KTO Theatre hosts an outdoor performance Viva Kościuszko! inspired by Jan Styka’s monumental painting Polonia. The Constitution of 3 May 1791. The event will start at many venues at the same time.

Viva Kościuszko!

No Pole before him had ever been so internationally famous and admired. Napoleon hailed him as a “hero of the north”, while Jefferson wrote that “He is as pure a son of liberty as I have ever known”. Byron wrote that the very sound of his name terrifies tyrants, and Jules Verne placed his portrait in Captain Nemo’s submarine. He was way ahead of his time with his vast military talent as well as his sensitivity to those around him: beyond the battlefield, he fought for the rights of peasants, slaves, Jews and women. Tadeusz Kościuszko – military engineer of the American war of independence and leader of the uprising in Poland in 1794 – has been hailed at Poland’s patron for 2017.

To commemorate this, on 7 April KTO Theatre hosts an outdoor performance Viva Kościuszko! inspired by Jan Styka’s monumental painting Polonia. The Constitution of 3 May 1791. The event will start at many venues at the same time: at the Capuchin Church, at the Barbican, at Floriańska Street, and at the Main Market Square. We will see live-action history lessons, such as the presentation of a sabre at the Loreto chapel, Tadeusz Kościuszko’s oath (starring the excellent Jan Polewka) and the march of the Polish army. As always, the theatre’s director Jerzy Zoń has plenty of surprises in store. Beware! Things could go off with a bang!

(Justyna Skalska, “Karnet” magazine)