Can You Pronounce “Kosciuszko”?

A few years ago we called your attention to A Friend of Liberty and His Unfaithful Executor. Tadeusz Kosciuszko would be remembered as fondly as Lafayette, we suggested, if only Americans could spell his name.

Or pronounce it.

On this score, a NY Times article offers help. There's a Kosciuszko Bridge in New York – a modest span, due to be replaced with something grander. To pronounce Kosciuszko more or less properly, you simply sneeze: “Ka-SHOO-sko.”

The Peasant Prince

Last year we mentioned the will of Thaddeus Kosciuszko, the great Polish-American patriot, and his unfaithful executor, Thomas Jefferson. Alex Storozynski has written a new biography of Kosciuszko, The Peasant Prince. Judging from Storozynski's appearance on the Diane Rehm show this morning, he spins a fascinating story of the man who believed everyone, including American slaves and European serfs, should live free.

Despite Jefferson's eventual refusal to use Kosciuszko's U.S. estate to fund freedom for slaves, he and Kosciuszko remained friends for life. Guess who gave Jefferson his sable coat.

Thomas Jefferson by Rembrant Peale, 1805

A Friend of Liberty and His Unfaithful Executor

In Maine and Massachusetts, today is a holiday. Patriots' Day marks the anniversary of The Shot Heard Round the World in April, 1775. Eleven months later, the British evacuated Boston. A few months after that, in July, 1776, the United States proclaimed its independence. The following month, a young European, recruited in France by Silas Deane and Ben Franklin, arrived in this country.

Thaddeus Kosciusko served the American cause so well that by war's end he was a brigadier general. Our grateful nation awarded him citizenship, a grant of land and a considerable sum of money. Thaddeus clearly believed that Jefferson's words in the Declaration of Independence, "All men are created equal," were the greatest ever written. He used the money to buy freedom for slaves.

Thaddeus became a close friend of Jefferson, and together they hatched a plan to change the course of history. As recounted here, the plan involved Thaddeus's will, and the will's executor was to be Jefferson. Alas, after Thaddeus died in 1817, Jefferson refused to serve.

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If Kosciusko were easier to spell, Americans would remember Thaddeus as fondly as we do the marquis de La Fayette. If you know as little about him as I did, read up on this remarkable American, Belarusian, Lithuanian, and Polish national hero.