The Warrior Countess Emilia Plater

While the stories of warrior men are much more popular, there have undoubtedly been prominent warrior women as well. Remember Jeanne d'Arc, who wanted to liberate France from the English occupation or the samurai Nakano Takeko, who fought in the Japanese Civil War in the nineteenth century. Countess Emilia Plater participated in the Lithuanian-Polish uprising against tsarist Russia in 1831 and is often called the Lithuanian Jeanne d'Arc. Many biographies have been written about her, and she was immortalised in the work of the famous romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz. Why did Plater become a symbol of the 1831 uprising?

The life stories of female warriors are the opposite of the traditional image of the mother, the nurturer of the family hearth. Therefore, the women warriors who have entered the pages of history are considered to be exceptional people – their origins, education, and worldviews are special. This is exactly the case for Plater, who comes from a famous noble family of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL). She was born in 1806 in Vilnius into the family of Counts Franciszek Ksawery Plater and Anna von der Mohle. Emilia’s childhood wasn’t fun. When the girl was nine, her parents divorced. After the divorce her mother settled with relatives. Emilija received an excellent education and read many works of philosophy and Lithuanian and Polish history. In addition, together with her cousins, she rode, learned fencing and the handling of weapons. In this way, she contradicted stereotypical gender roles from her early days.

The girl’s involvement in the uprising was not only inspired by the dream of the Polish and Lithuanian nobility to restore the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. No less important were her own ideas about her life. In 1831, the Countess explained her decision to take part in the uprising in her diary as follows: ‘I hereby testify in this writing that no one tried to talk me into this step taken today. <...> The love of the Motherland led me. In addition, growing up alone and from early childhood living with the idea that I would one day go to war, I accepted it as an inspiration, because, for many years, this thought, unusual for young girls, has accompanied me.’

When she learned that the uprising had begun, Emilia armed herself and went to her cousin Cezary Plater. On 29 March 1831, together with her adjutant Marija Prušinskaitė and Cezary Plater she announced the aims of the uprising in the church in Dusetos, raised the flag and assembled a platoon. Although the countess took part in many successful battles, not all the rebels supported her – some thought that a woman had no place in war. For example, the chief Lithuanian rebel, count Karolis Zaluskis, advised Plater to protect her health and return home. The countess, of course, didn’t follow this advice.

The Lithuanian-Polish uprising of 1831 was the result of the fights against class systems that supported monarchies and human inequality in Western Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Many participants in the Lithuanian-Polish uprising supported the abolition of serfdom, which gave nobles the right to keep peasants as their property. Unfortunately, the Lithuanian-Polish uprising was quickly suppressed. Plater refused to give up, she hoped to reach Warsaw and continue the fight there. Ignotas Ablamavičius sheltered the injured countess in his manor. It is said that Plater was recovering, but she lost her strength after learning about the final defeat of the rebels.

Although she died early, the story of Plater’s life is still alive. The life of the countess testifies that one person can change the world, even if not immediately: serfdom was abolished in 1861, exactly thirty years after the uprising and Plater’s death.