Killed By An Artist: The Story of the First President of Poland

asteroid_i_polkotapczan_o_polskim_wzornictwie_powojennym_.jpg, default, President of the Republic of Poland, Gabriel Narutowicz leaving the Sejm after taking the oath, 11/12/1922, Warsaw, photo: CAF/PAP archive

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On 16 December 1922, the first president of Poland, Gabriel Narutowicz, was assassinated while attending the opening of an art exhibition at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw. President Narutowicz was gunned down by the painter Eligiusz Niewiadomski. Narutowicz’s tenure as president lasted five days. And the shots fired by his assassin lasted longer, much longer than the moment between life and death, as they forever altered the political landscape of a free Poland.

Narutowicz was born on 17 March 1865 in Telšiai, Lithuania. Telšiai, controlled by the Russian Empire, was formerly in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1884 he enrolled in the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at Saint Petersburg University after taking a year-long break due to his pulmonary tuberculosis. Unfortunately, Narutowicz did not have the fitness to continue his education. In 1886, he moved to Davos, Switzerland for treatment. In better health, Narutowicz started school at the Swiss Federal University of Technology in Zurich the following academic year, studying structural engineering. He graduated in 1891.

Narutowicz’s career flourished in Switzerland. He became a prominent engineer and built many hydroelectric power plants. One of his most well-known hydroelectric plants is Kubel in Switzerland near Saint-Gallen. Narutowicz also won several awards for his engineering. In 1896 and 1900, he won a gold medal at international exhibitions in Paris.

Gabriel Narutowicz, photo: Wolski Saryusz/NAC/NAC collections on-line

Narutowicz was unable to accelerate his return to Poland. In 1889, one of his friends, Aleksander Dębski, organized a plot to kill Czar Wilhelm II. After being injured during an assassination test run in Switzerland, Dębski contacted Narutowicz. Narutowicz was unaware of the assassination plot, but he disposed of the compromising material in Dębski’s apartment. The Russian government subsequently issued an arrest warrant for Narutowicz. This convinced him to stay in Switzerland instead of going back to Poland.

Narutowicz helped the Polish cause while in Switzerland. During World War I he became President of the Polish Self-Help Committee in Zurich. He also became involved in the General Committee for Aid to War Victims in Poland. When Poland regained its independence in 1918, Narutowicz planned his return. Poland was smaller than it was pre-partitions, but it was free. But Narutowicz’s reunion with Poland was momentarily halted when, on 20 February 1920, his wife Ewa passed away from cancer.

On 23 June 1920, Narutowicz’s return to Poland was finally arranged. Poland’s Prime Minister Wladysław Grabski’s nomination of Narutowicz as Minister of Public Works was finalized without Narutowicz’s knowledge. Narutowicz accepted the surprise nomination and served as Minister of Public Works in a few Prime Ministers’ cabinets. In this role he managed the rebuilding of Poland after World War I and the building of a new Poland. He also retained his involvement overseas, and on 28 June 1922 he started his role as Minister of Foreign Affairs.

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Meeting between Józef Piłsudski and President Narutowicz at the Belweder Palace, Warsaw, 1922, photo: Józef Piłsudski Institute/NAC/NAC on-line collection

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On 17 March 1921, Poland’s Seym passed the March Constitution, establishing the presidency in Poland. Poland’s Head of State since the end of World War I would no longer be Józef Piłsudski. But Poland’s president would not be chosen by the public either: the president of Poland would be elected by the Polish Seym and Senate.

Polish People’s Party 'Liberation'President Stanisław Thugutt proposed Gabriel Narutowicz as its candidate for president. Narutowicz had traveled in many countries and was seen as the candidate who could gain support among parties. He initially rejected the proposal, as he wanted to continue as a public servant, without holding concentrated power. But he changed his mind: Narutowicz would be the Polish People’s Party’s candidate for president.

