Famous people from Poland

Józef PiłsudskiBorn : 5 December 1867Died : 12 May 1935

Józef Klemens Piłsudski was a Polish statesman; Chief of State (1918–22), "First Marshal" (from 1920), and leader (1926–35) of the Second Polish Republic. From mid-World War I he had a major influence in Poland's politics, and was an important figure on the European political scene. He was the person most responsible for the creation of the Second Republic of Poland in 1918, 123 years after it had been taken over by Russia, Austria and Prussia. Under Piłsudski, Poland annexed Vilnius from Lithuania following Żeligowski's Mutiny but was unable to incorporate most of his Lithuanian homeland into the newly resurrected Polish State.[6] He believed in a multicultural Poland with recognition of numerous ethnic and religious nationalities. His arch-rival Roman Dmowski by contrast called for a purified Poland based on Polish-speaking Catholics with little role for minorities.

Józef Piłsudski

Mikołaj KopernikBorn : 19 February 1473Died : 24 May 1543

Nicolaus Copernicus (Mikołaj Kopernik) was a Renaissance mathematician and astronomer who formulated a heliocentric model of the universe which placed the Sun, rather than the Earth, at the center. The publication of Copernicus' book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, just before his death in 1543, is considered a major event in the history of science. It began the Copernican Revolution and contributed importantly to the scientific revolution. Copernicus was born and died in Royal Prussia, a region of the Kingdom of Poland since 1466. Copernicus had a doctorate in canon law and, though without degrees, was a physician, polyglot, classics scholar, translator, governor, diplomat, and economist who in 1517 set down a quantity theory of money, a principal concept in economics to the present day, and formulated a version of Gresham's law in 1519.

Mikołaj Kopernik

Adam MickiewiczBorn : 24 December 1798Died : 26 November 1855

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz national poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator, professor of Slavic literature, and political activist. A principal figure in Polish Romanticism, he is counted one of Poland's "Three Bards" and is widely regarded as Poland's greatest poet. He is also considered one of the greatest Slavic and European poets and has been dubbed a "Slavic bard". He is known chiefly for the poetic drama Dziady (Forefathers' Eve) and the national epic poem Pan Tadeusz. Mickiewicz was born in the Russian-partitioned territories of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which had been part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and was active in the struggle to win independence for his home region. After, as a consequence, spending five years exiled to central Russia, in 1829 he succeeded in leaving the Russian Empire and, like many of his compatriots, lived out the rest of his life abroad. He settled first in Rome, then in Paris. He died at Istanbul in the Ottoman Empire.

Adam Mickiewicz

Jan MatejkoBorn : 24 June 1838Died : 1 November 1893

Jan Matejko was a Polish painter known for paintings of notable historical Polish political and military events. His most famous works include oil on canvas paintings like Battle of Grunwald, paintings of numerous other battles and court scenes, and a gallery of Polish kings. He is counted among the most famous Polish painters.

Jan Matejko

Jan Matejko „Battle of Grunwald”

Fryderyk ChopinBorn : 22 February or 1 March 1810Died : 17 October 1849

Fryderyk Chopin was a Polish composer of the Romantic era. A child prodigy, Chopin was born in what was then the Duchy of Warsaw. He grew up in Warsaw, which after 1815 became part of Congress Poland, and there completed his musical education and composed many of his works before leaving Poland, aged 20, less than a month before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising. At the age of 21 he settled in Paris, obtaining French citizenship in 1835. During the remaining 18 years of his life, he gave only some 30 public performances, preferring the more intimate atmosphere of the salon. A brief and unhappy visit with Sand to Majorca in 1838–39 was one of his most productive periods of composition. Chopin suffered from poor health; he died in Paris in 1849, probably of tuberculosis

Fryderyk Chopin

Pope Saint John Paul II ( Karol Wojtyła)Born : 18 May 1920Died : 2 April 2005

Pope Saint John Paul II, known as Saint John Paul the Great, was the 264th pope of the Catholic Church from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005. He was the second longest-serving pope in modern history after Pope Pius IX who served for 31 years from 1846 to 1878. Born in Poland, John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope since the Dutch Pope Adrian VI who served from 1522 to 1523.

Pope Saint John Paul II

Marie Skłodowska CurieBorn : 7 November 1867Died : 4 July 1934

Marie Skłodowska-Curie was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the only woman to win in two fields, and the only person to win in multiple sciences. She was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris, and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris.

Marie Skłodowska Curie

The End

Patrycja Maj