Countess Emilia Broel-Plater (, ; 13 November 1806 – 23 December 1831) was a Polish–Lithuanian noblewoman and revolutionary from the lands of the partitioned Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Raised in a patriotic tradition in Līksna near Daugavpils, she fought in the November Uprising of 1830–1831 against the Russian Empire. She raised a small unit, participated in several engagements in present-day Lithuania, and received the rank of captain in the Polish insurgent forces. When the main forces under the General Dezydery Chłapowski decided to cease fighting and cross into Prussia, Plater vowed to continue the fight and wanted to cross into Poland where the uprising was still ongoing. However, she fell ill and died. She was a leader in an uprising and her story became widely publicized and inspired a number of works of art and literature. A maiden warrior, she is a national heroine in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. She has been venerated by Polish artists and by the nation at large as a symbol of women fighting for the national cause. She has been referred to as the Lithuanian or Polish Joan of Arc. Biography Early life Plater was born in Vilnius into a noble Polish–Lithuanian Plater family. Her family, of the Plater coat of arms, traced its roots to Westphalia, but was thoroughly Polonized. Much of the family relocated to Livonia during the 15th century and later to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, of which Vilnius is the capital. She is described as either Polish, Polish-Lithuanian or Lithuanian. Her parents, Franciszek Ksawery Plater and Anna von der Mohl (Anna z Mohlów), divorced in 1815 when she was nine years old. A single child, she was brought up by distant relatives, Michał Plater-Zyberk and Izabela Helena Syberg zu Wischling, in their family's manor Līksna near Daugavpils (Dźwina), then Inflanty (now Latvia). It was an aristocratic family that owned several manors along the Daugava River with about 15,000 serfs. Plater-Zyberk served as vice-governor of the Vilna Governorate under governor Franciszek Ksawery Drucki-Lubecki. Plater's tutors included Wilhelm von Dalwig, captain and military engineer working on the Daugavpils Fortress. Well-educated, Plater was brought up to appreciate the efforts of Tadeusz Kościuszko and the Prince Józef Poniatowski. She was fascinated by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, who she could read in the original German language. She was raised in an environment that valued the history of Poland, and her literary heroes included Princess