Stanislaw Kot

Stanislaw Kot

Stanisław Kot (born October 22, 1885 in Ruda, † December 26, 1975 in Middlesex ) was a Polish historian, politician and diplomat.

Life and activity

After attending school, Kot studied philosophy at the University of Lwów , where he received his doctorate in 1911. During his studies he met Władysław Sikorski , who later became a close political companion of his. In the following years he made study trips to France, Germany, Sweden and Italy. During the First World War , Kot was a member of the Supreme Polish National Committee ( Naczelny Komitet Narodowy ) as head of the press office of the military section. He also published the Wiadomości Polskie (Polish News) newspaper from 1914 to 1919 .

In the Polish republic of the interwar period , Kot made a name for himself as a professor at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow and as editor of the Biblioteka Narodowa (Polish National Library) series. He also published the historical magazine Reformacja w Polsce (Reformation in Poland) from 1921 to 1939 , which he founded in 1921 at the instigation of Aleksander Brückner . Since 1921 he belonged to the Polish Academy of Art and Science ( Polska Akademia Umiejętności ). His publications dealt primarily with the history of education, the history of civilization, and the history of culture in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries.

In 1933 Kot was relieved of his professorship at the University of Cracow by the ruling Sanacja because he had participated in the resistance of Polish professors against the suppression of the freedom of science and in the protest against the imprisonment of opposition politicians.

After the German occupation of Poland in September 1939, Kot first fled to France, where he took part in the formation of the Polish government-in-exile , where he initially assumed the office of foreign minister. After the German attack on the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, he went to the Soviet Union as ambassador for the Polish government-in-exile in Poland. In 1942 he switched to the post of Minister of State in the Polish government in the Middle East, where considerable contingents of the Polish army in exile were stationed. In 1943 he became Minister of Information for the Polish Government, which he remained until the end of the war. In this position he played u. a. played an important role in connection with the breakdown of diplomatic relations between Poland and the Soviet Union on April 26, 1943 following the discovery of the Katyn massacre , during which the Soviet secret service shot several thousand Polish officers in the forests of Katyn.

From 1945 to 1947, Kot cooperated with the provisional all-party government ( Tymczasowy Rząd Jedności Narodowej ), which tried to bring about cooperation between the Polish government-in-exile and the communist government installed in Poland by the Soviets at the end of the war. During this phase he served as the Polish ambassador to Rome. When it became increasingly clear in 1947 that the Soviets would tolerate no other forces than the Communists who were subservient to them, Kot resigned from his office. Since he had to assume that if he returned as a dissident he would be charged with high treason and possibly executed, he remained in exile in Great Britain. During these years he was one of the leading figures in the Polish People's Party .

Fonts

• History of Poland's Cultural Relations with other Countries
• Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski , 1919.
• Ideologia polityczna i społeczna braci polskich zwanych arianami , 1932. (in English: Socinianism in Poland: The Social and Political Ideas of the Polish Brethren called Arians , 1957)
• Historia wychowania , 1934, 2 vol.
• Chyliński's Lithuanian Bible: Origin and Historical background Stanisław Kot, Poznańskie Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Nauk. Komisja Filologiczna , 1958.