He was an officer of 3 epochs — a Tsarist Russia torn apart by a revolution, a rebirth of the Republic and yet a forest Poland underground, which did not lay down a weapon after 1945. Born in Lithuania, a nobleman of the coat of arms of Rawicz, a veteran of Kurland and the Polish-bolshevik War, as commandant of the territory of Białystok of the National Military Unity led the top underground fighting in Podlasie. He died with a weapon in his hand on July 1, 1948, a faithful deviating “God · Honor · Homeland” to his last cartridge.
From a manor home in Lithuania to a large war
Władysław Żwański was born on 9 July 1898 in the property of the Visibles close Wilkometer in Lithuania of Kowieńska, in the household of noble coat of arms of Rawicz. He was the boy of Jan and Joanna of the Juszkiewiczs, holders of tiny agricultural property. It was the earth's tradition of independency that the nest formed a man for whom concepts of honor and service The homeland was never an empty cliché, but the content of a lifetime.
He began his survey in 1908 in a private gymnasium in Wilkomierz, then continued it at the Second Real School in St. Petersburg, where he obtained his GED in 1915. It was a time erstwhile the Tsar Empire was bowing down, and the large War swept through the lands of the erstwhile Republic. After graduating, he went to Rostov nad Don, where his household moved.
Photo/scan: ‘A voice from Narwi’ Gęéos-znad-Narwi-B┼ü─śKITIn August 1915, young Żwański was called up to service in the Russian army. Recruit training took place in the 178th Reserve Infantry Battalion in Old Russia, and due to his education he was assigned to an officer's course to the First School of Ensigns in Oranienbaum, which finished in the summertime of 1916. From June 1917 he fought on the front in Kurland — initially as a junior officer of the 11th Company of the 14th Siberian firearm Regiment (4th Siberian firearm Division), later in the 38th Death Battalion, the 38th Infantry Division's strike squad.
Cross of Saint George and the road to Poland
The courage of Ensign Żwański was noted. For his bravery in combat, he was awarded the Cross of St. George IV with a laur — a discrimination given by the soldiers' meetings to the bravest officers — and the Order of St. Stanislaus III with swords and bows. In December 1917, following the post-revolutional decomposition of the Russian army, he was demobilized to the rank of Ensign.
However, it was not his resting time. Even in the uniform of the Tsar army, he began his independency activity — from November 1917 he belonged to the Union of Military Poles. In early January 1918, he arrived in Polock, where after the business of the city by the Germans he operated in conspiracy structures. Threatened by arrest, he returned to his household in Rostów nad Don in the fall of 1918.
News of formation of troops of the Polish Army in Cuba snatched him into action. At the end of November 1918, he reached Noworosyjska and volunteered for the assembly station of the Polish firearm Brigade. In January 1919, he was already in Odessa, incarnate to the forming 4th firearm Division under General Lucjan Żeligowski. In the ranks of the 14th firearm Regiment — in an officer company called the Knight's Legion and as a platoon commander — he fought with the Bolsheviks under Tiraspol and over Dniester. On 30 June 1919, together with the division, he yet returned to free Poland.
Photo/scan: ‘A voice from Narwi’ Gęéos-znad-Narwi-B┼ü─śKITSecond Republic soldier
In the reborn Republic of Żwański remained faithful to the uniform. He served in the 14th and then in the 71st Infantry Regiment in Zambrowa — on Podlasie, in the land that would become the arena of his last and most hard fight. The interwar 1920s are for him years of peaceful garrison service, building the foundations of a professional officer and entrenching in a region he met, loved and later led in conspiracy.
When 2 totalitarianisms collapsed on Poland in September 1939, an experienced officer did not hesitate. He joined the Armed Forces Union, and with the improvement of the structures of underground Poland he joined the National Army and the National Armed Forces. Conspiracy became its natural component — it combined military professionalism with the fervent patriotism of the national camp, for which the conflict for Poland was inextricably intertwined with faithfulness to God and the religion of fathers.
Head of Białystok territory — “Chrobry”
The end of the war in 1945 did not bring Podlasie freedom. The place of the German occupier was occupied by the Soviets, and with it the panic apparatus — the safety Office and the interior safety Corps. For soldiers like Zwanski to lay down arms would mean betraying everything they fought for. They chose the forest.
Since April 1946, Władysław Żwański, acting under the pseudonym "Błękit", has assumed command of the territory of Białystok of the National Military Unity — a structure marked with the successive code names "XIII", "Chrobry" and "XV". It was 1 of the strongest groups of independency underground in all post-war Poland. Under his command, NZW troops developed activities that went into past as the largest anti-communist underground fighting in Podlasie.
It was during his command that the celebrated battles under Brzozow-Antonia and under Liwa took place. Among his subordinate commanders was Captain Romuald Rajs "Bury", a pre-war officer and veteran of the 3rd and 5th Vilnius Home Army Brigade, who after the dissolution of the AK continued to fight in NZW ranks. It was the 3rd Vilnius Brigade commanded by “Burego” — besides bearing the code name “Chrobry”, with about 150 people and being the largest underground unit in Podlasie — that fought in April 1946 under Brzozów-Antonia and Liwo, entering into the fighting card of the territory led by “Błękita”.
Photo/scan: ‘A voice from Narwi’ Gęéos-znad-Narwi-B┼ü─śKITIn the ranks of the Białystok NZW, officers of the same effort were served — as Lt. Tadeusz Narkiewicz, “Ciemny”, born in 1926 in the Łapach, despite his young age, 1 of the most capable underground commanders, commanding the districts of “South Laba”, “Podhale” and “Mazur” in the area of Łomża and advanced Mazowieckie. They organized not only combat actions against the communist apparatus, but besides guerrilla “gendarmery”, exterminating deserters and common banditing — ensuring that the name of an underground soldier remained pure. It was a real army, with discipline, structure and ethos, not a loose forest guerrilla.
Last fight in Dąbrowa-Tworky
But there was a tighter loop over the underworld. Operational groups UB and CBW, supported by a network of agents, systematically tracked down the Commanded Commanders. The destiny of most of them was tragic: “Dark” was killed in a manhunt in Czochan-Mountain in September 1947, giving the last shot, and “Bury” — arrested in 1948 — was murdered after a show trial with a shot in the back of the head on December 30, the same year.
Władysław Żwański did not see any shackles or russian court. He chose the death of a soldier. On July 1, 1948, cornered in Dąbrowo-Tworky by the UB-KBW operating group, he died in a fire exchange. To the end, he remained who he was for 3 decades under 3 banners — an officer who could not surrender.
Memory
The life of Lt. Władysław Żwański "Błękita" is almost a complete era of Polish destiny in the first half of the 20th century: a noble nest in the Kresy Mountains, the front of the large War, a miracle over Dniester, a peaceful service in the Zambrow garrison, and yet a forest fight with russian enslavement. The man who won the Tsaric Cross of St. George in his youth gave his life for free Poland, for which he fought for half a century earlier under Tyraspol.
For decades his name — like the names of thousands of Cursed Soldiers — has been condemned to oblivion and shame. present we reconstruct them to national memory with due reverence. “Blue” and its subordinates from the Białystok territory stood up for what is most sacred: God, honor and independent Homeland. Their faithfulness to the last bullet remains a summons and testament for subsequent generations from the Narva.
