Historical calendar – the anniversary of the death of a prominent Polish patriot who had the courage to tell the fact about the crime in Katyn in the post-war period.
Today in our calendar we will look at the life and activities of Józef Mackiewicz.
Joseph was born in St. Petersburg on April 1, 1902. His older brother was Stanisław Cat Mackiewicz, writer and writer, and from 1945 to 1955 Prime Minister of the Polish Government on emigration.
Even as a student of Vilnius gymnasium Józef Mackiewicz took part in the Polish-bolshevik war. He then studied natural sciences at Vilnius University, including ornithology. In memory of his friends he enrolled as a lover, expert and bird farmer. He wrote reports from his travels to the Kresach, which he published in Vilnius's “Word”.
During the business of Vilnius by the German forces Mackiewicz published a paper published in Vilnius “Goniec Daily” from July to October 1941, published in Polish by the Germans. In total, he published 4 articles on the russian business of Lithuania, but the fact that he wrote to the "gadzinówka" became the basis of Mackiewicz's later accusations of collaboration with Germany. According to later interpretations, this has just become the reason for the National Army peculiar Court's death conviction on the author in 1943.
The conviction on Mackiewiec was to be executed by another author – Sergius Piasecki. However, the author of “The Lover of the large Bear” for the first time and the only 1 in past of his cooperation with the AK refused to execute the conviction due to the fact that he had doubts about Mackiewicz's guilt. Later, Colonel Aleksander Krzyżanowski, commander of the Vilnius territory of the AK, made the decision to acquit the writer. The issue of that judgement by the AK is inactive unclear. Prof. Bolecki puts the thesis that the russian agent was behind it in the ranks of the AK.
In May 1943, after the discovery of graves of Polish officers murdered by the Soviets in Katyn, Mackiewicz went with respective another Polish writers to Katyn as an observer of the exhumation of the corpse. After returning to the “Daily Goniec”, an interview with Mackiewicz, “I saw for myself”. He then wrote a book entitled “Cathin: a crime without trial and punishment” – 1 of the first works in which the Soviets are identified as liable for the Katyn crime.
In full Mackiewicz published 8 novels, volume novels, 3 publications books, respective pamphlets and 2 volumes of memories.
In 1945 Mackiewicz emigrated from the country, as after the book about Katyn he could not feel safe from the communists. After his stay in Rome and London, he yet settled in Munich. He collaborated with “Kultura” Jerzy Giedroyć and many another emigration writings, including Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian.
In Mackiewicz's writing, he frequently followed those who did not find another intercessors – “The Way to Nowhere” depicts the drama of Poles who were under russian business in 1939, “Contra” – the destiny of Cossacks, anti-communists who sided with the Germans, and after the war they were released by the Allies on the russian side.
Unfortunately, Mackiewicz's books, although they are of advanced writing quality and were most frequently published in underground publications of the day PRL, never entered the canon of school readings.
The author died in Munich on 31 January 1985.
In the 4th of a century after the death, Mackiewicz's character inactive awakens emotions. He has always had many opponents. The liberals, the conservatives, the nationalists, the communists, the ecclesiastical authorities, and the AK-of-the-creatures alike, were killing him. This is due to the fact that Mackiewicz exposed the untrueness of the widely accepted imagination of history. He showed all its complexity, multitasking, difficulty in admitting someone's right. It couldn't have been liked by everyone.
In his books he constantly questioned authoritative authority. Even in the pre-war volume of reports entitled “Rebellion of swarms” marked the sanctimonious policy of blurring in the name of the Polish language, spiritual and cultural differences in the east ends. During the war in conspiracy pamphlets, and after the war in the fresh “Don't talk Loudly”, he accused the underground authorities of de facto working with the Red Army by exchanging information. In the 1960s and 1970s, he attacked the Vatican and the Catholic Church in Poland for a friendly policy towards communists.
Jewish communist Adam Michnik described Mackiewicz's attitude as "zooological anti-communism".
Previous entry from our calendar is available Here.
