Great Emigration

[3] The exiles included artists,[3] soldiers and officers of the uprising, members of the Sejm of Congress Poland of 1830–1831 and several prisoners-of-war who escaped from captivity.

From the end of the 18th century, a large portion of the Polish political landscape was dominated by those who carried out their activities outside of the country as émigrés.

Their exile was the result of the Partitions of Poland, which completely divided the lands of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth between the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and the Habsburg monarchy of Austria.

Their resistance was not limited to Polish revolutionary activity, as they also participated in various lands during the Revolutions of 1848, including France, the small principalities of Germany and Italy, Austria, Hungary, and the Danubian principalities Wallachia and Moldavia, the South American countries Argentina and Uruguay (participating in the "Guerra Grande" of 1839–1852) and in the Crimean War of 1853–1856.

Notable Poles and Lithuanians of the Great Emigration included Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, leader of the Polish government-in-exile in Paris (with embassies in London and Istanbul); politician Joachim Lelewel; national bards Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki, Cyprian Kamil Norwid, and Zygmunt Krasiński; as well as Leonard Chodźko, Ignacy Domeyko, Maurycy Mochnacki, Piotr Michałowski, Seweryn Goszczyński, Jozef Bohdan Zaleski, Aleksander Mirecki, Emil Korytko, Antoni Patek, Casimir Gzowski, Aleksander Jełowicki, Ignacy Szymanski and Adolf Zytogorski.