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Gabriel Narutowicz
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Gabriel Narutowicz - of his own coat of arms (born on March 17, 1865 in Telšiai; died on December 16, 1922 in Warsaw) an engineer, a hydroelectrician, a professor at the Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, Switzerland, the Minister of Public Works (1920 – 1921), the Minister of Foreign Affairs (1922), the first president of the Second Polish Republic, a mason.
Family
Gabriel Narutowicz was born into Samogitian noble family in Telšiai, Lithuania.
His father – Jan Narutowicz - was the local district judge.
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Encyclopedia
Gabriel Narutowicz - of his own coat of arms (born on March 17, 1865 in Telšiai; died on December 16, 1922 in Warsaw) an engineer, a hydroelectrician, a professor at the Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, Switzerland, the Minister of Public Works (1920 – 1921), the Minister of Foreign Affairs (1922), the first president of the Second Polish Republic, a mason.
Family
Gabriel Narutowicz was born into Samogitian noble family in Telšiai, Lithuania.
His father – Jan Narutowicz - was the local district judge. He was also the landowner of Brevikiai (lith. Brevikiai) located in Samogitia. For taking part in the January Uprising, he was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment. Jan died when Gabriel was only one year old.
Wiktoria Szczepkowska (Gabriel’s mother) was the third wife of Jan Narutowicz. After the death of her husband, she had to bring their sons up on her own. She was an educated woman, fascinated by the philosophy of the Enlightenment. She had a great influence on Gabriel’s interests and views. In 1873 she decided to move to Liepaja, so that her sons wouldn’t have to attend the Russian school, where after the defeat of the January Uprising, Russification was more strongly enforced.
Gabriel Narutowicz’s brother, Stanislaw Narutowicz, was a Lithuanian citizen. He was a member of the Council of Lithuania, the provisional Lithuanian parliament formed in the late stages of World War I. Stanislaw Narutowicz’s signature appears on the Act of Independence of Lithuania (February 16, 1918).
Between 1865 and 1920
Gabriel finished gimnasium in Liepaja in Latvia. He started studying in the Institute for Mathematical Physics in Petersburg. However, because of the illness, he was forced to give up his studies. He spent most of his life in Switzerland, where from 1887 to 1891 he studied at the Zurich Polytechnic.
During his studies he helped the Poles who were on the run from the Russian authorities. He was also connected with an emigration party called “Proletariat”. Thus, he was banned from returning to Poland; what is more, the Russian authorities issued a warrant for his arrest. In 1895 Gabriel Narutowicz became a Swiss citizen and, after completing his studies, he got his first job on the construction of the St. Gallen railway.
He was an excellent construction engineer. In 1895 he became a chief of works on the River Rhine. Later he was hired by the Kurstein technical office. His works were exhibited at the International Exhibition in Paris (1896) and he became a famous pioneer of electrification in Switzerland. He directed the construction of many hydroelectric power plants in Western Europe (in places such as: Monthey, Mühleberg and Andelsbuch).
In 1907 he became the professor at the Polytechnic School in the water construction institute in Zurich. He was the dean of that institute from 1913 to 1919. He was also a member of the Swiss Committee of Water Economy. In 1915 he was chosen to be a chairman of the International Committee for the regulation of the River Rhine.
During World War I he cooperated with the General Swiss Committee that helped victims who suffered during the war in Poland. He was also a member of La Pologne et la Guerre located in Lausanne. He strongly believed in the ideas popularized by Józef Pilsudski. In September 1919 Gabriel Narutowicz was invited by the Polish government to return to the country, which he started rebuilding.
Between 1920 and 1922
After coming back to Poland, on June 23, 1920 Narutowicz became the Minister of Public Works in Wladyslaw Grabski’s government. He held that post until June 26, 1922 (in four different subsequent cabinets: of Wladyslaw Grabski, Wincenty Witos and the first and the second government of Antoni Ponikowski). After becoming the Minister of Public Works, Narutowicz immediately started to work on the rebuilding of his destroyed country. He used the experience he had acquired while working in Switzerland, where he had been a pioneer of electrification. He reorganized the reconstruction administration and reduced the number of people employed in that field by about four times over the course of two years (in order to increase its efficiency). He travelled around the country to supervise and control the works. In 1921 almost 270,000 of buildings were rebuilt, over 300 bridges and most of the roads were mended and about 200 km of highways was built. He designed dams and supervised the building of the hydroelectric power plant in Porabka on the river Sola, in Beskid Mountains and worked on river control of the Vistula River.
