Paweł Stalmach
Paweł Stalmach (also Paul Stalmach , born August 13, 1824 in Bażanowice (Bazanowitz), Silesia ; † November 13, 1891 in Teschen ) was a lawyer , editor and publisher who is considered the founder of the Polish national movement in Cieszyn Silesia .
Life
Youth and education
Stalmach was born into a Protestant family of the so-called "Wasserpolaken" as the first son of Jan (Johann), an official of the Vorwerk of the Teschener Kammer in Bażanowice and Pogwizdów (Pogwisdau), and Zuzanna born Cicha. From his father he learned to read Czech and Polish and to write in the Schwabach script. After moving to Teschen, he attended the local Protestant elementary school and, from 1837 to 1843, the Protestant grammar school at the Jesus Church . In 1842 he founded the Polish self-study group Złączenie Polskie with around 20 other students . From autumn 1843 he studied in the Protestant Lyceum in Pressburg ( Bratislava ). The Slovaks then used the Czech language as a literary language, but Ľudovít Štúr , an early Slovak national leader and Stalmach's teacher, codified the basics of today's written Slovak language. Under Štúr's influence, Stalmach reinforced his conviction of the peculiarity of the Teschen Polish-Silesian population, who were thoughtlessly considered part of the Czechs by early Czech national alarmists. Stalmach protested as a member of the Slovak Slavic Society (Spolek milovníkov reči a literatúry slovenskej), as well as against the allocation of Austrian Silesia as Czech country (the Teschner circle then part of the Moravian-Silesian Landesgubernium based in Brno ). In 1845 he helped Ľudovít Štúr to publish the first Slovak newspaper Slovenskiej národňje noviny . He then returned to Teschen and worked in the office of the Slavophile Moravian lawyer from Hranice , Ludwik Klucki. With colleagues including Andrzej Cinciała , he planned to publish the first Polish-language newspaper in the area.
In autumn 1845 he studied theology at the University of Vienna . From Vienna he corresponded with Klucki and Cinciała and through Štúr he met Jerzy Lubomirski , a Slavophile nobleman from Galicia . Thanks to him he got in touch with other members of the Viennese Polonia and gained access to the latest Polish literature. In 1847 he studied a. a. Historia Polonica by Jan Długosz and was fascinated by Adam Mickiewicz's works, which he sent to Cinciała. While still in Vienna with Jerzy Heczko , he began to translate the Czech and Moravian-language church songbooks used in the Teschener Land into Polish. During the vacation in the summer of 1847 he came to Teschen, where he gave the first sermon. With Cinciała he went on foot to Cracow to fetch the Polish books for the student group he had founded at the Ceschen Protestant grammar school.
A few months after returning to Vienna, the revolution of 1848/1849 began in the Austrian Empire . Stalmach joined the Academic Legion and radicalized his attitudes. In the letters to Cinciała he pointed out that Silesia would belong to Poland and recommended that the Germans be expelled. He became a supporter of Austro-Slavism . After the introduction of freedom of the press , he asked Klucki to publish the Polish newspaper that had been planned earlier. The first issue of Tygodnik Cieszyński (Teschener Wochenblatt), the first newspaper in Teschener Silesia, appeared on May 6, 1848 with an article by Stalmach about the revolution in Vienna. Jerzy Lubomirski persuaded him to take part in the 1st Slavonic Congress in Prague in June . His delegation, consisting of a few people, was initially affiliated with the Czech-Slovak group, but after Stalmach's protest it was transferred to the Polish-Ruthenian group. This was the first public declaration about the Polish nationality of the Teschen Silesians. Several times he spoke at the meeting, including a. he demanded the introduction of the Polish language in the Silesian offices and schools as well as the connection to Galicia.
Editor-in-chief
After returning to Teschen, he became editor-in-chief of Tygodnik Cieszyński . In November 1848, Stalmach became the founder and secretary of the Polish reading room. On March 19, the Polish library was opened in the reading room for the population of the Duchy of Teschen and Stalmach became their librarian.
Under Stalmach, Tygodnik cautiously represented the connection between Silesia and the population, which was not yet nationally defined, with Polish culture. On June 5, 1848, on the initiative of Carl Friedrich Kotschy , the pastor in Ustroń , and Andrzej Źlik, the professor at the Protestant grammar school, the second Polish-language, but German-friendly and anti-Polish national movement newspaper "Nowiny dla ludu wiejskiego" appeared in the Schwabach book Stalmach and Tygodnik criticized, especially the idea of joining Galicia. Both newspapers were closed during the period of neo-absolutism . Tygodnik was reactivated by Stalmach as Gwiazdka Cieszyńska in 1851 as a much less political newspaper. In March 1852, Johann von Kalchberg, the governor in Austrian Silesia, accused him of national separatism and pressure to close the newspaper, which happened shortly afterwards. However, Gwiazdka was published again from March 1853.
On October 16, 1854, Stalmach married Anna Skribowa, a Catholic widow of a businessman from Teschen. The u. a. The newspaper, financially supported by Lubomirski and Mieczysław Antoni Dzieduszycki, was edited in their house. Between 1859 and 1863 it was held in Congress Poland thanks to Józef Ignacy Kraszewski . In the newspaper Stalmach published his articles on the history of Slavism, guest articles from Galicia (Władysław Koziebrodzki, Michał Bałucki, Wincenty Pol ) and Upper Silesia (Karol Miarka) and the local writers and poets ( Jan Kubisz , Julian Ligoń, Andrzej Kotula). His newspaper became a pattern that some in Galicia and the Poznan Province followed.
