Queer Achievement: A Polish Celebration

[Achievement – the name given in heraldry to the full pictorial representation of a coat of arms.]

Earlier this year scientists solved a decades-old mystery surrounding the remains of a Polish general who fought in the American War of Independence. They declared that the general, Casimir Pulaski (1745-1779), was intersex. The story behind this mystery is itself worthy of a separate article for the future, but for today let’s celebrate by looking at his coat of arms (below).

Casimir (or Kazimierz in his native Polish) was born during the time of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He was a leading commander in a failed rebellion against Russian domination and was stripped of all his military honours. He escaped to France and then to America. Today is the anniversary of Pulaski’s death.

Polish heraldry differs from that of nations like the UK in that there was never any official state authority to regulate its use. It wasn’t until the late 20th century that Polish historians began to collect the many Polish coats of arms illustrated in various sources into one authoritative collection. Until then Polish heraldry was illustrated in family and local documents and non-Polish publications. Consequently, the coat of arms of one family could change with each generation.

The Polish feudal system in the Middle Ages also influenced how heraldry developed. There was more of a clan element to Polish feudalism. The Pulaski family belongs to a very large clan which includes families currently having over 900 different family names. Most of these names are based on the name of the town or village where that branch of the family lived. Going further back the Pulaski and the other 900 families descend from the Ślepowron family.

The Ślepowron family took its name from the village of Ślepowrony and their earliest known ancestor was called Wawrzęta Korwin z Ślepowron. This reveals the ultimate origin of the clan in the Korwin family. It was Wawrzęta who was granted the coat of arms (below left) in 1224 by the ruling prince of Poland. For several centuries there were variations on the design, with the crow facing the other way and/or standing on a crown instead of a log.

Heraldry has always used puns and visual clues to the identity of the family or original grantee of the coat of arms. The crow has been used across Europe as an emblem of unrelated families with similar names. Its Latin name is “corvus” (still used as the scientific name for the crow family of birds). Families such as Corvo, Corbett and, yes, even Corbyn, adopted crows in their coats of arms. Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Opposition in the UK, is descended from a family who had three crows in their coat of arms.

Another member of the lgbt community was descended from Wawrzęta Korwin z Ślepowron and used his coat of arms. She was the Russian mathematician Sofia Kovalevskaya (1850-1891). Her full family name was Korvin-Krukovskaya and also derives from “corvus”.

There’s a medieval family legend telling how the crow the family their name. They allegedly descent from a Roman general called Marcus Valerus. The legend says that Valerus confronted a huge barbarian warrior in battle. As he attacked the warrior a huge crow flew down and pecked the barbarian’s eyes out. Valerus killed the warrior and from then on he was called Corvus.

Another medieval legend explains why the crow has a gold ring in its beak. It relates to a king of Hungary called Matthias Corvinus Hunyadi (1443-1490), a supposed descendant of General Corvus. One day King Matthias took off his gold ring and put it aside whereupon a crow swooped down and flew off with it. The king followed the bird, killed it and retrieved his ring. From then on he put the ring in the beak of the crow on his coat of arms. In truth King Matthias has no Corvinus/Korwin ancestry, and the Korwins are not related to him. However, 17th century historians fabricated the connection and the gold ring was adopted by most of the 900 Ślepowron/Korwin families, including the Pulaskis.

The crow also appears as the crest on top of the helmet in most of these Ślepowron/Korwin families. The helmet itself, and the coronet on top of it, is traditional in the heraldic achievements of Polish non-titled aristocracy like the Pulaskis.

The Pulaski branch of the Ślepowron/Korwin family later added a horseshoe to the coat of arms. They also changed the colour of the shield from red to blue. These changes occurred through the marriage of an ancestor to an heiress in the Pobog family. The Pobog family coat of arms (above right, next to the red coat of arms of Wawrzęta Korwin z Ślepowron and Sofia Kovalevskaya) contains a horseshoe and cross.