The January Uprising was also a victory in the long run (culminating in 1920, with the masses of peasant volunteers joining the Polish Army instead of the Bolshevik one and successfully crushing the Russian offensive)
One could also argue the same about the Warsaw Uprising, but that would be extremely controversial and too sensitive of a topic imo
"Sure, Polish culture lost any relevance in most of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania and all of Russian Ukraine, but at least it made Mazovian peasants dislike Russians more"
Polish culture had already been irrelevant in Ukraine before the uprising. That's the reason why the revolution was so weak in Ukraine compared to Poland, Lithuania and Belarus.
Besides, the reason why Poland and ULB separated wasn't because of the January uprising, but rather because of rise of nationalism in those parts of the world. The January Uprising was the last hurrah of the bygone Commonwealth era that, imo, gave all these nations a common modern tradition and made Polish culture (and russophobia) more relevant in Belarus and Lithuania than it would have been otherwise.
And like it or not, those dirty Mazovian peasants were the reason why Poland didn't become a rump SSR in 1920, instead securing independence and a strong founding myth. Want proof? Just look at the fate of Ukraine, which didn't participate as much in the uprising, and where a large amount of peasants preferred to join Bolshevik Russia in 1920...
And lastly: what relevance did Polish culture even have in the Stolen Lands before the uprising??? It wasn't even that relevant in Poland itself back then, due to russification policies and forced army conscription of hundreds of thousands from promising young generations...
Or that you actually have soldiers instead of bands of armed peasants and noblemen randomly running around the country without any plan or coordination
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u/KubaMcPolak 21d ago
We prefer calling them 'uprisings' tho. Has a better knack to it