Bronisław Antoni Szwarce (October 7, 1834The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979)–February 18, 1904) was a Polish engineer and political activist. Born in France to Polish immigrants and educated there. He graduated from the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures in Paris in 1855.http://archives-histoire.centraliens.net/pdfs/annuaire88.pdf He returned to partitioned Poland and joined the radical democratic pro-independence underground. He became part of the

Central National Committee Central National Committee (Polish: ''Komitet Centralny Narodowy (KCN)'') was the underground coordinating committee of the Polish independence movement in 1860s Congress Poland which was responsible for preparing a general uprising against Tsa ...

but was arrested by the Russian authorities shortly before the January 1863 Uprising and exiled to

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

.(The CNC became a provisional Polish government and Szwarce, had he not been arrested, would likely have become one of the Uprising's leaders.) During his exile, Szwarce was one of the few people to meet

Walerian Łukasiński Walerian Łukasiński (15 April 1786 in Warsaw – 27 January 1868 in Shlisselburg) was a Polish officer and political activist. He was sentenced by Russian Empire, Russian Imperial authorities to 14 years' imprisonment. He died after 46 years of ...

, and became a mentor to future Polish leader

Józef Piłsudski Józef Klemens Piłsudski (; 5 December 1867 – 12 May 1935) was a Polish statesman who served as the Chief of State (Poland), Chief of State (1918–1922) and first Marshal of Poland (from 1920). In the aftermath of World War I, he beca ...

References

1834 births 1904 deaths Polish engineers Polish independence activists French engineers Polish exiles in the Russian Empire Prisoners of Shlisselburg fortress {{Poland-activist-stub