Baśka Murmańska: The Polar Bear Mascot of the Polish Army

On July 5th, a tiny black cat appeared on our porch.

It was skinny and skittish, and couldn’t have been much more than three months old. Maybe the previous night’s fireworks scared it into running far from its mother.

It ran off whenever we got near, hiding under our deck, but once we went back inside it was happy to eat the food we left. That’s how the Cat Distribution System works. They find you, you feed them, and they’re suddenly family. Now you need to name them.

After a few days, it got comfortable enough to let us pet it and we were able to determine it was a boy. We named him Wojtek, after the famous bear that Blossom W wrote about here:

He seems OK with it.

In looking up more information about Wojtek — the bear, not the cat — we found that he wasn’t the first bear to join the Polish military. He was the second.

There’s less information about this first bear than there is about Wojtek. That makes sense because it happened over a hundred years ago in a more remote region of the world. We have a couple photographs of her, but the accounts sometimes conflict. I’ll stick with the parts that more or less agree.

From 1795 to 1918, Poland didn’t exist.

Its territory was split into three parts, with Russia taking one section, Prussia taking another, and the Hapsburg Empire taking the third.

The people still considered themselves Poles regardless of which power claimed to rule them, so when World War I came around, they fought for whoever they thought would give them the political power to reinstate Poland. 

One group was called the Murmansk Expedition.

They were a military unit that had joined the Allied forces in the Russian Civil War, fighting the Bolsheviks. The Murmansk region of Russia is on the Arctic Circle bordering the northern part of Finland. It saw considerable Allied military activity during the war. 

Naturally, these soldiers had interactions with the locals, and one soldier found himself vying for the affections of an attractive Russian woman. Problem was, an Italian officer was courting her, too. Historian Sebastian Sosiński explains “She liked animals very much.”

“The Italian had a pet arctic fox with white-blue fur.”

“But the Pole out-classed the officer by going to meet her with a polar bear he bought at the Arkhangelsk market.”

I’m not sure about the out-classing part because it didn’t work. Maybe because she knew polar bears, while cute as cubs, grow to be enormous. At any rate, the soldier lost her.

And now, had an orphaned polar bear cub. 

Lieutenant Jan Żychoń took a liking to the bear and decided to adopt her as a mascot for his unit. They named her Baśka Murmańska, combining a common Polish name, Baśka — an affectionate version of Barbara — with Murmańska, referencing where she was found.

Żychoń assigned a Corporal Smorgoński to be her caretaker.

As Sosiński said, “She was made an official member of the army, and given the military rank of ‘Daughter of the regiment’. She even got her own military rations like any other soldier.” She quickly became a cherished compatriot.

The war wasn’t going well for the Allies in northern Russia.

In the summer of 1919, the British decided to leave before another freezing winter set in. They took the Polish unit with them to Scotland. There are contemporaneous reports of the Polish troops and their bear marching down Princes Street in Edinburgh, with Baśka stopping and saluting at appropriate moments.

Coincidentally, there’s now a statue of Wojtek in Princes Street Gardens, about sixty feet from where Baśka paraded.

Baśka accompanied the soldiers when they returned to Poland two months later. The logistics of transporting a polar bear must have been challenging, but the soldiers were determined to bring their friend home with them. Baśka’s presence provided a morale boost and, oddly, a sense of normalcy amidst the chaos of post-war Europe.

Upon arriving in the newly reformed Poland, Baśka Murmańska became an official mascot of the Polish Army.

She was stationed with the 2nd Rifle Division at Modlin Fortress, 20 miles outside Warsaw. It’s now a tourist attraction near the current Warsaw airport.

Baśka took part in various military parades and events, and became popular with both soldiers and civilians. Her friendly demeanor and playful antics made her a favorite. For the Polish forces, she was a symbol of resilience and strength.

Baśka’s most famous appearance was during a military parade in Warsaw in 1921, where she marched alongside the soldiers.

Standing on her hind legs, she is said to have saluted Józef Piłsudski, the military leader and the new country’s first Marshal. She even offered her paw to shake his hand. We’re not sure if he accepted the gesture but we have a photograph of their meeting.

The horse looks a little concerned.

Cold as it is, Poland’s weather isn’t appropriate for polar bears, so the soldiers would take Baśka to the river every day. She could swim and cool off in its waters. Again, accounts vary as to whether she was let off the leash or she simply slipped away but she swam downstream and the soldiers couldn’t catch her.

Coming out of the river, she approached some peasants, who were understandably terrified.

A polar bear, even a three year old cub, is huge, and the frightened people had no way of knowing she was tame. Some stories say they shot her, others say a knife or a pitchfork was used, but the end result is the same. She didn’t survive.

The troops in her unit were heartbroken. They took her body to a taxidermist and had her preserved. She was put on display in a museum in Warsaw, but she disappeared during World War II and still hasn’t been found.

That leads some to believe that the stories are just folklore, but we have pictures. We know it happened.

As with Wojtek, there are a few statues of Baśka, including one at Modlin Fortress, and some streets named after her. These are all in Poland, as far as I can tell.

There’s now a third military bear.

In 2016, a polar bear cub named Juno was made the official live mascot of the Canadian Army with the rank of Honorary Private. On her first birthday, she was promoted to Honorary Corporal, and on her fifth, she became an Honorary Master Corporal. 

She lives in the Toronto Zoo with her brothers, Hudson and Humphrey. They act as “Arctic ambassadors” to raise awareness about climate change and its impact on polar bears and other species, including us.

It’s a good job for big white bears. 

I don’t think my little black cat is up to it.

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