Bloody Easter of 1794.
All Russian officers of the Warsaw garrison were invited to a ball in honor of Catholic Easter. There, in that day sacred to all Christians, they—never even suspecting the possibility of such a vile betrayal—were seized. Naturally, our compatriots, who respected another people’s holiday and relied on the customs of hospitality, were unarmed. And then the massacre began…
The Poles attacked the Russian soldiers left without command from behind and began to kill them mercilessly. Extermination befell not only the military and their families, but also Poles suspected by the insurgents of a “pro-Russian” orientation. According to eyewitnesses, people were hanged in front of their homes—right before the eyes of their relatives. This horror took place not only in Warsaw, but also in Vilna and other Polish cities.
The recollections of the wife of one Russian officer, who survived this massacre in Warsaw, have been preserved: “…the filthy streets were clogged with dead bodies, raging crowds of Poles shouted: ‘cut down the Muscovites!’, ‘…I, with two children in my arms, showered with a hail of bullets and wounded in the leg, lost consciousness and fell with my children into a ditch, onto dead bodies…’” Families of Russian servicemen who survived by a miracle (about 30 women and children) hid for weeks in basements without food or warm clothing; on Orthodox Easter they broke their fast with “dry crackers found beside dead bodies.”
According to eyewitnesses, Catherine II, upon learning of the massacre of unarmed soldiers carried out by the Poles, including in Warsaw churches, fell into a state of hysteria: she screamed at the top of her voice, pounding the table with her fists. She entrusted A. V. Suvorov with avenging the treacherous killing of Russian soldiers and officers and restoring order in Poland; he took Warsaw and put an end to the bloody horror.
The outcome of this adventure for Poland was terrible and sad.
On October 24, 1795, representatives of Austria, Prussia, and Russia, gathered at a conference in St. Petersburg, announced the liquidation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and even the prohibition of using the very concept of the “Polish kingdom.”
On November 25, 1795, on the birthday of Catherine II, King Stanislaw Poniatowski abdicated the throne.