Wincenty Konstanty Kalinowski, also known as Kastuś Kalinoŭski ( also , ) ( – ), was a 19th-century Belarusian-Polish writer, journalist, lawyer and revolutionary. He was one of the leaders of the Polish Lithuanian and Belarusian national revival and the leader of the January Uprising in lands of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. One of several participants in the failed January Uprisings, Kalinowski is especially revered in Belarus where he is seen as a forefather and icon of Belarusian nationalism. Early life and education Kalinowski was born in Mastaŭliany, in Grodnensky Uyezd of the Russian Empire (now Mostowlany, Poland) to a szlachta family. The Kalinowski family hailed from the Polish region of Mazovia and bore the Kalinowa coat of arms. His father, Szymon, was a manager of the Mastaŭliany farm and manor. His older brother, would become a historian. In 1849 his father, Szymon bought a folwark near Świsłocz (now Svislach, Belarus) where Kastuś grew up. After graduating from a local school in Świsłocz in 1855, Kalinowski entered the faculty of Medicine of the University of Moscow as an external student. After one semester he moved to St. Petersburg, where his brother was and joined the faculty of Law at the University of St. Petersburg. Along with his brother Victor, he got himself involved in Polish students' conspiracies and secret cultural societies, headed by Zygmunt Sierakowski and Jarosław Dąbrowski. After graduating in 1860, Konstanty traveled to Vilnius where he unsuccessfully applied to join the civil service under . Career Literary work Konstanty then returned to the Grodno area in 1861. Konstanty started publishing Mużyckaja prauda (Peasants' Truth), the first newspaper in Belarusian, written in Łacinka, first published in June 1862. The Peasants' Truth was issued seven times until 1863. Konstanty also published two other Polish language newspapers. Konstanty was more aligned with the Reds which represented a democratic movement uniting peasants, workers, and some clergy rather than the more moderate Whites. In his literary work, Kalinoŭski underlined the need to liberate all people of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from Russia's occupation and to conserve and promote the Greek-Catholic faith and Belarusian language. He also promoted the idea of activisation of peasants for the cause of national liberation, the idea that was until then dominated by the gentry. He favored the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth's traditions of democracy, tolerance and freedom, as opposed to national oppression of cultures