Wladyslaw Grabski

Wladyslaw Grabski

Władysław Dominik Grabski (born July 7, 1874 in Borów an der Bzura , † March 1, 1938 in Warsaw ) was a Polish ND - politician , finance minister , two-time prime minister , economist and historian . He was responsible for the financial, banking and currency reforms in Poland in the 1920s.

Life

He attended a philological high school in Warsaw until 1892 and studied political science and history in Paris at the École des Sciences Politiques and the Sorbonne (1892–1895). He then studied agricultural science in Halle from 1896 to 1897 .

After the death of his father, he returned to the family estate to take over its management, and was also involved in science and business. Its political orientation developed from socialist to social liberal to national democratic positions. He was a three-time Duma deputy (1905-1912) of Narodowa Demokracja . Later he also worked as a vice chairman of the Centralne Towarzystwo Rolnicze ( Central Peasant Society ) and during the First World War in the years 1914–1918 as President of the Centralny Komitet Obywatelski Królestwa Polskiego w Rosji (Central Citizens Committee of the Polish Kingdom in Russia) he represented Polish interests Russia (Poland did not exist at that time, see Partitions of Poland ).

In April 1918 he was imprisoned by Germans in the Modlin Fortress and released shortly before the end of the First World War in October 1918. In October 1918 he was Minister of Agriculture for 13 days in the interim government of Józef Świeżyński , in 1919 he was a member of the Związek Ludowo-Narodowy ( People's National Association ) in the Constituent National Assembly . Between December 1919 and June 1920 he was finance minister in the government of Leopold Skulski and then until November 1920 in his own. He was Polish Prime Minister twice : June 23, 1920–24. July 1920 and December 19, 1923–13. November 1925 (also Minister of Finance at that time). In 1920 he took part in the Spa Conference.

He was the main initiator of the economic stabilization plan, which included financial, banking and currency reforms, which ended hyperinflation and the free fall of the Polish economy. He was also the initiator of agrarian reform in Poland and contributed to the establishment of Bank Polski ( Polish Bank ) and Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego ( Bank for Agricultural Economics ).

In 1925 he resigned and turned to science at the Szkoła Główna Gospodarstwa Wiejskiego (SGGW), and was rector of this university from 1926 to 1928 . In 1936 he founded Instytut Socjologii Wsi (Institute of Sociology of the Rural People ) and became President of Towarzystwo Ekonomistów i Statystyków Polskich ( Society of Polish Economists and Statisticians ).

In 2004, on the initiative of the Senate, Szkoła Główna Gospodarstwa Wiejskiego was declared Grabski Year in Poland.

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

Publications (selection)

• Bilans Królestwa Polskiego w finansach Rosji (1909)
• Cele i zadania polityki agrarnej w Polsce
• Dwa lata pracy u podstaw państwowości naszej (1927)
• Historia Towarzystwa Rolniczego 1858–1861
• O własnych siłach
• Historia wsi w Polsce
• Wieś i folwark
• Wieś jako siła społeczna

literature

• Marian Drozdowski: Władysław Grabski. ISBN 83-87658-54-5 (Poland 2004)
• Wojciech Morawski: Władysław Grabski - polityk, mąż stanu, reformer. (PDF; 367 kB) Warszawa 2004
• Praca zbiorowa: Wspomnienia i relacje o reformach Władysław Grabskiego. Warszawa, 2004, ISBN 83-7244-567-2

Web links

Commons : Władysław Grabski  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Władysław Grabski - biography on the homepage of the government chancellery (Polish)
• Władysław Grabski, economic reformer and zloty father, biography and work (Polish)
• Władysław Grabski - short biography (Polish)
• Grabski exhibition in the Central Agricultural Library (Polish)
• Władysław Grabski - Biographical information in rulers.org

Footnotes

1. ↑ Law v. January 11, 1924 "O naprawie skarbu państwa i reformie walutowej" ( Law on Improving State Finances and Currency Reform )
2. ↑ Full text of the SGGW letter to Sejm ( Memento of the original from October 9, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Polish) 
3. ↑ Law on the Grabski Year ( Memento of the original of September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Polish)