Stanisław Jan Patek (; 1 May 1866 – 25 August 1944), Polish lawyer,

freemason Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

and diplomat, served as

Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (''Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych'', MSZ) is the Polish government department tasked with maintaining Poland's international relations and coordinating its participation in international and regional supra-nation ...

from 1919 to 1920.

The lawyer

Born in Rusinów, he was an activist of the

Polish Socialist Party The Polish Socialist Party ( pl, Polska Partia Socjalistyczna, PPS) is a socialist political party in Poland. It was one of the most important parties in Poland from its inception in 1892 until its merger with the communist Polish Workers' P ...

who began his career as an attorney in 1894 in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

Russian partition The Russian Partition ( pl, zabór rosyjski), sometimes called Russian Poland, constituted the former territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that were annexed by the Russian Empire in the course of late-18th-century Partitions of Po ...

(

Congress Poland Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It w ...

).Richard J. Kozicki, Piotr Wróbel (ed.), ''Historical Dictionary of Poland, 966-1945'', Greenwood Press, 1996,
Google Print, p.422
/ref> From 1903 he became involved in legal assistance for

political prisoner A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although n ...

s, and since defended many Poles accused for

political dissident A dissident is a person who actively challenges an established political or religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or institution. In a religious context, the word has been used since the 18th century, and in the political sense since the 20t ...

as well as members of

Combat Organization of the Polish Socialist Party The Combat Organization of the Polish Socialist Party ( pl, Organizacja Bojowa Polskiej Partii Socjalistycznej, abbreviated ''OBPPS''), also translated as Fighting Organization of the Polish Socialist Party; also known as ''bojówki'' ( paramilita ...

before the Russian courts in

ed Poland (particularly in the

Warsaw Citadel Warsaw Citadel (Polish: Cytadela Warszawska) is a 19th-century fortress in Warsaw, Poland. It was built by order of Tsar Nicholas I after the suppression of the 1830 November Uprising in order to bolster imperial Russian control of the city. I ...

).Stanisław Patek
Encyklopedia PWN, Retrieved on 2 August 2007 Founder and activist of Polish legal association grouping like-minded lawyers (''Koło Obrońców Politycznych - The Circle of Political Defenders'') Krzysztof Pol
Sylwetki wybitnych adwokatów: Adwokaci warszawscy w Cytadeli 1905–1910
Adwokatura Polska as well as of other organizations dedicated to helping political prisoners (''Ogólna Kasa Pomocy dla Więźniów Politycznych'' (General Bank for Helping Political Prisoners), ''Związek Pomocy dla Ofiar Politycznych'' (Association of Help for Political Repression Victims); those organizations would be headquartered in his legal offices. In the years 1905-1907 the lawyers of ''Koło'' took part in about 260 trials; over 20% were found innocent.Halina Kiepurska,

', Palestra nr 4/1964 During that period he met his future partner,

Stefania Sempołowska Stefania Sempołowska (1 October 1869 – 31 January 1944) was a Polish educator, activist and writer. She has been described as the leader of the movement for prisoners' rights in Poland during most of her lifetime. Biography Sempołowska was ...

, a semi-official secretary and counselor of the Koło. He was the personal defender of such high-profile defendants as Stefan Aleksander Okrzeja and Józef Montwiłł-Mirecki, and gained the reputation as an excellent

orator An orator, or oratist, is a public speaker, especially one who is eloquent or skilled. Etymology Recorded in English c. 1374, with a meaning of "one who pleads or argues for a cause", from Anglo-French ''oratour'', Old French ''orateur'' (14th ...

and lawyer. He gained such a reputation, and skills, that government provocateurs and agents he liked to call for witness commonly made mistakes in their testimonies. He didn't hesitate to criticize the existing political situation, and discuss the common repressions and brutality of

tsar Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East Slavs, East and South Slavs, South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''Caesar (title), caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" i ...

's police. In his famous speech during Okrzeja's trial he said: The organizations defending political prisoners had an unclear legal status in Russian Empire, and were repressed by the government. Due to his activities, as the leading Polish lawyer with an unmatched track of getting his defendants out of the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

, and often out from prison altogether, Patek became increasingly inconvenient to the Russian government, and became a target for repressions himself; in 1908 he was accused of "ties with the defendants" (indeed, for a time, even

Józef Piłsudski ), Vilna Governorate, Russian Empire (now Lithuania) , death_date = , death_place = Warsaw, Poland , constituency = , party = None (formerly PPS) , spouse = , children = Wan ...

, the future leader of Poland, was hiding in Patek's house); Patek was arrested and briefly imprisoned for a month, but after an intervention by several known Polish and even Russian lawyers, he was released. In 1910 he was subject to another disciplinary hearing for "usage of improper terms during the trials", "conspiracy to change statements", "membership in secret illegal organizations"; he was declared innocent by a regional court, only to have the prosecution open another case against him or appeal against the verdict. Finally, in 1911, despite protests from lawyers from Poland and Russia, he was dropped from the list of the attorneys in

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

; as contemporary Russian newspaper ''Zvezda'' put it, "due to political considerations".''W 1911 r. „Zwiezda" informowała, że Stanisław Patek został nawet usunięty, ze względów politycznych, z rady adwokackiej''.
Svetlana Mihajlovna Falkovic, Maria Kotowska, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1982, , p. 248 After Poland regained independence in 1918, in recognition of his status as one of the most outstanding Polish lawyers, he was involved in the creation of new Polish legal system. In November 1918 he became the President of the Criminal Division of the Appellate Court in Warsaw, and was soon appointed a Judge of the

Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

The diplomat

Member of the Polish National Committee in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

as one of the Piłsudski's representatives and Polish delegation at the

Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...

(16 December 1919 - 9 June 1920). From 1921 to 1926, Polish

envoy Envoy or Envoys may refer to: Diplomacy * Diplomacy, in general * Envoy (title) * Special envoy, a type of diplomatic rank Brands *Airspeed Envoy, a 1930s British light transport aircraft *Envoy (automobile), an automobile brand used to sell Bri ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

, Japan. From 1926 to 1932 envoy to

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, where he negotiated for the Soviet-Polish Non-Aggression Pact.Kornat, Marek;, ''Polish Diplomatic Representatives and Ambassadors in Soviet Union (1921–1939 and 1941–1943'', The Polish Diplomatic Review (5 (21)/2004) From 1933-1935

ambassador An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or sov ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

, United States. Returned to Poland due to illness, senator of Poland, nominated by the

president President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

, from 1936 to 1939. A member of the Parliamentary Commission on Foreign Affairs, he was critical of Polish Foreign Minister

Józef Beck Józef Beck (; 4 October 1894 – 5 June 1944) was a Poles, Polish statesman who served the Second Republic of Poland as a diplomat and military officer. A close associate of Józef Piłsudski, Beck is most famous for being Polish foreign minist ...

Last years

After the

German invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week afte ...

, he was involved in protecting the

Polish Jews The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the lo ...

. He died on 25 August 1944, in a hospital in

,Biblioteka sejmowa. Stanisław Jan Patek
/ref> during the

Warsaw Uprising The Warsaw Uprising ( pl, powstanie warszawskie; german: Warschauer Aufstand) was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance movement in World War II, Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occ ...

, as a result of injuries sustained on 22 August in an explosion of a

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...

bomb.

The lawyer

The diplomat

Last years

References

Further reading