The Hangings

Author: Jaroslaw Marek Rymkiewicz.

The subject of the book "The Hangings" is the little examined episodes of the Kosciuszko Uprising - the hanging of traitors in Warsaw - and the lost chance of Poles to radically change their history. The Polish – Lithuanian Commonwealth was betrayed by magnates resulting in the second partition of Poland. Some traitors were caught and hung, others were sentenced to death and hung in effigy. This book is a series of related essays tracing the events which, as Jarosław Marek Rymkiewicz claims, could have led to the execution of King Stanislaw August and turned the nature of the revolution. On a deeper note, it questions why people in power are not held responsible for the wrongs they do - which was analogous to the position in Poland at the time it was written and still resonates today.