In 1854 the Polish reading room was closed by the German municipal administration and Stalmach opened the Kasyno in its place . In 1856 he was one of the founders of the Teschener Polish Kasa Oszczędności (Sparkasse). In 1860 he visited Cracow, where he joined the Galician delegation in Vienna ( to visit Anton von Schmerling ). With Cinciała he again demanded the introduction of the Polish language in schools and offices. This was introduced in Austrian Silesia on Johann Demel's suggestion, Stalmach's peer, as well as future, long-time mayor of Teschen. From the end of the year Stalmach was questioned by the Austrian administration in Teschen for his activity.
In 1863 press censorship in Austria was relaxed and Gwiazdka Cieszyńska became a political newspaper again. She reported on the January uprising in Poland . Stalmach himself helped the volunteers in transit, so the police carried out searches in his house. In 1864 he was imprisoned for a month for an article. In 1867 a fine was imposed for the brochure Der Zerfall Oesterreichs . The next year he was imprisoned again for a month, this time for criticizing the activities of Evangelical Senior Theodor Karl Haase . At that time, democracy was revived in Austria and the Polish national movement flourished. In 1869 Stalmach organized the first massive Polish rally in Sibica (Schibitz) near Teschen. In 1873 Gwiazka successfully applied for the candidacy of Andrzej Cinciała, who won the Reichsrat election in the Bielsko district , with over 50% of the votes of the Protestant voters. This alarmed the local German liberals . In 1877 senior Theodor Karl Haase published the newspaper “Nowy Czas. Tygodnik polityczny ”as a counterweight to Gwiazdka and other new Polish newspapers. It became an ideological continuation of “Nowiny dla ludu wiejskiego” from 1848. Similarly, it repeated the stereotype of the semi-Asian, backward Galicia, oppressed by the Polish sexes, and successfully distanced the Polish-speaking Lutherans from the Polish national movement. The majority of Protestant Polish-speaking pastors also cooperated with the newspaper, justifying that Lutheranism is a German religion and that you have to go with the Germans , which Stalmach regretted for the rest of his life. His resistance to Germanization and calls to join Galicia was more and more supported by Catholics.
Retirement
In 1880 Stalmach hired Józef Londzin , a young Catholic priest, in the editorial office. In 1882 he supported the establishment of the Federation of Silesian Catholics (Związek Śląskich Katolików, ZŚK) and worked closely with the head of the Federation, Ignacy Świeży . Gwiazdka then developed into a Roman Catholic newspaper. This was heavily criticized by the Polish Lutherans led by the Michejda family (Franciszek, Jan and others) and Stalmach also came into conflict with his old friend - Andrzej Cinciała. Stalmach polemicized against them, but the Polish national movement in Cieszyn Silesia fell almost permanently along the denominational line. Stalmach partially withdrew from public life. In 1885 he founded with others the Macierz Szkolna dla Księstwa Cieszyńskiego , which opened a private Polish secondary school in Teschen (the first in all of Silesia, it was opened in 1895) and became chairman of the Macierz . In 1887 he left the Gwiazdka to a committee of Catholic clergy.
He died suddenly on November 13, 1891. According to local Lutherans (e.g. Jan Kubisz) he was transferred to the Roman Catholic Church, unconscious on his deathbed, and according to Catholics he made a conscious decision. For decades after his death, this conversion became another dispute between Polish national activists of both denominations over Stalmach's legacy. Stalmach was buried in the communal cemetery in Teschen according to the Catholic rite.
With Anna Harach / Horach vel. Skribowa he had eight children baptized in the Evangelical Church, all of whom died before his death.
memory
In 1924 the first Stalmach monument was erected in Istebna . There is a bas-relief in the Silesian Parliament in Katowice . Stalmacha streets are u. a. in Cieszyn (from 1918), Wisła , Ustroń, Skoczów , Bielsko-Biała , Pszczyna , Rybnik , Katowice, Bytom , Chorzów , Gliwice , Racibórz , Opole and in other smaller towns in the Polish part of Teschen Silesia.
literature
- Irena Homola-Skąpska: Z dziejów Krakowa, Galicji i Śląska Cieszyńskiego . Księgarnia Akademicka, Kraków-Warszawa 2007, ISBN 978-83-7188-931-8 , Stalmach Paweł (1824-1891), p. 531-540 (Polish).
- Krzysztof Nowak, Idzi Panic: Śląsk Cieszyński od Wiosny Ludów do I Wojny Światowej (1848–1918) [Teschner Silesia from the Spring of Nations to the First World War (1848–1918)] . Starostwo Powiatowe w Cieszynie, Cieszyn 2013, ISBN 978-83-935147-3-1 (Polish).
- Piotr Kenig, 150 lat prasy polskiej na Śląsku Cieszyńskim. Zarys historyczny , Bielsko-Biała, 1998
Individual evidence
- ↑ Tygodnik Cieszyński - Zapytaj.onet.pl -. Retrieved May 9, 2020 (Polish).
- ↑ Istebna. Pomnik Pawła Stalmacha - 1924 r. (Polish)
- ↑ Paweł Stalmach. Retrieved May 9, 2020 (Polish).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Stalmach, Paweł |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Stalmach, Paul |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Polish-Silesian lawyer and national activist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 13, 1824 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bażanowice |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 13, 1891 |
| Place of death | Teschen |