Janowicz, Ludwik

Born 1859 in the village of Lapkasi, Kovno Province; died May 16 (29), 1902, in Yakutsk. Figure in the Polish and Russian revolutionary movements.

The son of a nobleman, Janowicz studied at the Petrovskoe Academy in Moscow in the early 1880’s; he was one of the leaders of the General Student Union, which was affiliated with the People’s Will (Narodnaia Volia). In 1884 in Warsaw he joined the International Social Revolutionary Party Proletariat (seePROLETARIAT) and served on its central committee. He conducted propaganda among the workers, and he wrote a number of proclamations.

Janowicz was arrested on July 18, 1884, but he was not taken into custody without putting up armed resistance. At the Trial of the Proletariat in Warsaw in 1886 he was sentenced to 16 years’ hard labor. He served the first part of the sentence in the Shlissel’burg Fortress and was exiled to Yakutsk Oblast in 1896. While in exile, Janowicz joined the left wing of the Polish Socialist Party and contributed to its newspaper Przedświt.