He was perceived as a reasonable and broad-minded man. He was a member of the government in every subsequent cabinet (it was the period of constant government crises). In April 1922, Narutowicz was delegated (together with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the time, Konstanty Skirmunt) to participate in an international conference in Genoa. Thanks to him the Polish delegation was successful. According to some, a lot of foreign diplomats had greater trust in Narutowicz (he was highly respected in the West) than in the government of a newly established country. On June 28, 1922, he became the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Artur Sliwinski’s government. He also held that post in the later government of Julian Ignacy Nowak. In October, 1922, he was a representative of Poland at a conference in Tallinn.
In the elections to Parliament in 1922, he supported the National Public Union (Pol: Unia Narodowo-Panstwowa), connected with Józef Pilsudski. He was a candidate of Public Union on Eastern Borderland (Pol: Panstwowe Zjednoczenie na Kresach); however, he did not get a seat in the Parliament.
Presidential elections
After having lost the elections, Gabriel Narutowicz continued to be the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the government of Julian Nowak. He was surprised that in December he was chosen to be one of the candidates in the presidential elections. Even Józef Pilsudski dissuaded him from standing for election. At first he wanted to decline the proposal of the members of Polish People's Party "Wyzwolenie" (Pol: Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe “Wyzwolenie - PSL “Wyzwolenie”) but eventually accepted it.
At that time (according to the March Constitution of Poland - 1921) the president was chosen by the National Assembly (Pol: Zgromadzenie Narodowe – Sejm and Senate). There was no winner after the first round of voting. In the next round the socialist candidate, Ignacy Daszynski, was eliminated, but no one won either. The next ones to drop out were: the candidate of the united groupings of the national minorities, Jan Baudouin de Courtenay and Stanislaw Wojciechowski (supported by some part of the Left). In the last round, which had to be decisive, there were two candidates left: count Maurycy Zamoyski (connected with the right-wing National Democracy movement) and Gabriel Narutowicz (supported by some left wing parties and national minorities).
Narutowicz won thanks to votes of the Left, national minorities (who were opposed to National Democracy movement) and Polish People’s Party “Piast” (Pol: Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe “Piast” – PSL “Piast”), which (contrary to expectations) in the last round of voting supported Narutowicz, not the candidate of the right wing, Zamoyski. Eventually, Narutowicz got 289 votes and count Zamoyski – 227. Narutowicz was elected the first president of the Second Polish Republic.
His victory in the elections came as a big surprise to the right wing. Just after Narutowicz was elected, the Right (catholic and national groups) started an aggressive campaign against him, accusing him of being an atheist and a member of the Masonic order. He was called by the media “the Jewish president”. The right wing, supported by General Józef Haller, also criticized him for his relations with Józef Pilsudski and for supporting his politics. To demonstrate their opposition against the swearing-in of the president-elect, members of the National Democracy movement started riots in Warsaw.
Presidency
Gabriel Narutowicz was a president of the Polish Republic only for five days. The swearing in took place on December 11, 1922. During that day, demonstrators tried to stop the president-elect from getting to Parliament by blocking the streets. Narutowicz did not feel comfortable with the fact that he was perceived as the main figure of the Left. He became the candidate of the Polish Peasant Party "Wyzwolenie" rather by coincidence; he also had not expected to win the elections (in the first round Narutowicz gained just 62 of all voices; whereas, count Maurycy Zamoyski - 222). Gabriel Narutowicz was trying to insulate himself from the brutal attacks of the Right.
During the first days after the swearing in, Gabriel Narutowicz met the representatives of the Christian Democratic Party and the cardinal Aleksander Kakowski. Narutowicz took into account that it would be impossible to form a majority government in the Parliament, so he made an attempt to create the government beyond the purview of parliament. As a gesture to the right wing, he offered a post of the Minister of Foreign Affairs to his rival, Maurycy Zamoyski.
Just several days after taking office, on December 16, 1922, Narutowicz was shot at 12:00 a.m., in the National Gallery of Art “Zacheta”. The assassin was a painter, Eligiusz Niewiadomski, who had connections with the National Democratic Party. The death of the president was the result of an aggressive criticism held against him. The assassin was regarded as a hero. After he was sentenced to death (the execution took place on the slopes of the Warsaw Citadel on January 31), some people from the right wing started to perceive him as a cult figure.
The murder of the first president of the Second Polish Republic and the angry canvassing against him revealed impermanence of democratic mechanisms in Poland at that time. December of 1922 revealed a huge level of intolerance and nationalistic feeling in Polish society.
The murder of Narutowicz was the main theme of a Polish feature film “Death of a President” (Pol: "Smierc prezydenta" from 1977), directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz.
See also
- List of Presidents of Poland
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