Yan Vitkevich
| Jan Prosper Witkiewicz | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
24 June 1808 Pašiaušė, Lithuania-Vilnius Governorate, Russian Empire |
| Died | 8 May 1839 (aged 30) Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire |
| Occupation | Orientalist, explorer and diplomat |
Jan Prosper Witkiewicz (Lithuanian: Jonas Prosperas Vitkevičius; Russian: Ян Вѝкторович Виткѐвич, Yan Viktorovich Vitkevich) (June 24, 1808–May 8, 1839) was a Polish-Lithuanian orientalist, explorer and diplomat in the Russian service. He was the agent of Russia at Kabul just before the First Anglo-Afghan War.
He was born into an old and distinguished Samogitian noble family, in Pašiaušė in what is now modern Lithuania, and at the time was part of the Russian Empire. His father, Wiktoryn Witkiewicz, was the vice-marshal of the Šiauliai County appointed by Napoleon. and his mother was Justyna Aniela née Mikucka.
In 1817, Jan began his studies at the Kražiai Gymnasium. While still at the gymnasium, he had helped found a secret society called the Black Brothers, which was an underground revolutionary-national resistance movement. The movement was initiated by a group of Lithuanian and Polish students intent on fighting the Russian occupation of the former territories of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. These young students distributed banned books, supported anti-Russian sentiments and wrote independence-oriented manifestos.
However, in 1823, the Black Brothers movement was exposed after they began posting revolutionary slogans and verses on prominent public buildings, and started sending anti-Tsarist letters, poems and patriotically charged appeals to the principal and the students of the Vilnius University. In early 1824, Witkiewicz, together with five other youngsters was arrested, brought to the prison of the former Basilian Monastery in Vilnius and interrogated. In an attempt to prevent any potential uprisings among other students, three of them were sentenced by the Russian authorities to death and the remaining three were to be flogged and then exiled to Southern Urals region.
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