On 9 December 1922, the first presidential election in Poland took place. The race was between five candidates: Maurycy Zamoyski, Stanisław Wojciechowski, Gabriel Narutowicz, Ignacy Daszyński, and Jan Baudouin de Courtenay. In Poland, the parties consisted of left, right, centere, and minorities, meaning that the winning candidate would need multi-party support. The candidate with the lowest number of votes after the second round was eliminated. This continued each round until a candidate amassed the majority of the votes. After the fourth round, only Zamoyski and Narutowicz remained.

Zamoyski had the support of the right while Narutowicz had the support of the left and the minorities. The Polish People’s Party 'Piast,'which was the center party and had backed Wojciechowski, would now determine the president. It supported the peasants, who turned against Zamoyski, a supporter of landowners, and would not allow Zamoyski to prevail. After the final count, Gabriel Narutowicz was president.

Following Narutowicz’s win, Zamoyski’s supporters gathered in the streets of Warsaw. They were furious that Zamoyski lost the election. The right-wing mob—which included politicians such as right-wing Seym deputy Konrad Ilski—blamed Jews among the national minorities, and they raged that Narutowicz was not a real Pole because he had lived in Switzerland.

Narutowicz, now the president-elect, did not have a clear path to his inauguration on 11 December 1922. Far-right protests continued. On Alejach Ujazdowskich (Ujazdów Avenue), angry protestors ripped park benches from the ground to make barricades in an attempt to block Narutowicz’s path to the Seym. The right-wing mob also attempted physically to stop deputies from attending Narutowicz’s swearing-in at the Seym. PPS (Socialist Polish Party) Seym deputy Ignacy Daszyński was trapped inside a building after an angry mob encircled him on the street. Zygmunt Piotrowski, another PPS deputy, was severely beaten. Deputy Rabbi Kowalski was also injured. A mob pelted the carriage carrying Narutowicz to the Sejm with snowballs, striking him.

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Building of the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, photo: Robert Drózd/(CC BY-SA 3.0)/Wikimedia.org

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Narutowicz arrived late. But Narutowicz would not let democracy be avalanched by an angry mob. Nor would missing members of parliament delay the ceremony. Marshall Maciej Rataj swore in Gabriel Narutowicz as the first President of Poland. The former Minister of Foreign Affairs would now attempt to restore his own broken country. Narutowicz was only president for five days before his assassination. On 16 December 1922, President Narutowicz attended the opening of an art exhibition at The Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw. Painter Eligiusz Niewiadomski, a member of the Zachęta society, also attended the event. President Narutowicz could not foresee that he himself would tragically end up on display. While looking at paintings, he was shot three times from behind. Niewiadomski, a right-wing supporter, later declared, employing nationalistic rhetoric, that he killed the president to attain a supposedly authentic Poland.

Thumbnail — Crypt with the sarcophagus of the President of the Republic of Poland Gabriel Narutowicz, in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist at ul. Świętojańska 8 in Warsaw, 1928, photo: NAC/NAC collection on-line

The assassination of any country’s leader is shocking. But the assassination of the first president of a democratic country is horrifying. President Narutowicz did not share the same fate of America’s first president, George Washington, who served his country in revolution before riding off into retirement. Instead, he shared a fate similar to that of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was assassinated by the actor John Wilkes Booth a few days after fighting ceased in the Civil War. Narutowicz was also assassinated during a time of presumed peace. Both presidents were murdered by fanatical political artists, showing that democracy always remains a work in progress.

_Sources:

_{'Eligiusz Niewiadomski Biography.'Eligiusz Józef Niewiadomski, Internetowy Polski Słownik Biograficzny, https://www.ipsb.nina.gov.pl/a/biografia/eligiusz-jozef-niewiadomski.}

_{'Gabriel Narutowicz Biography.'Gabriel Narutowicz (1865-1922), Minister I Pierwszy Prezydent Rp., Internetowy Polski Słownik Biograficzny, https://www.ipsb.nina.gov.pl/a/biografia/gabriel-narutowicz-1865-1922-minister-i-pierwszy-prezydent-rp#text.}

_{Pierwszy prezydent Gabriel Narutowicz by Marek Ruszczyc}

_{The Polish Way: A Thousand-Year History of Poles & Their Culture, by Adam Zamoyski, 1988, pp. 340–341.}

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