Dr M.Rokosz |
A message from the Kosciuszko Mound in Krakow to those assembled on Mount Kosciuszko in Australia on the day of the celebration of the mountain, on the 167th anniversary of its conquest and naming.
Ladies and Gentlemen – Dear Friends.
The Earth, the origin of the human existence, is a fragment of the unmeasured Cosmos – the great work of the Creator. His Sun shines upon us and warms us.
The tribes and nations of the Earth bestow singular individuals, whose lives, thoughts, discoveries, in their meaning transcend the boundaries of time and space. And although the cohabitants of the homeland of the great compatriot have a duty and honour to know the greatness of his service, it belongs to the entire world, is the possession of all of humanity. And thus the entire world knows about Copernicus, admires the works of Leonardo da Vinci, listens to the music of Chopin. To these great spirits also belongs Tadeusz Kościuszko.
He lived in an epoch where the prominent English sailor and explorer James Cook landed on the eastern coast of Australia, giving rise to the new works of the continent. It was the epoch of the Enlightenment, in which, in the course of the just fight for freedom and independence, were born the United States of North America – the first, new, democratic nation – and from the Great French Revolution emerged the new legal order of Europe.
It was an epoch in which, for us today a truth of course, it began to be decreed that all people were created equally with respect to each other, that the Creator bestowed upon them the rights to life and freedom and the aspiration toward happiness. These matters are hallowed and do not submit to obsolescence.
The ideals of liberty, equality, societal equity and brotherly love, were professed by General Tadeusz Kościuszko. He fought for them in America and in his homeland – Poland.
Kościuszko was the precursor of the repealing of the slavery of African-Americans in America and of the serfdom of peasants in Poland. He became numbered among the fellowship of heroes of the United States of North America and the honoured citizens of the French Republic.
He belongs to humanity’s elite.
His loud echo reverberated throughout the entire civilised world. General Lafayette stated in Paris, that Kościuszko belonged to the entire world and that his virtues were possessed by all of humanity. In the United States Congress, too, William Henry Harrison, later president, stated that the fame of Kościuszko „will last until freedom reigns over the earth.”
By the will of his nation Kościuszko was buried in the most hallowed site of Poles, in the necropolis of Polish kings, in Wawel. In Krakow as well, through the efforts of the entire nation, a symbolic tombstone was raised, an earthen mound – a sign of the memory of Kościuszko, as well as a symbol of freedom and liberty.
In the year 1839, 22 years following the death of Kościuszko, to Australia came the Polish traveller and explorer Paweł Edmund Strzelecki. The following is what he wrote in his report to the governor of New South Wales, Sir George Gipps, regarding the conquering and naming of Mount Kościuszko:
“On the fifteenth day of February, around midday I found myself on the summit and sat down on the eternal snow; above me the bright sky and below boundless views. This rocky and naked summit rising above many other heights of these mountains I have chosen ... The particular configuration of this eminence struck me so forcibly by the similiarity it bears to a tumulus elevated in Krakow over the tomb of the Patriot Kosciuszko, that, although in a foreign country, on foreign ground, but amongst a free people, who appreciate freedom and its votaries, I could not refrain from giving it the name of Mount Kosciuszko.”
Whereas in his letter of the 1st of August, sent to Poland, he wrote that the country was wonderful.
“I have named as a salute to Governor George Gipps – Gippsland; the lakes, eight rivers which it possesses, I gave the names of the most eminent people in New South Wales. The highest peak of the Australian Alps (…) with its everlasting snows, the silence and dignity with which it is surrounded, I have reserved and consecrated as a reminder for future generations upon this continent, of a name dear and hallowed to every Pole, to every human, to every friend of freedom and honour. Today this summit rising above New South Wales is called Mount Kościuszko and following the publication of the Gippsland map everyone applauded this appellation.”
The name Mount Kościuszko has earned itself the right of citizenship throughout the entire world and belongs to the cultural inheritance of humanity.
These, our thoughts, sent from the Kościuszko Mound in Krakow to Mount Kościuszko on the 167th anniversary of its conquest and naming, may be thought of as a landbridge between these two points on the globe, a landbridge of the best wishes to persons of goodwill in the service of human ideas, as well as a landbridge of the best wishes in the efforts of protecting environmental beauty and the natural stores of the earth, which is our common mother.
Dr Mieczysław Rokosz
Director of the Committee of the Kościuszko Mound in Krakow
Krakow, 5 February 2007
Translated by Łukasz Świątek | 
