For Our Freedom and Yours – one of the unofficial mottos of Poland, brings to mind Polish soldiers on battlefields all over the world, when, exiled from the partitioned Poland, it brought them hope and resilience when fighting in various independence movements. It’s been connecting patriots, war heroes and people across generations ever since.

The motto was coined by Joachim Lelewel during a patriotic demonstration to commemorate the Decembrists, held in Warsaw in January 1831. The original banner, today preserved in the Polish Army Museum in Warsaw, has the inscription ‘In the name of God, for your freedom and yours’ in both Polish and Russian, as the victory of the Decembrists would have meant liberty for Poland.

The motto embodied different movements and sentiments present in Polish communities all across the world at the time. Poland at he time was torn apart by the three superpowers. As of 1795, the third partition left the country nonexistent for the next 123 years.

One of the first to truly embody the slogan was Tadeusz Kościuszko and Casimir Pulaski, Polish and American patriots and heroes, who fought in the American War of Independence (1775-1783). The fight for freedom as the highest ideal and goal ended up being a success in the United States – but not in Poland. Kościuszko later returned to Poland and lead an insurrection against Russia and the other partitioning states – Prussia and Austria, but failed.

“For Our Freedom and Yours” became a commonly used military slogan during the November Uprising (1830-1831). At the time it was meant to highlight, that the uprising was not aimed at the Russian people, but at the tsarist regime. After the uprising failed, the great wave of refugees, including prominent artists, musicians and highly educated people left Poland, taking the slogan and the sentiment with them.

A variety of Polish military units formed by refuges were fighting, and dying, with the slogan on their lips. Among them were Poles fighting in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 and Spring of Nations. Following the failure of the December Uprising (1863-1864) that took place in Poland, Lithuania and contemporary Belarus and Ukraine, its active participants were exiled to Eastern Siberia. Then, the motto continued to bring them hope and resilience.

From bigade mottos to fights of the Polish Armed Forces in the West during the fights against Nazi Germany to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the motto continues to bring Polish people together. To this day “Our Freedom and Yours” is an indication of the deeply rooted support for the rights for self- determination and respect for human rights. Today we hope to bring those symbols together when creating a platform for discussion and exchange of views on the Euro-Altantic Forum on Security in Democracy that will take place in Krakow, Poland, 10 and 11 of September.