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Poland – Tadeusz Kosciuszko Commemorative issue
1976 Proof Silver 100 Zlotych 32mm (16.5 grams) 0.625 Silver (0.3316 oz. ASW)
Reference: Y# 82, ParM# 274, Fischer Po# K007, N#25154
Engraver: Stanisław Plęskowski
Mintage: 100,148
POLSKA • RZECZPOSPOLITA • LUDOWA 1976 mw • ZŁ 100 ZŁ • around Poland Imperial coat-of-arms eagle above value.
TADEUSZ • KOŚCIUSZKO • 1746 • 1817, Tadeusz Kosciuszko right.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.
 Andrzej Tadeusz Bonawentura Kościuszko (English: Andrew Thaddeus Bonaventure Kosciuszko; 4 or 12 February 1746 15 October 1817) was a Polish military engineer, statesman, and military leader who became a national hero in Poland, the United States, Lithuania, and Belarus. He fought in the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth’s struggles against Russia and Prussia, and on the U.S. side in the American Revolutionary War. As Supreme Commander of the Polish National Armed Forces, he led the 1794 Kościuszko Uprising.
Kościuszko was born in February 1746, in a manor house on the Mereczowszczyzna estate in Brest Litovsk Voivodeship, then Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a part of the Polish�”Lithuanian Commonwealth, now the Ivatsevichy District of Belarus. At age 20, he graduated from the Corps of Cadets in Warsaw, Poland. After the start of the War of the Bar Confederation in 1768, Kościuszko moved to France in 1769 to study. He returned to the Commonwealth in 1774, two years after the First Partition, and was a tutor in Józef Sylwester Sosnowski’s household. In 1776, Kościuszko moved to North America, where he took part in the American Revolutionary War as a colonel in the Continental Army. An accomplished military architect, he designed and oversaw the construction of state-of-the-art fortifications, including those at West Point, New York. In 1783, in recognition of his services, the Continental Congress promoted him to brigadier general.
Upon returning to Poland in 1784, Kościuszko was commissioned as a major general in the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth Army in 1789. After the Polish Russian War of 1792 resulted in the Commonwealth’s Second Partition, he commanded an uprising against the Russian Empire in March 1794 until he was captured at the Battle of Maciejowice in October 1794. The defeat of the Kościuszko Uprising that November led to Poland’s Third Partition in 1795, which ended the Commonwealth. In 1796, following the death of Tsaritsa Catherine II, Kościuszko was pardoned by her successor, Tsar Paul I, and he emigrated to the United States. A close friend of Thomas Jefferson, with whom he shared ideals of human rights, Kościuszko wrote a will in 1798, dedicating his U.S. assets to the education and freedom of the U.S. slaves. Kościuszko eventually returned to Europe and lived in Switzerland until his death in 1817. The execution of his testament later proved difficult, and the funds were never used for the purpose he intended.
 Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine and Belarus to the east; and the Baltic Sea, Kaliningrad Oblast (a Russian exclave) and Lithuania to the north. The total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres (120,726 sq mi), making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe and the sixth most populous member of the European Union, as well as the most populous post-communist member of the European Union. Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions.
The establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a longstanding political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th-century Europe. The Commonwealth ceased to exist in the years 1772-1795, when its territory was partitioned among Prussia, the Russian Empire, and Austria. Poland regained its independence (as the Second Polish Republic) at the end of World War I, in 1918.
In September 1939, World War II started with the invasions of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact). More than six million Polish citizens died in the war. In 1944, a Soviet-backed Polish Committee of National Liberation was formed which, after a falsified referendum in 1947 took control of the country and Poland became a satellite state of the Soviet Union, as People’s Republic of Poland. During the Revolutions of 1989 Poland’s Communist government was overthrown and Poland adopted a new constitution establishing itself as a democracy.
 Despite the large number of casualties and destruction the country experienced during World War II, Poland managed to preserve much of its cultural wealth. There are 14 heritage sites inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage and 54 Historical Monuments and many objects of cultural heritage in Poland.
Since the beginning of the transition to a primarily market-based economy that took place in the early 1990s, Poland has achieved a “very high” ranking on the Human Development Index, as well as gradually improving economic freedom. Poland is a democratic country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life and a very high standard of living. Moreover, the country is visited by nearly 16 million tourists every year (2013), which makes it one of the most visited countries in the world. Poland is the sixth largest economy in the European Union and among the fastest rising economic states in the world. The country is the sole member nation of the European Union to have escaped a decline in GDP and in recent years was able to “create probably the most varied GDP growth in its history” according to OANDA, a Canadian-based foreign exchange company. Furthermore, according to the Global Peace Index for 2014, Poland is one of the safest countries in the world to live in.
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