History / Konstanty Rokossowski - a Pole or a Russian? [41]

A Polish nobleman, General Konstanty Rokossowski of the Glaubicz coat of arms, son of Ksawery. Born in the Kingdom of Poland in 1896 into a family with deep patriotic traditions. Already as a small child he rode horses exceptionally well, a skill he learned on his uncle's estate near Grodzisk Mazowiecki. He attended primary school, then a gymnasium and a commercial school in Warsaw. After the outbreak of the First World War, while still underage, he volunteered for the Tsarist army in Grójec. After just one week of fighting, he was decorated for bravery with the Cross of St. George. He is the only case known to me of a soldier who passed consecutively through all military ranks, from private to marshal - and marshal of two nations, as he was both a Russian and a Polish marshal.



Rokossowski rendered outstanding service in the defense of Moscow in 1941, achieved victory at Stalingrad, and won the greatest tank battle in history - at the Kursk salient. He liberated Belarus, Masuria, and Pomerania. He commanded the grand Victory Parade on Red Square in Moscow in 1945, in which Polish troops also marched, bearing on their banner the inscription: 'God, Honor, Fatherland.' After the parade, he returned to Poland, where he initially commanded the Northern Group of Soviet Forces and, after several years, became the Polish Minister of National Defense.



He died in 1968 and was buried within the walls of the Kremlin, next to the first cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin. His father Ksawery and his sister Helena are buried at Bródno Cemetery in Warsaw, while his uncles are buried at Powązki Cemetery. Rokossowski himself always declared his Polish identity; in all Russian and Soviet questionnaires he listed his nationality as Polish.

To some he is a controversial figure and they refuse to recognise him as a Pole, but historical evidence seems to be overwhelming - he was a Polish patriot and a hero of Russia and the Soviet Union.