Uprising of Polish political exiles in Siberia

Uprising of Polish political exiles in Siberia
Date 24–28 June 1866 Location Siberia, Russian Empire Result Russian victory
Belligerents
Polish exiles and prisoners	Russian Empire
Commanders and leaders
Narcyz Celiński Gustaw Szaramowicz	Unknown
Strength
Around 700	Several thousand
Casualties and losses
300 dead, rest taken prisoner	Unknown

Siberian Uprising or Baikal Insurrection (Polish: Powstanie zabajkalskie or Powstanie nad Bajkałem, Russian: Кругобайкальское восстание) was a short-lived uprising of about 700 Polish political prisoners and exiles (Sybiracy) in Siberia, Russian Empire, that started on 24 June 1866 and lasted for a few days, until their defeat on 28 June.

After the failure of the January Uprising in Poland in 1863-1865, the Russian empire exiled many of the Poles involved to Siberia.

The insurgents had brief contacts with Siberian nationalists, who hoped for a general Siberian uprising and the establishment of the republic of Svobodoslaviya (Свободославия). They also had contact with Nikolai Serno-Solovyevich; another group supporting the insurgents was the Zemlya i Volya with activists such as Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Aleksandr Herzen. The Poles and the Russians planned a major uprising under Chernyshevsky and Walenty Lewandowski, but due to betrayal a wave of arrests disrupted their plans.

Although the arrests prevented a major uprising from occurring, a group of about 700 Poles who were assigned to the construction of the Circumbaikal Highway (a road near Lake Baikal and the Mongolian border) decided to disarm the guards and escape via Mongolia to China, where they hoped to find English ships and return to Europe by way of America.

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