Poland – The Year 1863 (Polish – Polonia – Rok 1863) or The Forging of Poland (Zakuwana Polska) is an early and unfinished oil on canvas painting by Jan Matejko, painted in 1864 in response to his experiences during the January Uprising and now in the Czartoryski Museum in Krakow.

[1] The artist did not find any opportunity to display the work in public and – afraid of repression and fearing for his and his family's safety – he hid it behind the stove in his house.

The work shows Mikhail Muravyov, who had suppressed an uprising in Lithuania, and General Friedrich von Berg, who had suppressed another in the Kingdom of Poland, with Muravyov's sabre touching Lithuania.

The overall scene occurs in a desecrated church full of Russian soldiers dressing up in its liturgical robes and drinking wine from its chalices.

On the floor is a tombstone, symbolising the Poles' ancestors, whilst to the right, a group of soldiers supervise a crowd, including a wounded insurgent and a Capuchin friar, probably Poles awaiting exile to Siberia.