Who was Emilia Plater?

A Polish-Lithuanian countess (1806 to 1831) who raised and led an insurgent unit during the November Uprising.

What did Emilia Plater do in the November Uprising?

She organised a band of volunteers in Lithuania, fought against Russian forces and was given the rank of captain in the Polish army.

How did Emilia Plater die?

After refusing to lay down her arms, she tried to reach Warsaw but fell ill and died in December 1831.

Which poem is about Emilia Plater?

Adam Mickiewicz's poem The Death of the Colonel.

Why is Emilia Plater remembered?

As a symbol of women fighting for freedom; many schools, streets and units have been named after her.

Emilia Plater: the countess who led insurgents in 1831

In the spring of 1831 a 24-year-old countess cut her hair, put on a uniform¹ and led a band of insurgents against the Russian Empire. Emilia Plater died before the year was out, but she became one of the most celebrated heroines of the Polish struggle for independence.

A young noblewoman

Born in Vilnius in 1806 into the noble Plater family², Emilia grew up reading about the heroes of Polish history and the women who had fought in earlier wars. She was raised in Livonia and Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire.

Lithograph portrait of a young woman with short curly hair in a dark jacket and cravat — Emilia Plater in a lithograph portrait by Achille Devéria, made between 1832 and 1837. Public domain

Raising a unit

When the November Uprising broke out in Warsaw in 1830 and spread to Lithuania in 1831, Plater gathered a band of local volunteers, peasants and nobles³, and took part in actions against Russian forces in the region of Dyneburg², today Daugavpils.

Painting of a mounted woman holding a banner above a crowd of peasants armed with upright scythes — Emilia Plater on horseback at the head of insurgent scythemen in 1831, a later painting by Jan Rosen in the Polish Army Museum. Public domain

In the regular army

She then joined the Polish forces fighting in Lithuania under General Dezydery Chłapowski. She was given the rank of captain² and attached to a company of the 25th Infantry Regiment, and fought in several engagements⁴.

Lithograph portrait of a moustached officer in a uniform with heavy epaulettes and an embroidered collar — General Dezydery Chłapowski, under whom Plater served in Lithuania in 1831. Lithograph by Louis Thomas Bardel, about 1832 to 1837. British Museum. Public domain

The last march

When the Polish corps in Lithuania decided to cross into Prussia and lay down its arms³, Plater refused to surrender and tried to make her way to Warsaw to continue the fight⁵. Exhausted and ill, she died at a manor in Justianów at the end of December 1831⁵.

Small vignette lithograph of a young woman lying on a bed, printed on a large sheet — Emilia Plater on her deathbed, a small lithograph by Józef Szymon Kurowski made after 1831. National Library of Poland. Public domain

A symbol

Adam Mickiewicz immortalised her in his poem The Death of the Colonel. Plater became a symbol of women in the fight for freedom, and many Polish schools, streets and military units, including a women's battalion in the Second World War⁶, have borne her name.

Sources and notes

Numbered notes in the text point to the works below.

Józef Straszewicz, Émilie Plater, sa vie et sa mort, Paris, 1835; English translation: The Life of the Countess Emily Plater, New York, John F. Trow, 1842. ↩
dzieje.pl (Muzeum Historii Polski), “Emilia Plater (1806-1831)” ↩ a b c
Instytut Pamięci Narodowej (IPN), “„Jęliśmy się oręża w duchu jedności z Królestwem Polskim”. Powstanie Listopadowe na Litwie” ↩ a b
Dioniza Wawrzykowska-Wierciochowa, Sercem i orężem Ojczyźnie służyły: Emilia Plater i inne uczestniczki powstania listopadowego 1830-1831 (Wydawnictwo Ministerstwa Obrony Narodowej, 1982). ↩
dzieje.pl (Muzeum Historii Polski / PAP), “185. rocznica śmierci Emilii Plater” ↩ a b
Instytut Pamięci Narodowej (IPN), “ul. 1 Batalionu Platerówek” ↩
Wikipedia, “Emilia Plater”
Wikipedia, “Emilia Plater”