Poland Banknotes banknote 1988 Jaroslaw Dabrowski
National Bank of Poland - Narodowy Bank Polski
Obverse: Portrait of Jaroslaw Dabrowski, independence activist and Commander-in-Chief of Paris Commune’s armed forces, was killed on a barricade.
Reverse: The Communards' Wall - Monument to Paris Commune Heroes at the Père Lachaise cemetery.
Watermark: White Eagle - Coat of arms of Poland.
Signatures:
President of the National Bank of Poland - Witold Bien
Chief Treasurer of the National Bank of Poland - Edmund Banasiak
Issue Date: May 17, 1975
Dimension: 138 x 63 mm
Printer: PWPW - Polska Wytwórnia Papierów Wartościowych S.A. (Polish Security Printing Works, Warsaw, Poland)
Banknote design by Andrzej Heidrich, engraved by Barbara Kowalska.
In Circulation: from 19 July 1976 to 31 December 1996 - the bill virtually withdrawn much earlier - by mid-1993 years - gradually reducing its circulation
Poland banknotes - Poland paper money
1974-1993
100000 Zloty 200000 Zloty 500000 Zloty 1000000 Zloty 2000000 Zloty
Jaroslaw Dabrowski
Jarosław Żądło-Dąbrowski (also known as Jaroslav Dombrowski; 13 November 1836 – 23 May 1871) was a Polish left-wing independence activist, general, military commander and a supporter of the Paris Commune. He was a participant in the January Uprising and was one of the leaders of the "Red" faction among the insurrectionists as a member of the Central National Committee (Komitet Centralny Narodowy) and the Polish Provisional National Government (Tymczasowy Rząd Narodowy).
Dąbrowski was born in Żytomierz, in what is now Ukraine. He was the offspring of the old Polish noble family Żądło-Dąbrowski z Dąbrówki h. Radwan. He bore the Clan Radwan arms. His father was Wiktor Żądło-Dąbrowski of Dąbrówka, coat-of-arms Radwan. His mother was Zofia née Falkenhagen-Zaleska.
Military career
In 1845 at age 9, Dąbrowski joined the Russian army, enrolling in the officer training corp at the Brest-Litovsk Fortress, where he spent 8 years. He graduated from the St. Petersburg Cadet Corps in 1855. He fought as a Russian officer against mountaineer uprisings in the Caucasus. In 1859 he enrolled in the General Staff Academy in St. Petersburg. There he was one of the leaders of the secret "Officers' Committee of the First Army". Members included several hundred Russian and Polish officers, cooperating with the revolutionary "Zemlya i Volya" (Land and Liberty) movement. He became involved in the preparation of the January Uprising, but was arrested on 14 August 1862, and exiled to Siberia for his participation in a plot against the Tsar, Alexander II. In 1865, he escaped and fled to France.
On the barricades in Paris
In early March 1871, following months of siege by the Prussians, and social unrest after the Franco-Prussian War, revolution broke out in Paris. The city declared itself independent of the French National Government, calling itself the Paris Commune. Parisians - calling themselves Communards - took immediate steps to defend itself against the Prussians (who were still in the vicinity) and against the deposed Monarchists, seeking a return to Louis Napoleon's Third Empire. By this time, Dąbrowski had been elected to the Council of the Paris Commune, using the nom de guerre, Jaroslav Dombrowski. When negotiations with the National Government broke down, he became Commander-in-Chief and started organising its defence. He died on 23 May 1871 on the barricades of his adopted city. After he was killed, the Communards presented arms with un-communard precision " The Commune itself fell on 28 May 1871. The subsequent massacres of the Communards by French National Government shocked liberal society throughout Europe. Nevertheless, the shame of Dąbrowski having associated himself so closely with socialism and revolution was such that his two sons were driven to commit suicide, and his brother was driven to crime in exile.
The Communards' Wall - Monument to Paris Commune Heroes at the Père Lachaise cemetery
The Communards’ Wall (Mur des Fédérés) at the Père Lachaise cemetery is where, on May 28, 1871, one-hundred and forty-seven fédérés, combatants of the Paris Commune, were shot and thrown in an open trench at the foot of the wall. To the French left, especially socialists and communists, the wall became the symbol of the people's struggle for their liberty and ideals. Many leaders of the French Communist Party, especially those involved in the French Resistance, are buried nearby.
The Père Lachaise cemetery was established in May 1804 on a land owned by the Jesuits for centuries, and where Père ("Father") Lachaise, confessor of Louis XIV, lived the latter part of his life. Cemetery of the aristocracy in the 19th century, it also received the remains of famous people from previous eras. During the spring of 1871 the last of the combatants of the Commune entrenched themselves in the cemetery. The Armée versaillaise, which was summoned to suppress the Commune, had control over the area towards the end of the afternoon of May 28th, and shot all of the prisoners against the wall.
The massacre of the Communards did not put an end to the repression. During the fighting between 20,000 and 35,000 deaths, and more than 43,000 prisoners were taken; afterwards, a military court pronounced about a hundred death sentences, more than 13,000 prison sentences, and close to 4,000 deportations to New Caledonia.
The memory of the Commune remained engraved in the people's memory, especially within the workers' movement which regenerated itself in a few years time. The first march before the Wall, at the call of Jules Guesde, took place on May 23, 1880, two months before the Communards' Amnesty: 25,000 people, a symbolic "immortal" red rose in their buttonholes, stood up against police forces. From that time on, this "ascent to the Wall", punctuated French labor force political history. Every year since 1880, the organizations of the French left have held a demonstration in this symbolic place during the last week of May. Jean Jaurès -- although a child in the provinces at the time of the Commune, hence with no direct memory —- made the ascent several times, accompanied by Édouard Vaillant, Jean Allemane, and by thousands of socialist, syndicalist, and anarchist militants.
The record-breaking demonstration took place on May 24, 1936: 600,000 people, led by Léon Blum and Maurice Thorez, right in the middle of the strikers movement, several weeks after the start of the Popular Front.
"Tombe sans croix et sans chapelle, sans lys d'or, sans vitraux d'azur, quand le peuple en parle, il l'appelle le Mur." - Jules Jouy
"Tomb without a cross or chapel, or golden lilies, or sky blue church windows, when the people talk about it, they call it The Wall." - Jules Jouy