the campaign, distinguishing himself in the attack on Smolensk, for which he was awarded the French Legion of Honour. After his stay in Austrian captivity, he practically never returned to military service, all the more so as in the Russian-dependent Kingdom of Poland, established in 1815, he was described as a “troublemaker” because of his strong attachment to the oath he had sworn to the Duke of Warsaw, Frederick Augustus Wettin.
In the last part of display case no. 25, there are sabres and swords hanging above a case, and the accompanying guns on a pedestal. All these items are souvenirs of two veterans of the Napoleonic Wars and then dictators of the November Uprising of 1831 – Józef Chłopicki (1771-1854) and Jan Skrzynecki (1787-1860). Some of these items are more than just souvenirs of Polish history, as they relate to famous figures from European history.
Such souvenirs include the above-mentioned case with two guns in front of it. A commemorative inscription added in the mid-19th century states that they were a gift to Chłopicki from General Marie Joseph de La Fayette (1757-1834). During the November Uprising, he declared himself a friend of Poland and set up the Franco-Polish Aid Committee, which raised funds to help the insurgents.
Even before the outbreak of the November Uprising, the army of the Kingdom of Poland, led by Prince Konstanty, was undergoing a transformation in terms of its clothing, which was increasingly losing its characteristic Polish look. Such a drastic change in appearance can be observed thanks to the uniform of General Jan Weysenhoff (1774-1848), which is displayed in the showcase. It is a parade uniform, consisting of a coat with epaullettes decorated with thick fringes (bouillon) and white trousers. The lapels, which had previously been part of the Polish uniform, are no longer there, although the serpentine of the Polish general is still present, but this uniform clearly symbolises the end of the Polish cut, which had managed to enchant the whole of Europe even during the Napoleonic Wars.
Jan Weysenhoff, like many generals of the time of the November Uprising, acquired his skills during the period of unrest and wars at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries: the Kościuszko Uprising and the Napoleonic Wars. In 1831, he was commander-in-chief of the insurgent troops for only a month, for which he was exiled to Russia after the uprising failed. He wears this uniform in his portraits, one of which is reproduced in his memoirs published in 1904.
Among the 19th-century karabelas worn with the national costume, the second from the bottom in display case No. 26 comes from the famous workshop of Ignacy Höfelmajer. Thanks to the preserved inscription on the back, translated: “For depuyty Nikodem Bętkowski from Bętkowice, compatriots”, we know that it is a commemorative sword given to Nikodem Felicjan Bętkowski (1812-1864). Bętkowski studied medicine and philosophy in Lviv and was already involved in clandestine independence associations. He continued this activity in Vienna, where he organised the National Remembrance Society. On his return to Poland, he became a doctor in Wieliczka, near Krakow.
For his participation in the revolutionary events in Cracow in 1846, he was arrested, sentenced to death and stripped of his nobility, although he was later pardoned. The inscription on the blade mentions him as a member of parliament, which means it must have been made after 1861, when Bętkowski was elected to the National Sejm and then to the State Council in Vienna.
Perhaps he used this sword strapped to his side to manifest his Polish roots during his parliamentary mission?
One of the souvenirs commemorating the participation of Poles in the Hungarian National Uprising of 1848-1849 is a Turkish sabre with a beautiful blade made of Damascus steel. The commemorative inscription on it links it to General Józef Wybicki (1809-1873). He commanded the Polish Legion in Hungary, which numbered around 3,000 soldiers fighting on the Hungarian side.
The saber, with a dedication from the general’s soldiers, was given to him in 1849 while he was in exile in Turkey, where many veterans of the November Uprising and the Hungarian uprising had sought refuge.
Drawer 29, in the last display case of the exhibition, contains three pairs of epaulettes. Each pair is different in appearance and workmanship, showing how different forms were used in the uniform regulations of the 18th and 19th centuries. But they are also all mementoes of specific historical figures.
The first pair are epaulets from the period when the National Cavalry and the Polish uniform were created in the time of King Stanislaus August Poniatowski. They belonged to General Michał Borch (1753-1811), a Livonian (today’s Latvia) who attained the rank of general in 1778 before leaving the army for other pursuits, including science.
The second pair, decorated with the Szreniawa coat of arms, is said to have belonged to General Józef Lubomirski (d. 1817). The third pair, dating back to the November Uprising, belonged, according to tradition, to Konstanty Julian Ordon (1810-1887), the famous defender of Reduta No. 54 in Warsaw during the Uprising, immortalised in a poem by Adam Mickiewicz. Contrary to the literary content, Ordon did not die on the bastion, but was active in exile. The epaulettes may have been brought back to the country with the soldier’s body after his suicide at the end of the 19th century, before they entered the Museum’s collection in 1905.