The inscription on the base of the monument praises Kosciuszko as a hero of two worlds - America and Poland. The hero of American War of Independence and the hero of the only Polish Uprising named after its commander - Kosciuszko Uprising.
The great son of Poland, miltary and engineering genius, fighting for freedom and rights in a New World, fighting for the freedom and rights of his Homeland, sensitive to to the freedom and rights of all kinds of slavery - both in America and back home, laid to rest on Wawel Hill in the Cathedral church, back home...
When an armed insurrection broke out in Poland in 1794. Kosciuszko returned to the country and was appointed commander-in-chief of the armed forces with powers of a dictator.
On March 24th Kosciuszko took his oath in Krakow: "I swear to the whole Polish nation that I shall not use the power vested in me for private oppression but that I shall exercise this power only in the defense of the whole of the frontiers and to regain the independence of the Nation and to establish universal freedom".
'I shall not use the power vested in me for private oppression... Guess, these words are still valid in our times as so many leaders and rulers, politicians and lawmakers tend to forget of this basic law for every person vested in power...
When he was leaving America, he wrote a last will, naming Thomas Jefferson the executor and leaving his property in America to be used to buy the freedom of black slaves, including Jefferson's, and to educate them for independent life and work. None of the monies that Kościuszko had earmarked for the manumission and education of African-Americans were ever used for that purpose.
During the Polish-Russian War of 1792, when Polish magnates asked Russian Tsarina Catherine II to help them to overthrow the Constitution of May 3, 1791, the first constitution written in the modern era in Europe and second in the world after the American, which was seen by them as a threat to their influence over Polish politics. One of the battles of that war was fought in defense of Wlodzimierz (now Volodymir Volynskyi in Ukraine) on July 17, 1792, the place dear to my family, where my grandmother was born and married, where my Mum was born and baptized, where my uncle and Godfather was born and baptized too...
Betrayed by allies, the nobles and magnates, he fled to Germany, then to France, forming an Uprising. Without much help from anyone, the fate of this military action was inevitable...
One of the most illustrious moments of that time was the victorious Battle of Raclawice, depicted in a astonishing way by Polish artists later on in a monumental painting 15x120 meters which can be admired at the Panorama Raclawicka in Wroclaw, Poland. A fragment of the Panorama below:
Wounded and captured, later on pardoned by Tsarina, he fled to America, then returned after one year, tried to do something again, but Napoleon treated him with contempt as a fool overestimating his influence in Poland. After freeing his serfs, he died of typhoid fever in Switzerland.
His body was laid to rest in the Royal Cathedral in Krakow, his heart is preserved in the Royal Castle in Warsaw...
I thought for a moment being there at the foot of Koscuszko Monument in Chicago, that maybe we, as Polish missionaries, have some snippets of his grand spirit of freedom and equality, as we work among the poorest of the poor, trying to free our people we serve in the missions, from all kinds of modern slavery and disadvantages - in educational, medicare, pastoral, spiritual and other fields...
The spirit of Tadeusz Kosciuszko is never lost in Polish Nation.
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