Stanisław Wojciechowski

Stanisław Wojciechowski before 1926

Stanisław Wojciechowski (born March 15, 1869 in Kalisz , Russian Empire ; † April 9, 1953 in Warsaw , Poland ) was President of the Republic of Poland between 1922 and 1926. He was one of the founders of the Polish Socialist Party and is considered the father of the cooperative system in Poland and was overthrown when Marshal Józef Piłsudski came to power during the so-called “ May coup”. After that he stood in opposition to the authoritarian regime.

Life

Wojciechowski was initially involved in the conspiratorial association “Zet” during his youth, but allied himself with the socialist movement in Poland while he was studying mathematics and physics in Warsaw in 1888. As early as 1892 he broke off his studies and after two stays in prison he decided to go into exile, first in Zurich and Paris. There he learned the subject of typesetter , with which he provided for a living. In 1892 he was one of the founders of the Polish Socialist Party, which met in Paris , and the following year he took part in the first illegally organized party congress in Vilnius , where he met Piłsudski. He traveled illegally to Congress Poland and the Tsarist Empire several times and smuggled printing machine components and printed matter. Besides Piłsudski, he was the most important agent of the socialist movement. He married in 1899. Shortly afterwards he was deported from France. He found his new home in London , where he worked as a typesetter, printer, journalist and publisher.

After the majority of Polish socialists in 1905 saw the national struggle for freedom in contradiction to socialist internationalism and a hindrance to the class struggle , he left the Polish Socialist Party. After the amnesty he returned to Warsaw in 1906 and took part in Edward Abramowski's cooperative movement . He founded the weekly newspaper of the cooperative Społem . Meanwhile, his political views evolved towards the center. During the First World War he was a supporter of Russia , fled from the German army in 1915 and only returned to Warsaw after the October Revolution . He enjoyed a great reputation among the workers and also among parts of the rural population. Between January 1919 and July 1920 he was Minister of the Interior in the Paderewski and Skulski cabinets . From 1921 belonged to the party Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe Piast (PSL Piast) .

On December 9, 1922, he ran in the presidential election , but was defeated in the fourth ballot to the landowner Count Maurycy Zamoyski and the later elected Gabriel Narutowicz . After the assassination of President Narutowicz by the ultranationalist painter Eligiusz Niewiadomski the candidacy waiver Pilsudski, who not according to his own words in a "gilded cage" wanted to terminate on 16 December 1922, Wojciechowski was approved by the National Assembly on the recommendation of Sejmmarschalls Maciej Rataj with elected head of state by the votes of the left and the center in the first ballot . Philologist and historian Kazimierz Morawski ran for the right .

Wojciechowski's tenure was overshadowed by a rise in unemployment and inflation, by waves of strikes, financial scandals, countless government crises and, finally, bloody unrest in Krakow and other cities. In 1923 Piłsudski resigned as army chief and chairman of the powerful military council. In November 1925, the formation of a coalition government under Aleksander Skrzyński was the last attempt to deal with the country's serious economic problems with parliamentary means. The appointment of the center-right government under Wincenty Witos has polarized public opinion, as the urban population feared a tax policy that privileged farmers and landowners.

Wojciechowski's grave

The President opposed Piłsudski's demands for discipline and containment of parliamentarism, citing the principle of legality. After the coup and the capture of Warsaw by Piłsudski's troops, President Wojciechowski was forced to resign together with the Witos government on the night of May 15, 1926 in order to give the marshal a free hand to initiate the “reorganization of the state” on an authoritarian basis. The presidency was given to Ignacy Mościcki , who acted as a puppet of Piłsudski and the military.

After his resignation Wojciechowski worked as a lecturer at the University of Commerce and the University of Agriculture in Warsaw. In 1937 he contacted the activists of the Morges Front and co-founded the opposition Labor Party .

The film producer and politician Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska is his great-granddaughter.

literature

• Piotr Wróbel: Stanisław Wojciechowski, prezydent Rzeczypospolitej 20 XII 1922-14 V 1926 . In: Andrzej Chojnowski, Piotr Wróbel (Ed.): Prezydenci i premierzy Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej . Zakład Narodowy imienia Ossolińskich, Wydawnictwo, Breslau, Warsaw, Krakow 1992, ISBN 83-04-03854-4 , p. 49-63 .
• Elżbieta Steczek-Czerniawska: Stanisław Wojciechowski (1869–1953). Prezydent z Kalisza . Kaliskie Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Nauk, Kalisz 2011, ISBN 978-83-62689-04-0 .

Web links

Commons : Stanisław Wojciechowski  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Biography of Stanislaw Wojciechowski - Official website of the Polish President (English)

Footnotes

1. ^ Stanisław Wojciechowski. In: Szkoła Główna Handlowa website . Retrieved June 16, 2015 (Polish). , Original quote: “Wyjechał do Zurychu, a następnie do Paryża. Pracował tam jako zecer, co traktował nie tylko jako sposób zarabiania na życie, ale również jako naukę przydatnego dla potrzeb konspiracji zawodu. “, Dt. Translation: “He traveled to Zurich and then to Paris. He worked there as a printer, which for him not only meant making a living, but also teaching a profession that was useful in conspiracy . "  
2. ↑ Polska: Prezydentowe II RP: rewolucjonistka, feministka i sekretarka poprzedniczki. (No longer available online.) In: Polska Agencja Prasowa , Polonia dla Polonii. Formerly in the original ; Retrieved December 17, 2012 (Polish).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Original quote: "Po konspiracyjnym, cichym ślubie młodzi osiedlili się w Anglii, gdzie Wojciechowski zaczął pracę zecera w drukarni PPS (...).", Dt. Translation: "After a secret, silent wedding celebration, the bride and groom moved to England, where Wojciechowski started work as a typesetter in the PPS print shop (...)".