Tytus Filipowicz

Tytus Filipowicz, before 1921

Tytus Filipowicz (1873–1953) was a Polish politician and diplomat.

Life

Filipowicz was born 21 November 1873 in Warsaw. He attended school in Dąbrowa Górnicza. He worked as a coal miner and became a socialist political activist; from 1895 he was active in the Dąbrowa Workers' Committee.[1] He became an active member of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) and editor of a socialist paper for miners (Górnik, Miner).[1] In 1901 he was arrested by the authorities but escaped to Russian-ruled Warsaw.

During the PPS split, he sided with the Polish Socialist Party – Revolutionary Faction and became a close collaborator of future Polish statesman Józef Piłsudski.[2] He accompanied Piłsudski on his 1904 voyage to Japan.[2] In 1905 Filipowicz was imprisoned by the Russian Empire in the Warsaw Citadel, but escaped.[2]

Under the Second Polish Republic, he was briefly deputy[3] or acting (sources vary) Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs (11–17 November 1918).[4] Later he was named Poland's ambassador to Georgia—due to his involvement in Piłsudski's Prometheist project—but in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Georgia (which was subsequently annexed as the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic) he did not assume this post but was instead arrested there by the Soviets and interned.[2] After the treaty of Riga ended the Polish-Soviet War in 1921, he become the first Polish chargé d'affaires in the Soviet Union, organizing the Polish embassy there.[2] Later he was a diplomat in Finland, Belgium and the United States (1929-32).[1] In 1933 he returned to the Soviet Union for a brief posting as ambassador.[3]

In 1934, with Gabriel Czechowicz, Filipowicz co-founded the Polish Radical Party (Polska Partia Radykalna),[1] a dissident offshoot of Sanation that, while largely adhering to political liberalism, advocated that Poland become a Christian state, with official preferences given to ethnic Poles, and Jews being encouraged to emigrate.[5]

During and after World War II, Filipowicz was a member of the Polish Government in Exile and of the National Council of the Republic of Poland (1941–42 and 1949–53).[1]

He died August 18, 1953, in London.

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 (Polish) Zygmunt Woźniczka, "Ci, którzy rozsławili Dąbrowę Górniczą", gazeta.pl, 2006-11-14
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Marek Kornat, "Posłowie i ambasadorzy polscy w Związku Sowieckim (1921–1939 i 1941–1943)" ("Polish Diplomatic Representatives and Ambassadors in the Soviet Union (1921–39 and 1941–43"), The Polish Diplomatic Review, 5 (21)/2004, pp. 129-203 online
  3. 1 2 [(Polish) [http://www.wspolnota-polska.org.pl/index.php?id=b98_11_2 Telegram], short biographical note in an article in the periodical Wspólnota Polska
  4. ↑ Polish Ministries
  5. ↑ Emanuel Melzer (1997). No Way Out: The Politics of Polish Jewry, 1935-1939. Hebrew Union College Press. p. 24. ISBN 0-87820-418-0.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, November 15, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.