Walenty Stefański

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Walenty Maciej Stefański (born February 12, 1813 in Śródka , † June 30, 1877 in Pelplin ) was a Polish publicist and revolutionary.

Life

Walenty Stefański came from a family of fishermen. Nevertheless, he was able to attend high school for a short time. He then completed an apprenticeship in the Decker Hofdruckerei in Poznan and continued his self-taught education. In 1831 he illegally crossed the Prussian border into Russia to take part in the November Uprising. After his return, he and his family were subjected to repression.

In 1838 or 1839 he opened a bookstore and printing house. Up until now, this branch in the region was mostly in German or Jewish hands. He published popular religious and historical writings and also distributed smuggled banned political works. Stefański also had contacts with emigrants in Western Europe.

After 1840, Polish political ambitions intensified in the Grand Duchy of Poznan . Stefański founded the Plebeian Union in 1842/43 and also published a newspaper. This movement was to become a mass political organization of Polish farmers and artisans. He represented an early socialism | utopian socialism and demanded the restoration of the Polish state within its old borders. In the new Poland there should be no more class differences, the land should be evenly distributed and everyone should have the right to work.

The authorities suspected him of communist activities. He subsequently developed into one of the busiest underground activists and broke with the moderate Poznan committee around Karol Libelt .

Together with other radicals, Stefański planned an uprising against Prussian rule. The plan failed and the authorities became aware. Stefański tried to establish contacts across the borders in the Austrian and Russian-dominated parts of Poland. In 1845 he criticized the inaction of the Poznan Committee and planned to take it over with his supporters. He was denounced and arrested. In the meantime, an attempt at uprising in Poznan in 1846 had failed. At the Polish trial in Berlin, no guilt could be proven and he was acquitted at the end of 1847.

Back in Poznan, he became one of the driving forces behind the uprising of 1848 . On March 20, 1848, he organized a popular assembly that elected a national committee to lead. Stefański was elected to the committee, in which the moderates had a majority. With Gazeta Polska he published a Polish-language newspaper. In the following period he approached the moderate majority of the national committee. On April 11th, he signed the Jarosławiec Agreement on behalf of the Committee. At the height of the uprising, he advocated guerrilla tactics by the insurgents.

In the following time until 1850 he was one of the leading members of the League Polska . He also continued to publish various newspapers. After the authorities closed his printing house in 1851, he became a businessman. He was not economically successful. In 1853 he went to Pomerania . In 1863 and 1864 he was imprisoned for political offenses. In his last years he turned to mysticism.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stanislaw Nawrocki: The Poles under Prussian Rule In: Germans and Poles in the Revolution 1848–1849. Boppard, 1991 p. 9
  2. ^ Stanislaw Nawrocki: The Poles under Prussian Rule In: Germans and Poles in the Revolution 1848–1849. Boppard, 1991 p. 11
  3. ↑ Krzystof Makowski: The Grand Duchy of Posen in the revolutionary year of 1848. In: Rudolf Jaworski, Robert Luft (Ed.): 1848/49. Revolutions in East Central Europe. Munich 1996. ISBN 3-486-56012-3 , pp. 149–172, here p. 151.

literature

  • George J. Lerski: Historical Dictionary of Poland, 966-1945 Westport, 1996 571f.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Stefański, Walenty
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stefański, Walenty Maciej (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish publicist and revolutionary
DATE OF BIRTH February 12, 1813
PLACE OF BIRTH Śródka
DATE OF DEATH June 30, 1877
Place of death Pelplin