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From a local history by Wladyslaw Bartosz
Translated by Grace Skowron and Dennis Benarz
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Until 1848, uneducated and miserable Polish
peasants in Galicia, abused and pressured by their masters, were constantly prodded by the Austrians against
their Polish nobles. In 1846, while the nobles were trying to organize a national independence movement,
the peasants started an insurrection against their nobles in the whole Tarnow region. The most massive
and bloody actions against the nobility and their administrators were near Pilzno and Debica. Peasants
armed with farm tools, banging on pots and pans as they went, marched to the noble-owned manors and
taverns destroying them all. They gained satisfaction in murdering their abusive administrators and
officials. The main fighting took place in the northwest part of Pilzno township. Some administrators stopped at the tavern in Roza for refreshments. Words were exchanged and one of them shot a peasant named Jozef Durak. Immediately, fourteen people were butchered. They are all buried in the Zasow Parish cemetery. Austrian administrators were afraid of any opposition to Austrian control. For this reason, their officials sent Austrian army units to punish the insurgents. But peasants from Jastrzabka Stara, Roza, and Zassow bravely defended themselves. The frightened Austrian officials wanted Galicia to remain a firm part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, so in 1848 they removed the abusive rental rules on land. Peasants also were no longer required to pay tribute to their nobles in the form of goods and gifts. |
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Grace Skowron, Chris Owens, and Dennis Benarz, 2003-2005