Na pub. aut. podpis.: Barbara Klich. Strona wydawcy: https://www.wuj.pl

This article deals with religious symbols in the iconography used by the participants and supporters of the January Rising of 1861 and the patriotic demonstrations which preceded its outbreak. Religious motifs were then frequently engraved on jewelry, coins and medals, seals, and all sorts of occasional printed matter. On account of their function the symbolic representations we are dealing with here can be divided into two categories. The first, and by far the larger, includes religious symbols with a secular function, or, in other words, religious motifs put in the service of the patriotic cause. Images connected with the Passion and funeral ceremonies predominate here (as a rule black, the colour of mourning, was used to complement or enhance the symbolic sign). To the other category belong symbolic signs which are clearly focused on the sacrum. The objects in the latter group can be further divided into two subtypes. One consists of symbolic re-presentations that call attention the tragic situation of the Catholic religion in the Kingdom of Poland, the other contains signs believed to possess talisman-like potency, i.e. concrete correlatives of individual or communal entreaties for assistance and mercy. The study of religious symbolism of 1860-1864, its origin functioning and popularity, can proceed along two lines of inquiry. The first treats the symbolic artefact as an instrument of patriotic agitation; the other as an indicator of the state of consciousness of the Polish society at that time. Between them they reveal the ambivalent nature of the 1860s symbolism: it functions both as an emotive appeal to heroic action and as an emblem of essentially passive waiting. In a situation when the public channels of exchange of information were blocked, it offered a very basic system of communication between the national elites and the people. The grapevine messages helped to unite the nation round a distinct identity, which relied in particular on the separation of the Catholic Pole from his Orthodox oppressor. An analysis of the motifs chosen for the so-called Christian talismans opens us a number of insights into the consciousness and motivation of the average participant of the dramatic events of the early 1860s. All in all, the symbolism of that period provides an accurate reflection of the ideological tensions within the Polish political and social elites in the Kingdom of Poland under Russian rule.