Jan Ciechanowicz


Jan Ciechanowicz is a politician of the Polish minority in Lithuania. He was one of the couple of ethnic Polish deputies of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

Biography

Jan Ciechanowicz was born in Varniany, in the then Byelorussian SSR. He studied at the Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages in Minsk. He proceeded to earn a doctor's degree. He then worked as a teacher of German and English in Polish schools in the Lithuanian SSR.
In 1975 he became a docent at the University of Vilnius, later becoming the dean of the faculty of Polish at the Vilnius Pedagogical University. In 1988, Ciechanowicz was one of the founders of the Association of Poles in Lithuania. In 1989, he was elected to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Ciechanowicz represented pro-Soviet positions, supporting the continuation of the USSR. He was one of the supporters of the autonomy movement of the Poles of the Vilnius region, that had been part of Poland before being attached to Lithuania in 1939.
In 1994, Jan Ciechanowicz moved to Poland, where he has taught German and English at institutions of higher education.

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