Jakub Szela: The Unknown Pages of History

The article focuses on the new and little-known historical facts about Jakub Szela, a leader of the peasant uprising in Western Galicia in 1846, also known as the Galician Massacre, against Polish landowners, nobility, government officials and Catholic priests. The authors emphasize the Rusin origin of Jakub Szela and many other uprising participants, which explains both the reasons for and nature of these peasant uprisings accompanied by brutal murders in Western Galicia. These controversies originate from the social, national, and religious contradictions unresolved by the Polish administration. Jacub Szela suffered from oppression, humiliation and deprivation from the representatives of the privileged classes, which united him with other famous historical figures who led peasant and Cossack popular uprisings and riots and headed robber bands and insurgent groups in Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Moldova, and Ukraine. The authors argue that Jacub Szela's activities were progressive, although the opinions and judgements about them now are polarized. The Austrian Empire and Russia played a noticeable role in the suppression of the Polish liberation movement in the middle of the 19th century. The authors emphasize that the Galician uprising of 1846 coincided with the Polish liberation movement and did much to counteract it. Finally, Jacub Szela and his associates achieved their main goal -the abolition of serfdom and corvee labor in Galicia.

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