Preceded by Jerzy Hryniewski Occupation Politician, writer Name Stanislaw Mackiewicz Succeeded by Hugon Hanke Books Dostoyevsky | Nationality Polish Religion Roman Catholicism Role Writer Resting place Powazki Cemetery Siblings Jozef Mackiewicz | |
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Born 18 December 1896
Saint Petersburg, Russia ( 1896-12-18 ) Died February 18, 1966, Warsaw, Poland Political party Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government | ||
Stanisław "Cat" Mackiewicz (18 December 1896 in Saint Petersburg, Russia – 18 February 1966 in Warsaw, Poland) was a conservative Polish writer, journalist and monarchist.
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Interwar journalist Adolf Maria Bocheński called him the foremost political journalist of the interbellum Second Polish Republic.
Life
Mackiewicz was born into a Polish family that had historically used the Bożawola coat-of-arms.
Mackiewicz joined the Polish Military Organisation in 1917 and served as a volunteer in the Polish Army during the Polish-Soviet War of 1919–21. He published and the editor-in-chief of the independent Wilno (Vilnius) periodical titled "Słowo," wholly financially supported by the noble families of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania. He actively promoted the idea of the so-called Jagellonian Poland, i.e., return to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth style of governance in Eastern Europe.
He supported Józef Piłsudski and in 1928–35 served as a deputy to the Sejm (Poland's parliament), representing the Piłsudskiite Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government.
After Piłsudski's death in 1935, Mackiewicz criticized the ruling elite and in 1939 was imprisoned for 17 days at the Bereza Kartuska detention camp.
On 18 September 1939, a day after the Soviet attack on eastern Poland during the Soviet-German Invasion of Poland, he left Poland.
Following the Yalta Conference and subsequent occupation by Stalin of Poland and the later establishment of the Communist Poland, Mackiewicz, like so many other political exiles, remained abroad and was politically active in the Polish émigré community. He served as prime minister of the Polish government-in-exile in 1954–55 .
In 1956, Mackiewicz returned to Poland, where he continued writing under the pseudonym of Gaston de Cerizay.
He was the older brother of ardent enemy of the communist system, writer Józef Mackiewicz.