Author
Mirosław Dzielski 1941-1989

Born in Kraków on the 14th of November, 1941. He spent his childhood in Bochnia and was educated in Kraków. In 1959-66 he studied physics at the Jagiellonian University; then, having completed his studies, he was employed in the Department of Philosophy of the Natural Sciences of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Jagiellonian University, with which he remained connected throughout his whole life. In 1974 he successfully defended his doctoral thesis on the subject of time and space in the writings of Leibniz and Newton. He launched his publicist activity in the columns of the Kraków “Student” in the early 1970’s; it was also in that period that he entered into contact with a circle of Kraków publicists and philosophers who formed a kind of informal political club. Towards the end of that decade he joined the oppositional activity, publishing his famous article Jak zachować władzę w PRL? in the underground magazine “Merkuryusz Krakowski i Światowy”. In that article he proposed a settlement with the Communists which would consist in leaving the political power in their hands in exchange for relinquishing their Socialist utopia and implementing the principles of economic liberalism. It was then that he began to formulate his idea of ‘constructive anti-Communism’ based on determined opposition against the ideological utopia and, at the same time, readiness to strike a political compromise with the regime. After the establishment of the ‘Solidarity’ labour union – although initially he did not intend to involve himself in its activities – Dzielski became an advisor of its Workers’ Committee of Metallurgists towards the end of 1980, and in the following year – a member of the Information Department of the Regional Board for Lesser Poland, and of the Editorial Board of its organ – “Goniec Małopolski”; from July 1981, he was also the press spokesman of the Regional Board. In June 1981, at his suggestion, the Club for Economic Initiatives was founded at the Jagiellonian University. In September of the same year, his candidacy was even considered for the post of the press spokesman of the 1st National Congress of Delegates of the Independent Self-Governing Trade Union 'Solidarity' in Gdańsk (he was to be an opposing candidate to Janusz Onyszkiewicz). During the period of martial law in Poland Dzielski went into hiding for several weeks. From March 1982 he collaborated with the Kraków underground magazine “13 grudnia”, and soon became its editor-in-chief and leading publicist. From 1984 on, this paper began to appear under a slightly modified title: “13. Pismo Chrześcijańsko-Liberalne”. Dzielski also engaged in independent educational activity, delivering talks in churches and monasteries. He was a co-founder and deputy chairman of the ‘Dziekania’ Political Thought Club established in 1988, as well as the initiator of a right-wing political salon and propagator of the idea of establishing economic societies, which resulted in the creation of the Economic Action, an enterprise registered in December 1988. He co-founded the Kraków Industrial Society (KTP), registered in 1987 after a long-drawn formal procedure, and was its chairman until his death. In that capacity, together with Tadeusz Syryjczyk he worked out a project for an economic experiment, namely, for the creation of Kraków Special Economic Zone, in which particularly favourable conditions for economic enterprise were to prevail. In 1986 he became a member of the Primate’s Social Council and, as such, he worked out projects of various foundations for the development of agriculture in Poland. Since he was associated with the moderate opposition, Dzielski was taken into consideration during the formation of the Communist cabinet of Mieczysław F. Rakowski; in the summer of 1989, his candidacy was also considered for the office of Prime Minister. From December 1988 he was a member of the Citizens’ Committee with Lech Wałęsa. In January 1989 he received a scholarship and went to the United States, and due to his illness stayed there under treatment. Dzielski died in Bethesda (Maryland) on the 15th of October, 1989. His published works include Wiara Sokratesa (‘Znak’, 1977, no. 276), Kim są liberałowie (‘Merkuryusz Krakowski i Światowy’, 1979, no. 4), Odrodzenie ducha - budowa wolności (1982), Liberalizm a chrześcijaństwo (‘13 grudnia’, no. 11 (26)), Duch nadchodzącego czasu (1985), Odrodzenie ducha - budowa wolności. Pisma zebrane (1995), and Bóg, wolność, własność (Wybór pism) (2001, 2007).

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