Legend has it that Józef Hauke-Bosak, as an orderly officer of Tsar Alexander II, went to Paris. There, however, instead of carrying out his orders, he made the acquaintance of Polish independence activists. Unlike the literary Konrad Wallenrod, he always acted with an open visor, for which he is still remembered not only in Poland, but also in France and Switzerland.

Józef Hauke-Bosak - general and January Uprising insurgent
The family connections of Józef Ludwik Hauke alias Bosak (1834-1871) are extremely complicated. The family maintained that he was of Flemish origin, and arrived in the Republic of Poland in 1782. Józef Ludwik, on the other hand, was born in St Petersburg, and came to Warsaw long after his father's death.

The senior of the family served first in the army of the Duchy of Warsaw and then in the Russian army. Through other family members, Józef Hauke-Bosak was related to the wife of Tsar Alexander II Romanov and his brother-in-law, Prince Alexander von Hessen-Darmstadt. It would seem that, with such collations, the young Jozef Hauke, who graduated from both the Cadet Corps and the Pazi Corps and then the Higher Military Academy, would have a distinguished career in the army of the Russian Empire.

In one of his letters, the future insurgent commander wrote bluntly that his family's turning away from Polishness was not an individual thing at the time:

Nikolai [the Tsar - author's note] did not hesitate to kidnap the under-age children of Poland from their mothers' wombs and educate them in such a way that they forgot their country, family and mother tongue. Some of these young children were spared neither care nor protection, nor favours and dignities, with the intention of educating them to become slow tools and filthy deviants.

The future general decided to take his own path, although this did not happen overnight, as he had reached the rank of colonel in the Russian army. It was not until his first visits to Warsaw, most likely in 1855, that Polishness began to sprout in him. When the pro-independence demonstrations began a few years later, he was ready to leave the Russian Army, even though he was tempted by numerous material enticements, and earned the nickname "Lion of the Caucasus" for his services in fighting in the Caucasus.

From now on, call me Bosak
Just a few days before the outbreak of the January Uprising, Józef Ludwik Hauke married Maria Elżbieta Kaczanowska and then, for good, bade farewell to the Tsar's uniform. As a co-worker of Romuald Traugutt, he adopted the nickname Bosak and was sent to command insurgent units in the Kraków, Kaliska and Sandomierskie regions. Regardless of the harsh partisan conditions, Bosak was held in high esteem among his subordinates. He owed this to his friendly disposition and political sense: in the areas where he was active, he implemented the decree on the enfranchisement of peasants issued by the National Government. This made them his allies.

Despite the heroism and sacrifice of its participants, the January Uprising collapsed. General Hauke Bosak, not giving up the fight for independence, went to meet his wife via Galicia to Geneva. From there, they both travelled to Italy, where another breakthrough in our hero's life took place. For he met the Italian independence fighter Giuseppe Garibaldi, who in 1863 appealed to Europeans "Don't leave Poland!", and fought with him in the so-called Vosges Army in the Franco-Prussian War. Although the battle was eventually won, Joseph Hauke Bosak himself suffered a double and final defeat. One, that he failed to create the Polish legions he had been striving for (he even tried to do so in Mexico), and two, that the wounds sustained in the Battle of Dijon proved fatal to him and he died on 21 January 1871.

Tombstone of General Joseph Hauke-Basak
Fallen in the Third Battle of Dijon, Joseph Hauke-Basak did not immediately experience perpetual peace. His body lay for several days before, mutilated and robbed of precious mementos, it was found. Garibaldi paid his last respects, but in accordance with his family's wishes, the hero's remains were exhumed and transported to Carouge (Canton of Geneva, Switzerland). There, an almost two-and-a-half-metre boulder was erected in the local cemetery on Sigismund Square. At the time it was almost white - according to surviving accounts - but today, even after restoration, it is grey. The huge stone, topped with an iron cross at the top, has the form of a truncated pyramid, although it may also bring to mind a pyramid. In front of it is an oval panel with the following inscription:

. Here rests Count Józef Hauke Bosak, born in St. Petersburg on 19 March 1834, General-in-Chief in the provinces of Cracow, Sandomir and Kalisz during the uprising of 1863-1864, fought for the independence of Poland. He fell near Dijon on 21.01.1871, fighting for the Republic of Poland in the Wooiezska Army

. Years later, the epitaphs of his wife and son in French were still added on the opposite planes.

Conservation work on the Joseph Hauke-Bosak monument
In 2018, thanks to the efforts of many Polish communities, the monument to this great Pole was successfully restored. At the time, the city representative Alain Saracchi said:

The Carouge Municipality is proud to have the General's grave monument displayed in the local cemetery. It is a great honour for the town of Carouge that the corpse of such an eminent personage as General Hauke-Bosak is buried here and rests beneath this rocky boulder, a symbolic expression, as it were, of the integrity and dedication to freedom of one who devoted his entire life to republican ideas.

He further added that "this was the result of an official recognition of the need to restore this monument of historical value, and the fruit of this work and effort stands here before your eyes."

We, too, should remember Jozef Hauke-Bosak who, with the whole world at his feet, chose the enslaved Republic as his homeland.