Stanisław "Cat" Mackiewicz (18 December 1896 in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

, Russia – 18 February 1966 in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

) was a conservative Polish writer, journalist and monarchist. The interwar journalist Adolf Maria Bocheński called him the foremost political journalist of the interbellum

Second Polish Republic The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 7 October 1918 and 6 October 1939. The state was established in the final stage of World War I ...

Life

Mackiewicz was born into a Polish family that had historically used the '' Bożawola'' coat-of-arms. Mackiewicz joined the Polish Military Organisation in 1917 and served as a volunteer in the Polish Army during the Polish-Soviet War of 1919–21. He published and served as the editor-in-chief of the independent Wilno (Vilnius) periodical titled "Słowo," wholly financially supported by the noble families of the former

Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a sovereign state in northeastern Europe that existed from the 13th century, succeeding the Kingdom of Lithuania, to the late 18th century, when the territory was suppressed during the 1795 Partitions of Poland, ...

. He actively promoted the idea of the so-called Jagellonian Poland, i.e., return to the

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, also referred to as Poland–Lithuania or the First Polish Republic (), was a federation, federative real union between the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ...

style of governance in Eastern Europe. He supported

Józef Piłsudski Józef Klemens Piłsudski (; 5 December 1867 – 12 May 1935) was a Polish statesman who served as the Chief of State (Poland), Chief of State (1918–1922) and first Marshal of Poland (from 1920). In the aftermath of World War I, he beca ...

Krzysztof Masłoń: Błazeńska czapka Cata-Mackiewicza
at '' Rzeczpospolita'', 4 August 2010. and in 1928–35 served as a deputy to the ''

Sejm The Sejm (), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (), is the lower house of the bicameralism, bicameral parliament of Poland. The Sejm has been the highest governing body of the Third Polish Republic since the Polish People' ...

'' (Poland's parliament), representing the Piłsudskiite Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government. After Piłsudski's death in 1935, Mackiewicz criticized the ruling elite and in 1939 was imprisoned for 17 days at the Bereza Kartuska detention camp. On 18 September 1939, a day after the Soviet attack on eastern Poland during the Soviet-German

Invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939 (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Second Polish Republic, Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak R ...

, he left Poland. Following the Yalta Conference and subsequent occupation by Stalin of Poland and the later establishment of the Communist Poland, Mackiewicz, like so many other political exiles, remained abroad and was politically active in the Polish émigré community. He served as prime minister of the

Polish government-in-exile The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile (), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and the subsequent Occupation ...

in 1954–55. In 1956, Mackiewicz returned to Poland, where he continued writing under the

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true meaning ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's o ...

of Gaston de Cerizay.Neubauer, John (editor) 200
''The Exile and Return of Writers from East-Central Europe: A Compendium''
Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co, Berlin (p. 177) In 1964 he was one of the signatories of the so-called Letter of 34 to Prime Minister Józef Cyrankiewicz regarding freedom of culture. He was the older brother of ardent enemy of the communist system, writer Józef Mackiewicz.

Works

* ''Historja Polski od 11 listopada 1918 r. do 17 września 1939 r.'' (The History of Poland from 11 November 1918 to 17 September 1939), 1941, 1958, 1989, 1990, 1992 * '' Stanisław August'', 1953, 1978, 1991, 1999, 2009 * ''Muchy chodzą po mózgu'' (Flies Walk the Brain), 1957 * ''Zielone oczy'' (Green Eyes), 1958, 1959, 1987 * ''Europa in flagranti'' (Europe ''in flagranti''), 1965, 1975, 2000 * ''Odeszli w zmierzch: wybór pism, 1916–1966'' (They Have Passed into the Twilight: a Collection of Writings, 1916–1966), 1968 * ''Kto mnie wołał, czego chciał...'' (Who Called Me, What He Wanted...), Instytut Wydawniczy "Pax" ("Pax" Publishing Institute), 1972 * ''Był bal'' (There Was a Ball), 1973 * ''Herezje i prawdy'' (Heresies and Truths), 1975 * ''Klucz do Piłsudskiego'' (The Key to Piłsudski), 1986, 1992, 1996 * ''Lata nadziei: 17 września 1939 – 5 lipca 1945'' (Years of Hope: 17 September 1939 – 5 July 1945), 1990 * ''Myśl w obcęgach: studia nad psychologią społeczeństw sowietów'' (Thinking in a Vise: Studies on the Psychology of Soviet Societies), 1998 * ''Polityka Becka'' (

Beck Beck David Hansen (born Bek David Campbell; July 8, 1970), known mononymously as Beck, is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He rose to fame in the early 1990s with his Experimental music, experimental and Lo-fi mus ...

's Policies), 2009 * ''Teraz jestem tutaj. Albo może raczej nigdzie = Now I'm here. Or perhaps, rather, nowhere'', edited by Tomasz Wiech and Maciej Zakrzewski. Kraków: IPN, 2014. Photographs taken in London from 1945 to 1956.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mackiewicz, Stanislaw 1896 births 1966 deaths 20th-century Polish journalists 20th-century Polish male writers 20th-century Roman Catholics Military personnel from Saint Petersburg People from Sankt-Peterburgsky Uyezd Polish nobility Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government politicians Members of the Sejm of the Second Polish Republic (1928–1930) Members of the Sejm of the Second Polish Republic (1930–1935) Association of the Polish Youth "Zet" members PAX Association members Polish monarchists Polish anti-communists Polish conservatives Polish exiles Polish political writers Polish Roman Catholic writers Inmates of Bereza Kartuska Prison Polish people of the Polish–Soviet War Burials at Powązki Cemetery People associated with Kultura (magazine)

Life

Works

See also

Notes