Henryk Józewski

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Henryk Józewski

Henryk Jan Józewski (

visual artist, politician, a member of government of the Ukrainian People's Republic, later an administrator during the Second Polish Republic
.

A member of

Symon Petlura, in 1920 he served as a member of the government of the Ukrainian People's Republic
.

Józewski supported

Łódź Voivodeship (1938–1939). As voivode of Wołyń, a region with a large Ukrainian
minority, he advocated increased Ukrainian autonomy.

During

Security Service. Released during the Polish October thaw in 1956, he resumed painting
.

Life

Early life

Born August 6, 1892, in

Kyiv Governorate, Russian Empire, Józewski attended the city's schools, then studied mathematics and physics at the University of Kyiv, graduating it in June 1914.[1]

He was active in Polish cultural and pro-independence organizations. In 1905, while in high school, he joined such an organization and became the leader of one of its sections. In 1910 he founded his own organization, Związek Młodzieży Postępowo-Niepodległościowej (Youth Association for Progress and Independence). In 1915 he joined the

Polish intelligence, and soon became POW deputy commander in Kyiv. Arrested by authorities, he was freed right after the February 1917 Revolution
. Soon, Henryk Józewski returned to Kyiv and resumed his activities with the POW once again.

Around that time, Józewski also began his painting career and married a fellow POW activist named Julia. In 1919 he moved from Kyiv to

Petlura's Ukrainian government to Kyiv, later retreating with that government into exile in Polish Tarnów
.

At war's end, with the

Międzymorze federation and an independent, pro-Polish Ukraine, Józewski returned to Warsaw, where he resumed his artistic career. He was a friend of novelist Maria Dąbrowska and of many of the Skamander poets. He also actively supported Petlura, whom he considered a friend and mentor; when the Soviet Union requested Petlura's extradition
, Józewski engineered his "disappearance," secretly moving him from Tarnów to his own Warsaw apartment. Petlura would eventually leave Poland in December 1923.

In Polish government

Wołyń Voivodeship
Languages of Poland, based on 1931 Polish census

Józewski actively supported

Polonia Restituta
.

As voivode of Wołyń, where Ukrainians formed the majority of the population, Józewski concentrated on improving relations between the Polish government and

Mstyslav (Skrypnyk)
.

Józewski fostered Ukrainian and Polish-Ukrainian organizations. In education, he supported the teaching of the Ukrainian language and argued for the introduction of Ukrainian as the local official language.[citation needed] As Piłsudski, Józewski espoused a multicultural and multinational view. In Józewski's eyes, the modernization led by the Polish state would lead to a multinational province.[2]

He declared that the Ukrainian national movement must choose between Poland and the Soviet Union. He opposed Soviet influences over Poland's Ukrainians and criticized certain Ukrainian organizations that he viewed as too Soviet-dependent or too extremist (e.g. Prosvita). However, due to the economic state of Poland during the Great Depression, local leaders were not replaced, so Ukrainian organizations were taken over by the state, but mostly run at a local level by the same people. [3]

His efforts were greatly feared by

Soviet Ukraine.[4]

After the 1935, death of Piłsudski, who had also favored finding peaceful solutions to the minorities problem, Józewski's influence waned, particularly as the

Łódź Voivodeship
, which had essentially no Ukrainian population.

Resistance fighter

With the

Armia Krajowa (the Home Army). He co-founded the underground Polish weekly, Biuletyn Informacyjny (Information Bulletin), edited another underground publication, Polska Walczy (Poland Fights), and was one of the chief Polish underground publicists
of the time.

With the westward advance of the

Ministry of Public Security of Poland,[citation needed] but was arrested in March 1953. In September 1953 four scripts of Józewski prison memoirs had emerged, which he had written during his interrogation. The official interrogation protocols document that the communist state security apparatus invested time and resources in the cross-questioning of Józewski.[5]

Charged with criminal, counter-revolutionary and anti-state activities, he was given a

life sentence
.

During the Polish October thaw of 1956, Józewski's sentence was reduced to 12 years, and eventually he was released from prison due to poor health. His sentence was further reduced to 5 years and finally vacated.

Last years

Józewski resumed painting, mainly

National Museum, Warsaw
.

He died on April 23, 1981, and is buried at Warsaw's Powązki Cemetery. He was married in 1919 to Julia née Bolewska (1892–1939), artist-painter, liaison POW; the couple had no children.

Political legacy

Ukrainian historiography does not regard Józewski as heroic figure, few Ukrainian historians have favorably considered the so called Polish compromisers, including Józewski. In Polish nationalism a resistance to Józewski's policy of national concession was entrenched from the outset. In the interwar period Józewski was despised by Poles of the Right.[6]

Honours and awards

Józewski Henry was awarded the Silver Cross of the

Cross of Independence with Swords and the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta
(1929).

See also

Notes

  1. ISBN 9780916458195
    .
  2. ^ Understanding Multiculturalism: The Habsburg Central European Experience, Berghahn, edited by Johannes Feichtinger, Gary B. Cohen, page 87
  3. ISBN 978-0-300-10586-5
    .
  4. ISBN 978-0-300-10586-5
    .
  5. ISBN 9780300125993
    .
  6. ISBN 9780300125993
    .

References
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