Stanisław Grabski (; 5 April 1871 – 6 May 1949) was a Polish economist and politician associated with the
National Democracy political camp. As the top Polish negotiator during the
Peace of Riga talks in 1921, Grabski greatly influenced the future of
Poland and the
Soviet Union.
Stanisław Grabski was the brother of
Władysław Grabski, another prominent Polish economist and politician who served as
prime minister, and of political activist
Zofia Kirkor-Kiedroniowa
Zofia Kirkor-Kiedroniowa ( Grabska; 14 May 1872 – 15 June 1952) was a Polish national activist.
Zofia Grabska was born to Feliks and Stanisława Grabski at the family possession in the village of Borów. Her brothers were Stanisław Grabs ...
.
Biography
Stanisław Grabski became a political activist early in his life. In 1890, in
Berlin, he edited ' (The Workers' Gazette). In 1892 he cofounded the
Polish Socialist Party (''PPS''), but in 1901 he detached himself from that political movement to become a member of
Roman Dmowski's "nationalist" camp (later known as
National Democracy).
A member of the
National League since 1905, a year later he became one of its leaders. From 1907 he was a member of Dmowski's party, the
National-Democratic Party. During
World War I Grabski, like Dmowski, supported the idea that Poles should ally with
Russia, and later he joined Dmowski's
Polish National Committee (''Komitet Narodowy Polski'') in
Paris.
From 1919 to 1925, in newly independent Poland (the
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of ...
), he was a deputy to the ''
Sejm'' (the Polish parliament) from the right-wing
Popular National Union (Związek Ludowo-Narodowy).
During the
Polish-Soviet War (1919–1921), he strongly opposed the alliance between Poland and the
Ukrainian People's Republic (represented by
Symon Petliura). He resigned as chair of the parliamentary commission on foreign relations in protest of this alliance.
During the negotiations of the
Peace of Riga (1921), he was the most influential Polish negotiator and was largely responsible for their outcome. The peace treaty resulted in partitioning of
Ukraine and
Belarus between Poland and the
Soviet Union.
While peace with
Soviet Russia had been accomplished, the
"federalist" objectives of
Józef Piłsudski had thus been defeated.
Norman Davies
Ivor Norman Richard Davies (born 8 June 1939) is a Welsh-Polish historian, known for his publications on the history of Europe, Poland and the United Kingdom. He has a special interest in Central and Eastern Europe and is UNESCO Professor at ...
, ''White Eagle...'', Polish edition, p.99-103
In 1923 and from 1925 to 1926 he was the Minister of Religious Beliefs and Public Education. In that time he further pursued nationalist policies, especially
Polonization. He was the architect of the 1924 ''Lex Grabski'', which de facto sought to eliminate the
Ukrainian language from Polish schools.
These policies resulted in a dramatic increase in Ukrainian private schools and served to alienate Ukrainian youths from Polish authority. In 1926 he was also one of the first Poles to speak on
radio, during the
Polish Radio inauguration ceremony. He was also one of the principal Polish negotiators for the
Concordat of 1925
The 1925 concordat (agreement) between the Holy See and the Second Polish Republic had 27 articles, which guaranteed the freedom of the Church and the faithful. It regulated the usual points of interests, Catholic instruction in primary school ...
.
After Piłsudski's
May Coup in 1926 he distanced himself from politics and concentrated on academic research into
economics. Before the
Second World War, he was a
professor at the
Lwów University,
Dublany Agricultural Academy, and
Jagiellonian University
The Jagiellonian University (Polish: ''Uniwersytet Jagielloński'', UJ) is a public research university in Kraków, Poland. Founded in 1364 by King Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland and the 13th oldest university in ...
.
When the
Soviet Union took control of Eastern Poland (
Kresy) in 1939, following the
Invasion of Poland, Grabski was arrested by the Soviets and imprisoned, like many prominent Polish intellectuals. Following the
Sikorski-Mayski Agreement, he was released and moved to
London, where he joined the
Polish government in exile
The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile ( pl, Rząd Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej na uchodźstwie), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Pola ...
