The article describes attitudes towards peasants in Polish culture. The starting point is the Peasant Revolt in Galicia and the figure of Jakub Szela. The author believes that this is the Polish inferno of the revolution. The noble class and the post-noble elites, even those democratically minded, could not accept the vision of peasants as an independent (and independent of them) political and cultural power, but their attitudes to the revolt varied. The author shows their views ranging from total condemnation to specific forgiveness. Nevertheless, this does not solve the problem of peasants’ place in Polish society, nor does it respond to the question of accepting or rejecting a foreign culture by various social groups, including peasants. The author also expresses the conviction that a revolution is a positive value.