January Uprising in the context of "Romanticism in Poland"

Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (30 May [O.S. 18 May] 1814 – 1 July 1876) was a Russian revolutionary anarchist. He is among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major figure in the revolutionary socialist, social anarchist, and collectivist anarchist traditions. Bakunin's prestige as a revolutionary also made him one of the most famous ideologues in Europe, gaining substantial influence among radicals throughout Russia and Europe.

Bakunin grew up in Pryamukhino, a family estate in Tver Governorate. From 1840, he studied in Moscow, then in Berlin, hoping to enter academia. Later in Paris, he met Karl Marx and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who deeply influenced him. Bakunin's increasing radicalism ended hopes of a professorial career. He was expelled from France for opposing the Russian Empire's occupation of Poland. After participating in the 1848 Prague and 1849 Dresden uprisings, Bakunin was imprisoned, tried, sentenced to death, and extradited multiple times. Finally, exiled to Siberia in 1857, he escaped via Japan to the United States and then to London, where he worked with Alexander Herzen on the journal Kolokol (The Bell). In 1863, Bakunin left to join the insurrection in Poland, but he failed to reach it and instead spent time in Switzerland and Italy.

An ambush is a surprise attack carried out by combatants waiting in a concealed (and typically well-defiladed) position against an approaching enemy individual or group. The concealed position itself or the concealed person(s) may also be called an "ambush", and the chosen area to carry out the ambush is known as the kill zone or the trap.

The term "ambush" is also used in animal behavior studies to describe the predation strategy of some carnivores using stealth and deception (i.e. ambush predators), in sociology to describe aggressive journalistic practices (i.e. ambush journalism), and in economics to describe some marketing strategies (i.e. ambush marketing), all of which involve an element of surprise upon the recipients.

The history of Lithuania dates back to settlements founded about 10,000 years ago, but the first written record of the name for the country dates back to 1009 AD. Lithuanians, one of the Baltic peoples, later conquered neighboring lands and established the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 13th century (and also a short-lived Kingdom of Lithuania). The Grand Duchy was a successful and lasting warrior state. It remained fiercely independent and was one of the last areas of Europe to adopt Christianity (beginning in the 14th century). A formidable power, it became the largest state in Europe in the 15th century spread from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, through the conquest of large groups of East Slavs who resided in Ruthenia.

In 1385, the Grand Duchy formed a dynastic union with Poland through the Union of Krewo. Later, the Union of Lublin (1569) created the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the Second Northern War, the Grand Duchy sought protection under the Swedish Empire through the Union of Kėdainiai in 1655. However, it soon returned to being a part of the Polish–Lithuanian state, which persisted until 1795 when the last of the Partitions of Poland erased both independent Lithuania and Poland from the political map. After the dissolution, Lithuanians lived under the rule of the Russian Empire until the 20th century, although there were several major rebellions, especially in 1830–1831 and 1863.

Polish Positivism (Polish: Pozytywizm [pɔ.zɘˈtɘ.vizm] ) was a social, literary and philosophical movement that became dominant in late-19th-century partitioned Poland following Romanticism in Poland and the suppression of the January 1863 Uprising against the Russian Empire. The Positivist period lasted until the turn of the 20th century and the advent of the modernist Young Poland movement.

British Poles, alternatively known as Polish British people or Polish Britons, are ethnic Poles who are citizens of the United Kingdom. The term includes people born in the UK who are of Polish descent and Polish-born people who reside in the UK. There are approximately 682,000 people born in Poland residing in the UK. Since the late 20th century, they have become one of the largest ethnic minorities in the country alongside Irish, Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Germans, and Chinese. The Polish language is the second-most spoken language in England and the third-most spoken in the UK after English and Welsh. About 1% of the UK population speaks Polish. The Polish population in the UK has increased more than tenfold since 2001.

Exchanges between the two countries date to the middle ages, when the Kingdom of England and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth were linked by trade and diplomacy. A notable 16th-century Polish resident in England was John Laski, a Protestant convert who influenced the course of the English Reformation and helped in establishing the Church of England. Following the 18th-century dismemberment of the Commonwealth in three successive partitions by Poland's neighbours, the trickle of Polish immigrants to Britain increased in the aftermath of two 19th-century uprisings (1831 and 1863) that forced much of Poland's social and political elite into exile. London became a haven for the burgeoning ideas of Polish socialism as a solution for regaining independence as it sought international support for the forthcoming Polish uprising. A number of Polish exiles fought in the Crimean War on the British side. In the late 19th century governments mounted pogroms against Polish Jews in the Russian (Congress Poland) and Austrian sectors of partitioned Poland (Galicia). Many Polish Jews fled their partitioned homeland, and most emigrated to the United States, but some settled in British cities, especially London, Manchester, Leeds and Kingston upon Hull.

A cockade is a knot of ribbons, or other circular- or oval-shaped symbol of distinctive colours which is usually worn on a hat or cap. The word cockade derives from the French cocarde, from Old French coquarde, feminine of coquard (vain, arrogant), from coc (cock), of imitative origin. The earliest documented use was in 1709.

The first cockades were introduced in Europe in the 15th century. The armies of the European states used them to signal the nationality of their soldiers to distinguish allies from enemies. These first cockades were inspired by the distinctive coloured bands and ribbons that were used in the Late Middle Ages by knights, both in war and in tournaments, which had the same purpose, namely to distinguish the opponent from the fellow soldier.

Vistula Land, also known as Vistula Krai (Russian: Привислинский край, romanized: Privislinskiy kray; Polish: Kraj Nadwiślański), was the name applied to the lands of Congress Poland from 1867, following the defeats of the November Uprising (1830–1831) and January Uprising (1863–1864) as it was increasingly stripped of autonomy and incorporated into Imperial Russia. It also continued to be formally known as the Kingdom of Poland (Polish: Królestwo Polskie) until the fall of the Russian Empire.

Russia lost control of the region in 1915, during the course of the First World War. Following the 1917 October Revolution, it was officially ceded to the Central Powers under the terms of the 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.