Józef Piłsudski, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Józef Piłsudski

Polish politician and Prime Minister

Date of Birth: 05-Dec-1867

Place of Birth: Zalavas, Vilnius County, Lithuania

Date of Death: 12-May-1935

Profession: military personnel, politician

Nationality: Poland

Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius


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About Józef Piłsudski

  • Józef Klemens Pilsudski (Polish: ['juz?f 'kl?m?ns p?iw'sutsk?i] (listen); 5 December 1867 – 12 May 1935) was a Polish statesman who served as the Chief of State (1918–22) and First Marshal of Poland (from 1920).
  • He was considered the de facto leader (1926–35) of the Second Polish Republic as the Minister of Military Affairs.
  • After World War I he held great power in Polish politics and was a distinguished figure on the international scene.
  • He is viewed as a father of the Second Polish Republic re-established in 1918, 123 years after the final Partition of Poland by Austria, Prussia and Russia in 1795.Deeming himself a descendant of the culture and traditions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Pilsudski believed in a multi-ethnic Poland—"a home of nations" including indigenous ethnic and religious minorities that he hoped would establish a robust union with the independent states of Lithuania and Ukraine.
  • His principal political antagonist, Roman Dmowski, leader of the National Democrat party, by contrast, called for a Poland limited to the pre-Partitions Polish Crown and based mainly on a homogeneous ethnically Polish population and Roman Catholic identity. Early in his political career, Pilsudski became a leader of the Polish Socialist Party.
  • Concluding that Poland's independence would have to be won militarily, he formed the Polish Legions.
  • In 1914 he correctly predicted that a new major war would defeat the Russian Empire and the Central Powers.
  • When World War I began in 1914, Pilsudski's Legions fought alongside Austria-Hungary against Russia.
  • In 1917, with Imperialist Russia faring poorly in the war, he withdrew his support for the Central Powers and was imprisoned in Magdeburg by the Germans. From November 1918, when Poland regained its independence, until 1922, Pilsudski was Poland's Chief of State.
  • In 1919–21 he commanded Polish forces in six border wars that re-defined the country's borders.
  • On the verge of defeat in the Polish–Soviet War his forces, in the August 1920 Battle of Warsaw, threw back the invading Soviet Russians.
  • In 1923, with the government dominated by his opponents, in particular the National Democrats, Pilsudski retired from active politics.
  • Three years later he returned to power in the May 1926 coup d'état and became Poland's strongman.
  • From then on until his death in 1935, he concerned himself primarily with military and foreign affairs.
  • It was during this period that he developed a cult of personality that has survived into the 21st century. In international affairs, Pilsudski pursued two complementary strategies meant to secure Poland's independence and to enhance national security: "Prometheism", aimed at achieving the disintegration of Imperial Russia and later the Soviet Union into their constituent nations; and the creation of an Intermarium federation of Central and Eastern European states lying between the Baltic and Black Seas, to secure its peoples against Western and Eastern European imperialisms.Historian Piotr Wandycz characterizes Pilsudski as "an ardent Polish patriot who on occasion would castigate the Poles for their stupidity, cowardice, or servility.
  • He described himself as a Polish-Lithuanian, and was stubborn and reserved, loath to show his emotions." Some aspects of Pilsudski's administration, such as establishing Bereza Kartuska prison, described by many as a concentration camp, remain controversial.
  • Yet he is highly esteemed in Polish memory and is regarded, together with his chief antagonist Roman Dmowski, as a founder of the modern independent Poland.

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