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The
Paleczny list
of outstanding Poles
A
work in progress |
|
| Boleslaw the Brave |
The first king of Poland, Boleslaw consolidated Polish
sovereignty and established relations with Europe, resulting in the Holy
Roman Emperor Otto III visiting Gniezno in the year 1000. |
Nicolaus Copernicus
(1473-1543)
|
Polish
astronomer
Mikolaj (Niklas)
Kopernik
risked enormous censure when he published his theory that the earth and
planets orbit the sun,
the heliocentric theory, earning him the unofficial title, the father of
modern astronomy. |
Jan III Sobieski
(1629-96)
Sobieski at Vienna
Marcello Bacciarelli, 1783. |
The King of Poland from 1674-96, Sobieski
distinguished himself as a great leader and an outstanding Polish king.
In 1683, he led the combined Christian forces to victory over the Turks
at Vienna, thereby protecting Christian Europe from the expansion of
Islam. |
Thadeusz Kosciuszko
(1746-1817) |
A
Polish general
fought for freedom on two continents. In 1776, Benjamin
Franklin recruited him to fight in the American Revolution. He
became an engineer and a colonel of artillery in the Continental army
and built the first fortifications at West Point in what is now New York
State. Later, though he was by then a United States citizen, he returned
to Poland to defend his native land. In 1794, Kosciusko became dictator
and commander in chief of Poland and successfully defended Warsaw
against siege by Russian and Prussian armies. In October of that year,
his army of Poles was defeated by the Russians and he was wounded. He
was released from a Russian prison in 1796 and died in Switzerland. |
Adam Mickiewicz
(1798-1855) |
Polish
nationalist and poet, Mickiewicz
is famous
for literary epics based on folk tales and legends, including “Pan
Tadeusz” (1834), “Dziady, and “Grazyna.” He
was a contemporary
and friend of Fryderyk
Chopin. |
Fryderyk Francois Chopin
(1810-49)
|
Born Fryderyk
Franciszek Szopen, Chopin was one of the greatest composers of music, and is
mentioned alongside Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. The French aristocracy,
political circles and the artistic and literary elite enjoyed his music.
Chopin remained a Polish patriot, as shown by his request to send his
heart to Warsaw after his death. His heart was placed in the Holy Cross
Church in Warsaw. |
Joseph Conrad
(1857-1924)
|
Born Teodor Jozef Korzeniowski, Conrad wrote
masterpieces in English though he did not speak English until the age of
20. Conrad worked as a seaman and immigrated to England where he
established himself as a prominent author of English novels, including:
"Heart of Darkness" (1899), "Lord Jim" (1900), “Nostromo”
(1904), “Secret Agent” (1907), “Under Western Eyes” (1911) and
"Chance" (1914). |
Ignacy Jan Paderewski
(1860-1941)
|
Known as the pianist-statesman, Paderewski was a
world-renowned concert performer who played a significant role in
building American public opinion during World War I in favour of a “united,
independent and autonomous Poland” -- the words used in 1917 by US
President Woodrow Wilson to describe Paderewski’s cause. Paderewski
served as prime minister of Poland in 1919. |
Marja Sklodowska Curie
(1867-1934)
|
A distinguished Polish physicist and twice winner of
the Nobel prize, in 1903 and 1911, for radium research, Sklodowska Curie
discovered the radioactive elements radium and polonium and was the
first woman to become a professor at the Sorbonne in Paris. She is
buried in the Pantheon in Paris. In addition to two Nobel Prizes, Marie
Curie received the Berthelot Medal of the French Academy of Sciences
(1902), the Davy Medal of the Royal Society of London (1903), and the
Elliott Cresson Medal of the Franklin Institute (1909). She was a member
of 85 scientific societies throughout the world and received 20 honorary
degrees. |
|
Josef Klemens Pilsudski
(1867-1935)
|
During a period when Poland did not even appear on the
map of Europe and hadn’t for more than a hundred years, Pilsudski was
a politician who believed that Poland would regain her independence.
