This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of IHeart Radio.

Hello and welcome to the podcast.

I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

And I'm Holly Fry.

Today's episode is on Camirj Pulaski, who English language sources pretty much overwhelmingly refer to by the

anglicized name Kazimir. His last name's also pronounced slightly differently in his native

language of Polish, and I would say probably people who actually speak Polish do a better job on his first name than I just did.

His name came up in our recent episode on Villa Roseboro, who was born in a town named after him.

But he has been on my short list all the way since 2019 when he made

an appearance on an installment of unearthed. Aside from that recent name drop, this also

seemed like a pretty good time to talk about him since this year is being observed as the 250th

birthday of the United States, and Pulaski was killed in action during the Revolutionary War.

There's also another layer that I think makes him a good topic

to talk about in the midst of all these 250th anniversary commemorations.

And that is how his story has been told,

because he has often been built up into an almost mythic figure and a representation of ideals like patriotism and bravery and freedom and independence, with all that interconnected with the story that the United States sort of tells itself about being a melting pot

or a nation of immigrants. There's also writing about him, though, that is not through those

lenses and tells a very different story from that one.

Casimir Pulaski was born on March 6, 1745 in Poland, which at the time was united with Lithuania

as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. That same day, he was baptized at home without a liturgical ceremony.

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