Cunning, fierce, wild and perverse. He drank, he was a rascal and the crowd rebelled. His parents were beaten and chased out of the cottage. In the last days of February 1846, a gang under his leadership murdered almost the entire Bogusz family. He was never punished for that.
Dead by sorrow, careless about everything, although the blood freezes hunger tearing the inside, he rolled his eyes to a circle, viciously wild; dies of cold and hunger - this is how the poet Władysław Ludwik Anczyc imagined the sad end of "Zbój Galicyjski from 1846". This cultural activist, pharmacist, poet and journalist undoubtedly had the right to wish Szela a macabre death. He himself took part in the Krakow Uprising in 1846 and spent many years in an Austrian prison.
To a large extent, it is to him that we owe today's perceptions of Jakub Szela as a ruthless bandit. As explained in the article on the last years of the life of the "peasant king" , Anczyc was completely wrong about his retirement.
Szela not only did not die of starvation, but was even rewarded for his "achievements". In view of the stormy discussion accompanying that text, it is probably worth considering one of these achievements for a moment - the most famous crime of the ringleader of the Galician raid.
Władysław Ludwik Anczyc. No one else had such a big influence on how we perceive Jakub Szela today ...
Szela - not a monster
It is hard to resist the power of the poetic vision of a right historical revenge against the murderer of his countrymen. I murdered old men and mothers - confesses the poetic robber - I burned mansions and ripped innocent children out of their mothers' wombs . One consolation runs through his mind in the last moments of his life: You are the starosts! jegry, officials, they cheered you to murder furiously, I am waiting for you, damned in hell, To me! .. to me! .. thieves.
In this version, the robber understands his sin, regrets and humbly waits for condemnation. A good Christian should even pray for such a robber.
How different is this figure from a historical figure. From a real, fierce, and taking revenge on his masters, a peasant whose robbery frenzy is summed up by the historian Tomasz Szubert in his book "Jak (ó) b Szela" as follows:
The scale of hatred that Szela felt towards his opponents even after their deaths is evidenced by the fact that the mass grave [of slaughter victims] was dug in Skamielna, near Kopaliny, former bones of contention.
But how? Was it some bone of contention? Was there any dispute? Exactly. He was.
Bad blood
The figure of Szela is so mythologized that we forget about the flesh-and-blood man. In 1846, he was almost 60 years old. He was not a hot-tempered youth, but a middle-class peasant who had a fair amount of respect in his community who has spent his entire life trying to ensure well-being for himself and his family. It was neither light nor happy life.
Of the first marriage, out of six children, only two live to adulthood. The second marriage probably ended with the wife's escape. The third, more permanent one, produced only one offspring.
During the Franco-Austrian war, he most likely served in the army, probably took part in the Battle of Ulm (October 8-15, 1805). After his return, he hosted them together for some time - though not very much in harmony - with his brother and stepmother.
Today it is difficult to find out - even for such an attentive researcher as Tomasz Szubert - what exactly was the course of the dispute between Szela and his masters:the noble family of the Boguszów. It was definitely about the land. Probably for the honor of the fatherhood which in 1828 fell to Szela's stepmother, and not to him (perhaps it was a form of punishment for burning down my father's hut earlier).
What did Jacob do after he lost his farm? It is not known. Szela was a skilled carpenter. Perhaps that was his livelihood. Anyway, after some time he got another farm, in Smarżowa.
Poles are fighting, peasants are getting richer?
Relations with the court began to deteriorate again after the November Uprising. Did Szela take advantage of the political turmoil by reporting and denouncing the nobility supporting the uprising? Or maybe he just took the opportunity to get rich in the absence of the vigilant eye of the Lord and ceased to perform his serfdom duties?
Anyway, relations with the court become very tense. There are suspicions of the murder of a Jew, Maślanka, of the beating or rape of a thirteen-year-old girl at Szela. This time, however, the peasants are beginning to feel the support of local imperial officials who must oppose the Polish nobility.
Jakub Szela on a woodcut from 1848.
The amount "for the head" of the former insurgent becomes a combat tool - an effective tool. Thanks to the peasants, it is possible, for example, to catch the partisans of Józef Zaliwski.
The decade before the robbery passes in such an atmosphere. The court tries to make charges against Szela, but the Boguszami fails to prove anything more serious than evading serfdom.
And for this the Boguszowie needed a trick - by bribing the "deputy" sent by Shela. Szela, although illiterate, for several dozen years (from 1822) was a deputy, i.e. a representative of the commune in a dispute with the Lord.
Probably this function did not win him the sympathy of the Boguszów. The more that Szela did not hesitate to complain to all possible instances and to all possible cases.
The Austrians would not have provoked the peasants to revolt had it not been for the Krakow Uprising. But Szela would not have become its leader if it were not for his dispute with the Gods.
The numbers of complaints alone are impressive: from 1822 the community filed 22 complaints, Szela himself 30, and the rest of the peasants 36. The hosts complained about the oppression, use and taking of land. Like the slander against Shelah, most of the complaints against the court were unsubstantiated. But there was more and more bad blood. It would soon be flowing in a wide stream.
The robbery, inspired by Józef Breinl, the starost of Tarnów, would probably have broken out also without Szela's help. However, thanks to his dispute with the Boguszami and his experience in "defending" the peasants, he became the perfect material for a rebel. The partitioning authorities took advantage of this fact.
You must also read about what happened to Jakub Szela after the Galician uprising!