Ignacy Mościcki

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Ignacy Mościcki
President of the Republic of Poland 3rd President of the Second Polish Republic
In office June 4, 1926 – September 30, 1939
Prime Minister	Kazimierz Bartel, Józef Piłsudski, Kazimierz Bartel, Kazimierz Świtalski, Kazimierz Bartel, Walery Sławek, Józef Piłsudski, Walery Sławek, Aleksander Prystor, Janusz Jędrzejewicz, Leon Kozłowski, Walery Sławek, Marian Zyndram-Kościałkowski, Felicjan Sławoj Składkowski
Preceded by	Stanisław Wojciechowski
Succeeded by	Władysław Raczkiewicz (President of the Polish Republic in Exile)
Born	December 1, 1867(1867-12-01) Mierzanowo, Congress Poland (now Poland)
Died	October 2, 1946 (aged 78) Versoix, Switzerland
Political party	(until 1892, Proletariat)
Spouse	Maria Mościcka, née Dobrzańska
Profession	Chemist

Ignacy Mościcki (1867-1946) was a Polish politician and chemist, president of Poland (1926-1939). As of 2008 he remained the longest-serving President in country, spending 13 years in office (August Zaleski was President for 25 years in exile).

Ignacy Mościcki was born December 1, 1867, in Mierzanowo (a small village near Ciechanów, Poland). After completing school in Warsaw, he studied chemistry at the Riga Polytechnicum. There he joined the Polish underground leftist organization, Proletariat.

On graduating he returned to Warsaw, but was threatened by the Tsarist secret police with life imprisonment in Siberia and was forced to emigrate in 1892 to London. In 1896 he was offered an assistantship at the Catholic University in Fribourg (Switzerland). There he patented a method for cheap industrial production of nitric acid. In 1912 he moved to Lwów, where he accepted the Chair of Physical Chemistry and Technical Electrochemistry at the Lwów Polytechnic. In 1925 he was elected rector of the Polytechnic, but soon moved to Warsaw to continue his research at the Warsaw Polytechnic.

Moscicki awarding Edward Rydz-Śmigły the buława

After Józef Piłsudski's May coup d'etat, on June 1, 1926, Mościcki — an erstwhile associate of Piłsudski's in the Polish Socialist Party — was elected president of Poland by the National Assembly, on Piłsudski's recommendation (after Piłsudski himself refused the office). As president, Mościcki was highly subservient to Piłsudski, never openly showing dissent to any aspect of the marshal's leadership. After the death of Piłsudski in 1935, Piłsudski's followers divided themselves into three main factions: those supporting Mościcki as Piłsudski's successor, those supporting general Edward Rydz-Śmigły and those supporting prime minister Walery Sławek. With a view to eliminating Sławek from the game, Mościcki concuded a power-sharing agreement with Rydz-Śmigły, which saw Sławek marginalised as a serious political player by the end of the year. As a result of this agreement, Rydz-Śmigły was to become the de facto leader of Poland, until the outbreak of the war, whilst Mościcki remained influential through continuing in the highest office of president. Mościcki was the leading moderate figure of the regime, referred to at the time as the "regime of the colonels", owing to the strong presence of army officers in the Polish government. He opposed many of the nationalistic excesses of the more right-wing, Rydz-Śmigły, but their pact remained more or less intact. Mościcki remained president until September 1939, when he was interned in Romania and was forced by France to resign his office. He transferred his office to Władysław Raczkiewicz, after his first choice for his successor was rejected by the government of France. In December 1939 he was released and allowed to move to Switzerland, where he remained through World War II. He died at his home near Geneva on October 2, 1946.

[edit] See also

• Poland
• Invasion of Poland
• Mościce
• 4-year plan