. He returned to Poland in 1945. Working closely together with Polish communist
Wanda Wasilewska, Grabski (who referred to Stalin as "the greatest realist of all") sought to use Stalin to create a compact and ethnically homogenous Poland and helped to design a program for implementing policies to insure an ethnically pure Polish state. He proposed Polish and Ukrainian resettlement plans to Stalin, and traveled to Lviv in order to urge Poles to leave. He became one of the deputies to the president of the quasi-parliament
State National Council, until the new
Sejm was elected in the
1947 Polish legislative election
Parliamentary elections were held in Poland on 19 January 1947, Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p1491 the first since World War II. According to the official results, the Democratic Bloc (''Blok De ...
. Afterwards he returned to his teaching career, becoming a professor at the
University of Warsaw.
He died in
Sulejówek and was buried at
Powązki Cemetery in the family grave of the Grabski family.
Views
Grabski was an outspoken exponent of nationalist ideology in the interwar period. Agreeing with
Roman Dmowski on the goal of assimilating the non-Polish population of the
Kresy, Grabski differed in his approach. Whereas Dmowski apparently sought to recognize Ukrainians and Belorussians as folk variants of Poles, Grabski's approach was to reduce the non-Polish population to the status of second-class citizens and limiting their contact with the Polish majority. By creating a contrast between an advanced Polish culture and a primitive minority culture Grabski hoped that long term assimilation would be assured.
Symmons-Symonolewicz, Konstantin. "Polish Political thought and the problem of the eastern borderlands of Poland (1918–1939)." The Polish Review (1959): 65–81.
/ref>
Family
In 1895, Grabski married Ludmiła Rożen. The couple had five children – three daughters (Feliksa, Ludmiła, Janina) and two sons (Stanisław and Zbigniew). Stanisław died in 1920 during the Polish-Soviet War. Zbigniew (1907–1943) was a scoutmaster, jailed until 1941 by Soviets, he died as a result of an accident during his military duties. After the death of his wife in 1915, Stanisław Grabski married Zofia Smolikówna in 1916. They had two daughters – Anna (born 1919) and Stanisława (1922–2008).
Quotes
* "We want to base our relationships on love, but there is one kind of love for countrymen and another for aliens. Their percentage among us is definitely too high (...) The foreign element will have to see if it will not be better off elsewhere. Polish land for the Poles!" (1919)
* "The transformation of the state territory of the Republic into a Polish national territory is a necessary condition of maintaining our frontiers."
Works
* ''Zarys rozwoju idei społeczno-gospodarczych w Polsce'' (A sketch of the Development of Socioeconomic Ideas in Poland) (1903)
* ''Ekonomia społeczna'' (Social Economy) (1927–1929)
* ''Państwo narodowe'' (A Nation State) (1929)
* ''Ku lepszej Polsce'' (Toward a Better Poland) (1937)
* ''Na nowej drodze dziejowej'' (On a New Path of History) (1946)
* ''Pamiętniki'' (Memoirs), prepared for print and edited by W. Stankiewicz (1989)
References
External links
*
*
Stanisław Grabski
entry in the Polish PWN Encyclopedia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grabski, Stanislaw
1871 births
1949 deaths
People from Łowicz County
People from Warsaw Governorate
Polish Roman Catholics
Polish Socialist Party politicians
National-Democratic Party (Poland) politicians
Popular National Union politicians
Government ministers of Poland
Members of the Legislative Sejm of the Second Polish Republic
Members of the Sejm of the Second Polish Republic (1922–1927)
Members of the State National Council
People of the Polish May Coup (pro-government side)
Polish economists
University of Warsaw faculty
Jagiellonian University faculty
University of Lviv faculty
Commanders with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta
Recipients of the Cross of Valour (Poland)
Burials at Powązki Cemetery