During World War I, he organized the Polish armed forces known as the
Polish Legion. From 1918-21, he led the new Republic as chief of state
and commander-in-chief. In 1920, he defeated the Russians, who thought
they could simply march through Poland on their way to taking over
Europe. He was dictator and premier of Poland from 1926-28, and briefly
again in 1930, and his legacy remains an inspiration to Poles who defend
their homeland. |
Rose Schneiderman
(1884-1972) |
A Russian/Polish-born US labor leader and suffragist,
Schneiderman immigrated to the US in 1890. She was a Farmer-Labor Party
candidate for the Senate from New York in 1920; she was national
president of the Women's Trade Union League from 1926-49; she was a
member (and the only female member) of the Labor Advisory Board to the
National Industrial Recovery Administration from 1933-35; and she was
secretary of the New York state department of labor from 1937-44. |
David Ben-Gurion
(1886-1973)
|
A Polish-born Israeli politician originally named David
Green; Ben-Gurion was the first prime minister of Israel and served in
that position from 1948-53 and 1955-63. |
Albert Bruce Sabin
(1906-93)
|
Born
in Bialystok, Poland, Sabin was a physician, medical microbiologist and
a professor of pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati College of
Medicine, from 1939-60, where he developed an oral vaccine for polio. |
David Lewis
(1909-81) |
A Polish-born Canadian politician originally named
David Losh, Lewis was secretary of the Co-operative Commonwealth
Federation (CCF) (1937-50). He also helped organize the New Democratic
Party (1961) and became leader (1971-75). He is the father of Stephen,
who is the former leader of the Ontario NDP and Canadian ambassador to
the United Nations, and he is grandfather of Avi, television host of CBC
news talk show Counterspin. |
Menachem Begin
(1913-92) |
A Polish-born Israeli politician, Begin was prime
minister of Israel from 1977-83. Begin won the Nobel Prize for Peace in
1978. |
Jan Karski
(1914-2000) |
A Polish diplomat and resistance leader in World War II
originally named Jan Kozielewski, Karski infiltrated the Warsaw ghetto
and Izbica concentration camp to bring the first eyewitness account of
Holocaust to the West. |
Karol Jozef Wjotyla
(1920- )
|
Polish
poet, philosopher and theologian, Karol
Wjotyla was elected pope in 1978 and
took the name of John
Paul II, becoming the
first Slav on the throne of Peter. John Paul II was a professor of moral
philosophy at the Catholic University in Lublin (1954-58); a bishop of
Ombi (1958-64); an archbishop of Cracow (1963-78); and a cardinal
(1967). Prior to becoming pope, his publications included: a play,
"The Goldsmith Shop" (1960) under the pseudonym Andrej Jawien;
a colletion of poetry "Easter Vigil and Other Poems" (1979)
also under the same pseudonym. As pope, he wrote the papal encyclicals
"Veritatis Splendor" (1993), which means "The Splendor of
Truth", "Evangelium Vitae" (1995), which is known as
"The Gospel of Life." In addition, he published a collection
of reflections entitled "Crossing the Threshold of Hope"
(1994). John Paul II was also the
first pope to visit a Communist country, when he visited his native
Poland. He was also the first pope to visit a United States president in
the White House. Dubbed the "pilgrim pope," he had visited 44
nations by 1990. |
Shimon Peres
(1923- ) |
A Polish/Belarus-born Israeli diplomat and politician
(orig. Shimon Persky), Peres was prime minister of Israel in 1977,
1984-86, 1995-96. He received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1994. |
Andrzej Wajda
(1926- ) |
Wajda
is a Polish
movie director
known for notable
Polish films such as “Kanal” (1957),
“Ashes and Diamonds” (1958), and
“Pan Tadeusz,” for which he won an Oscar in 2000. Incidentally, in
1994, Polish specialists working with Steven Spielberg on “Schindler's
List,” which was filmed in Poland, received three Oscars: Allan
Starski for scenography, Ewa Braun for decorations, and Janusz Kaminski,
for directing photography. |
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski
(1928- ) |
Born
in Warsaw, his family immigrated to Canada in 1938. He earned a B.A. at
McGill University in 1949, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1953.
He became a U.S. citizen in 1958. He was a professor at Harvard until
1960; then at Columbia University from 1960-77. Brzezinski was director
of the Russian Institute 1962-77; he conceived and headed up the
Trilateral Commission, 1973-76, he was head of the U.S. National
Security Council under President Carter and chief adviser on foreign
affairs 1977-81; he has been adviser at Georgetown University's Center
for Strategic and International Studies since 1981; and he has been a
professor at Johns Hopkins University since 1989. He published "The
Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic
Imperatives" in 1997. Madam Albright, the highest-ranking woman in
the Clinton Administration and the first woman secretary of state in
United States history, was Brzezinski’s student at Columbia. |
Lech Walesa
(1943- )
 |
A Polish dissident, labor leader, politician and
reformer, Walesa was co-founder and chairman of the Solidarity labor
movement in Poland from 1980-90. Walesa received the Nobel Prize for
Peace in 1983, and he published his autobiography "Le Chemin
d'espoir" in 1987. He served as president of Poland from 1990-93. |
Piotr Paleczny
(1945- )
|
This
list would not be complete without the most famous Paleczny. An eminent
pianist, Piotr Paleczny is a winner of international piano competitions,
a soloist with internationally-renowned orchestras, a guest performer in
famous concert halls, a master teacher, a recording artist of numerous
albums on various company labels, a recipient of many Polish and foreign
distinctions granted to him in recognition of his outstanding artistic
achievements, including the Commander's Cross of the Order of the "Polonia
Restituta" -- Poland’s highest award -- presented by President
Aleksander Kwaśniewski of Poland on November 5, 2001. Since 1993,
Paleczny has been the Artistic Director of the oldest music festival
held in Poland -- the International Chopin Festival in Duszniki Zdroj,
Poland. |
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