For her role in the uprising, she was imprisoned in the Warsaw Citadel, then sentenced to exile and eight years of hard labor in Siberia.

[1][3] In Kraków, she started working at Juliusz Pfeiffer's theater and in February 1858 made her debut as Thisbe in the Victor Hugo play Angelo, Tyrant of Padua.

[4] Together with the troupe, Kirkorowa made guest appearances in Poznań, Kalisz, Konin, Lublin, Łódź and Piotrków Trybunalski.

[4] In the middle of 1858, Kirkorowa and Syrokomla met in Poznań, sparking a wave of rumors[1] – Bibianna Moraczewska mentioned their rendezvous in her diary, writing about the actress as "supposedly a vixen".

[1] Kirkorowa returned to Kraków and performed on stage for another year and a half, including in the play Możnowładcy i sierota written by Syrokomla for an event in her honor.

She traveled to Kraków and Vilnius transporting money and documents; her apartment in Warsaw served as a clandestine meeting point.

[1] In Irkutsk, she met and married a fellow exile Antoni Pióro-Dębiński (her first husband obtained a divorce shortly after she was deported to Siberia).