For your freedom and ours
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For your freedom and ours (Polish: Za wolność waszą i naszą1) is one of the unofficial mottos of Poland. It is commonly associated with the times when Polish soldiers, exiled from the partitioned Poland, fought in various independence movements all over the world.[1][2][3][4] First seen during a patriotic demonstration to commemorate the Decembrists, held in Warsaw on January 25, 18312, it was most probably authored by Joachim Lelewel.[5][6] The initial banner has the inscription in both Polish and Russian, and was meant to underline that the victory of Decembrists would also have meant liberty for Poland. The slogan got shorter with time; the original had the form 'In the name of God, for your freedom and ours' ('W imię Boga za Waszą i Naszą Wolność'). The original banner has been preserved in the collection of Muzeum Wojska Polskiego in Warsaw.
The slogan soon became very popular and became among the most commonly seen on military standards during the November Uprising (1830-1831)[7]. During the war against Russia, the slogan was to signify that the Polish victory would also mean liberty for the peoples of Russia and that the uprising was aimed not at the Russian nation but at the despotic tsarist regime.[8] Following the failure of the uprising the slogan was used by a variety of Polish military units formed abroad out of refugees. Among them was the unit of Józef Bem, which featured the text in both Polish and Hungarian during the Hungarian revolution of 1848 and wherever Poles fought during the Spring of Nations.[9]
The motto was also used by the Polish Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising[10].
In 1956 the government of the People's Republic of Poland established an award 'Za wolność waszą i naszą' for the members of the Polish Brigade in Spain ('Dąbrowszczacy'), part of the International Brigades, supporting the Republican military units in the Spanish Civil War. The 'Dabrowszczacy's brigade motto was 'Za wolność waszą i naszą'.
The slogan (Russian: За вашу и нашу свободу) was very popular among the Soviet dissident movement after the historic demonstration on Red Square in support of the Prague Spring on August 25, 1968.[11][12][13]
It is still often invoked in official speeches, including those of US President George W. Bush regarding Poland's help in the war against Saddam Hussein's regime.[14][15]
The slogan has also been used as a title of various books in the Polish and English languages, for example For your freedom and ours: The Polish Armed Forces in the Second World War (2003), For Your Freedom and Ours: The Kosciuszko Squadron - Forgotten Heroes of World War II (2003) or For Your Freedom and Ours: Casimir Pulaski, 1745-1779 (2004).
[edit] Note
- 'Za wolność waszą i naszą' actually has the word order: 'For freedom yours and ours.' This variant is however virtually unused in the English language, perhaps because it implies the wrong pattern of emphasis (due to the grammatical differences between the two languages). Nonetheless various variants with differing word order have been used; see the note below for one other notable variant.
- It should be noted that several sources (for example, [16], [17], [18]) state that the slogan dates from the late 18th century and has been used by Tadeusz Kościuszko, presumably during the Kościuszko Uprising. It is most likely an error based on associating the 1831 motto which became popular with Polish revolutionaries with one of the earliest and most famous of them all. Karma Nabulusi offers a possible explanation: Kościuszko has used the words "For [both] our freedom and yours" ("Za naszą wolność i waszą"), Lelewel reworded them into "For your freedom and ours", a variant which became more popular and is often mixed up with its predecessor.[19]
