Władysław Raczkiewicz
Władysław Raczkiewicz was a Polish politician, lawyer, diplomat and the first president of the Polish government-in-exile from 1939 until his death in 1947. Until 1945 he was the internationally recognized Polish head of state, and the Polish Government in Exile was recognized as the continuum to the Polish government of 1939.Early life and studies
Władysław Raczkiewicz was born in Kutaisi, the second-largest city in Georgia, at that time part of the Russian Empire to Polish parents Józef Raczkiewicz, a court judge, and Ludwika Łukaszewicz. He studied in Saint Petersburg where he joined the Polish Youth Organization. After graduating from the Faculty of Law at the University of Dorpat he was employed as a lawyer in Minsk. Upon the outbreak of World War I he served in the Russian Imperial Army, but after the Russian Revolution he joined the vanguard for Polish independence. Serving as the head of the Naczelny Polski Komitet Wojskowy, he helped to create the Polish I Corps in Russia. Later he served under future Marshal and chief-of-state Józef Piłsudski, who created the Polish Legions that ultimately aided Poland in re-establishing its independence.
As a volunteer he fought in the Polish–Soviet War between 1919 and 1920. At first supporter of endecja faction, later joined the sanacja camp headed by Piłsudski and his closest supporters. Raczkiewicz served as the Voivode of the Nowogródek Voivodeship from 1921 to 1924; government delegate to Wilno Voivodeship and later as its voivode. After the Brest elections he was appointed the Senate Marshal and Voivode of Kraków Voivodeship in 1935, and Pomeranian Voivodeship from 1936 to 1939.When Poland was invaded by the Wehrmacht in 1939, he escaped to Angers where the Polish government-in-exile was established. He lived in the nearby Château de Pignerolle from 2 December 1939 until moving on 10 June 1940 to London, where he joined General Władysław Sikorski and Stanisław Mikołajczyk in the relocated Polish government in exile. He was an opponent of the Sikorski–Mayski agreement.
The government under Raczkiewicz and Sikorski promoted a liberal-democratic agenda with equal rights for the Polish-Jewish minority - a view not shared by the majority of Polish society at the time, and a departure from pre-war antisemitic administrations.
In February 1945, Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt held the Yalta Conference. The future of Poland was one of the main topics that was deliberated upon. Stalin claimed that only a strong, pro-Soviet government in Poland would be able to guarantee the security of the Soviet Union. As a result of the conference, the Allies agreed to withdraw their recognition of the Polish Government in Exile, after the formation of a new government on Polish territory.
Raczkiewicz died in exile in 1947, in the Welsh town of Ruthin. He is buried in the cemetery at Newark-on-Trent in England.
