Wincenty Witos was a prominent member of the Polish People's Party (PSL) from 1895, and leader of its "Piast" faction from 1913. He was a member of parliament in the Galician Sejm from 1908–1914, and an envoy to Reichsrat

Reichsrat (Austria)

The Imperial Council of Austria from 1867 to 1918 was the parliament of the Cisleithanian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was a bicameral legislature, consisting of the Herrenhaus and the Abgeordnetenhaus...

in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 from 1911 to 1918. Witos was also a leader of Polish Liquidation Committee

Polish Liquidation Committee

The Polish Liquidation Committee was a temporary Polish government body in Galicia formed towards the end of World War I. Created on October 28, 1918, with its seat in Kraków, the Committee was headed by Wincenty Witos and Ignacy Daszyński...

  in 1918, head of the Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe Piast party, and member of parliament in the Polish Sejm

Sejm

The Sejm is the lower house of the Polish parliament. The Sejm is made up of 460 deputies, or Poseł in Polish . It is elected by universal ballot and is presided over by a speaker called the Marshal of the Sejm ....

 from 1919-1920.

He served thrice as the premier

Premier

Premier is a title for the head of government in some countries and states.-Examples by country:In many nations, "premier" is used interchangeably with "prime minister"...

 of Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

, in 1920-1921, 1923 (Chjeno-Piast

Chjeno-Piast

Chjeno-Piast was an unofficial name of a coalition of Polish political parties formed in 1923. It included the Polish Peasant Party "Piast" and an older coalition 1922 Christian Association of National Unity . The merger was passed during a meeting in the manor of senator L...

), and 1926.

In 1926 the third Witos government was overthrown by the May coup d'état led by Józef Piłsudski. Witos had been one of the leaders of the opposition to the Sanacja

Sanacja

Sanation was a Polish political movement that came to power after Józef Piłsudski's May 1926 Coup d'État. Sanation took its name from his watchword—the moral "sanation" of the Polish body politic...

-government as head of Centrolew

Centrolew

The Centrolew was a coalition of several Polish political parties after the 1928 Sejm elections...

 (1929–1930) and co-founded the Stronnictwo Ludowe

Stronnictwo Ludowe

The People's Party was a Polish political party, active from 1931 in the Second Polish Republic. An agrarian populist party, its power base was composed mostly from peasants....

. Having been imprisoned shortly thereafter and for a time living in exile in Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

 from 1933, he returned to Poland in 1939 only to be imprisoned again by the invading

Invasion of Poland (1939)

The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe...

 Germans

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

.

In ill health by 1945, he became one of vice-chairmen of the State National Council

State National Council

Krajowa Rada Narodowa in Polish was a parliament-like political body formed in the late stages of the Second World War in the Soviet Union, as part of the formation of a new Communist Polish government...

  after World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

External links

• Wincenty Witos - a short biography
• Polish People's Party - a longer, reverential biography