Legend has it that Józef Hauke-Bosak, as an aide-de-camp to Tsar Alexander II, travelled to Paris. There, however, instead of carrying out his orders, he became acquainted with Polish independence activists. Unlike the literary character Konrad Wallenrod, he always acted openly, for which he is remembered to this day not only in Poland, but also in France and Switzerland.

Józef Hauke-Bosak – general and participant in the January Uprising
The family connections of Józef Ludwik Hauke, pseudonym Bosak (1834‒1871), are extremely complex. The family claimed to be of Flemish origin and to have arrived in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1782. Józef Ludwik, however, was born in St Petersburg and arrived in Warsaw long after his father’s death.

The head of the family first served in the army of the Duchy of Warsaw, and subsequently 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 connections, the young Józef Hauke – who had graduated from both the Cadet Corps and the Pages’ Corps, and subsequently from the Higher Military Academy – was destined for a distinguished career in the army of the Russian Empire.

In one of his letters, the future insurgent commander wrote explicitly that his family’s turning their backs on their Polish identity was not an isolated case at the time:

Nicholas [the Tsar – author’s note] did not hesitate to snatch Poland’s young children from their mothers’ arms and educate them in such a way that they would forget their country, their families and their mother tongue. Some of these young children were spared neither care, protection, nor favours and honours, with the intention of training them to be docile tools and degenerate apostates.

The future general decided to forge his own path, though this did not happen overnight, for he had risen to the rank of colonel in the Russian army. It was only with his first visits to Warsaw, most likely in 1855, that a sense of Polish identity began to take root within him. When the independence demonstrations began a few years later, he was ready to leave the Russian army, even though he was tempted by numerous material inducements, and for his services in the Caucasus he had earned the nickname ‘the Lion of 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 it was then that he bid farewell to his Tsarist uniform for good. As a colleague of Romuald Traugutt, he adopted the nickname Bosak and was sent to command insurgent units in the Kraków, Kalisz and Sandomierz regions. Despite the harsh conditions of guerrilla warfare, Bosak was held in high esteem by his subordinates. He owed this to his friendly disposition and political acumen: in the areas where he operated, he implemented the decree on the enfranchisement of peasants issued by the National Government. Thanks to this, they became his allies.

Despite the heroism and self-sacrifice of its participants, the January Uprising failed. General Hauke Bosak, refusing to give up the fight for independence, travelled via Galicia to Geneva to meet his wife. From there, the couple set off for Italy, where another turning point in our hero’s life took place. He met the Italian independence fighter Giuseppe Garibaldi, who in 1863 appealed to Europeans, “Do not abandon Poland!”, and fought alongside him in the so-called Army of the Vosges during the Franco-Prussian War. Although the war was ultimately won, Józef Hauke Bosak himself suffered a twofold and definitive defeat. Firstly, he failed to establish the Polish legions he had sought to create (he even attempted to do so in Mexico); secondly, the wounds he sustained at the Battle of Dijon proved fatal, and he died on 21 January 1871.

The gravestone of General Józef Hauke-Basak
Józef Hauke Bosak, who fell in the Third Battle of Dijon, did not immediately find eternal rest. His body lay there for several days before it was discovered, mutilated and stripped of its valuable mementoes. Garibaldi paid his last respects to him; however, in accordance with the family’s wishes, the hero’s remains were exhumed and transported to Carouge (in the canton of Geneva, Switzerland). There, at the local cemetery on Sigismund Square, a boulder nearly two and a half metres high was erected. At the time, it was almost white – according to surviving accounts – but today, even after restoration, it is grey. The enormous stone, crowned at the top with an iron cross, takes the form of a truncated pyramid, though it may also bring to mind a pyramid. On its front face is an oval plaque bearing the following inscription: ‘

’ Here lies Count Józef Hauke Bosak, born in St Petersburg on 19 March 1834, Commander-in-Chief in the provinces of Kraków, Sandomierz and Kalisz during the 1863–1864 uprising–1864, he fought for Polish independence. He fell at Dijon on 21 January 1871, fighting for the Republic in the Foreign Army

Years later, epitaphs for his wife and son, written in French, were added to the opposite sides.

Conservation work on the monument to Józef Hauke-Bosak
In 2018, thanks to the efforts of many Polish community groups, the monument to this great Pole was successfully restored. A representative of the town, Alain Saracchi, said at the time:

The Carouge municipal authorities are proud that the general’s tomb has been erected in the local cemetery. It is a great honour for the town of Carouge that the remains of such an eminent figure as General Hauke-Bosak, were buried here and rest beneath this boulder, which is, in a sense, a symbolic expression of the integrity and dedication to the cause of freedom on the part of one who devoted his entire life to republican ideals.

He added, moreover, that “this was the result of official recognition of the need to restore this monument of historical value, and the fruit of this work and these efforts stands before your very eyes.”

Let us, too, remember Józef Hauke-Bosak, who – with the whole world at his feet – chose the enslaved Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as his homeland.