On 1 September 1863, Prus, then a 16-year-old volunteer in the Polish 1863–65 Uprising against Imperial Russia, had been captured during a battle at the village of Białka, four kilometers south of Siedlce. Thus "Fading Voices" resonates for Prus at a deeply emotional level: not only had the youngster suffered serious physical traumata and probably the beginnings of his lifelong agoraphobia, and subsequently also imprisonment at Lublin, but after the Uprising he had found himself ostracized by many of his compatriots, whom he had sought to restore to national independence.