Lviv
Lviv is the largest city in western Ukraine and the seventh-largest city in the country overall, with a population of around 728,350 as of 2016. Lviv is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine. Named in honour of Leo, the eldest son of Daniel, King of Ruthenia, it was the capital of the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia from 1272 to 1349, when it was conquered by King Casimir III the Great who became known as the King of Poland and Ruthenia. From 1434, it was the regional capital of the Ruthenian Voivodeship in the Kingdom of Poland. In 1772, after the First Partition of Poland, the city became the capital of the Habsburg Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. In 1918, for a short time, it was the capital of the West Ukrainian People's Republic. Between the wars, the city was the centre of the Lwów Voivodeship in the Second Polish Republic. After the German-Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, Lviv became part of the Soviet Union, in 1944–46 there was a population exchange between Poland and Soviet Ukraine.
In 1991, it became part of the independent nation of Ukraine. Administratively, Lviv serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and has the status of city of oblast significance. Lviv was the centre of the historical regions of Red Galicia; the historical heart of the city, with its old buildings and cobblestone streets, survived Soviet and German occupations during World War II unscathed. The city has many industries and institutions of higher education such as Lviv University and Lviv Polytechnic. Lviv is the home of many cultural institutions, including a philharmonic orchestra and the Lviv Theatre of Opera and Ballet; the historic city centre is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Besides its Ukrainian name, the city is known by several other names in different languages: Polish: Lwów. Lviv is located on the edge of the Roztochia Upland 70 kilometres from the Polish border and 160 kilometres from the eastern Carpathian Mountains; the average altitude of Lviv is 296 metres above sea level.
Its highest point is 409 meters above sea level. This castle has a commanding view of the historic city centre with its distinctive green-domed churches and intricate architecture; the old walled city was at the foothills of the High Castle on the banks of the River Poltva. In the 13th century, the river was used to transport goods. In the early 20th century, the Poltva was covered over in areas. Lviv's climate is humid continental with mild summers; the average temperatures are − 18.3 °C in July. The average annual rainfall is 745 mm with the maximum being in summer. Mean sunshine duration per year at Lviv is about 1,804 hours. Archaeologists have demonstrated; the area between the Castle Hill and the river Poltva was continuously settled since the 9th century. In 1977 it was discovered that the Orthodox church of St. Nicholas had been built on a functioning cemetery; the city of Lviv was founded by King Daniel of Galicia in the Principality of Halych of Kingdom of Rus` and named in honour of his son Lev as Lwihorod, consistent with name of other Ukrainian cities such as Myrhorod, Novhorod, Horodyshche and many others.
Lviv was invaded by the Tatars in 1261. Various sources relate the events which range from destruction of the castle through to a complete razing of the town. All the sources agree; the Shevchenko Scientific Society informs. The Galician-Volhynian chronicle states that in 1261 "Said Buronda to Vasylko:'Since you are at peace with me raze all your castles'". Basil Dmytryshyn states that the order was implied to be the fortifications as a whole "If you wish to have peace with me destroy your towns". According to the Universal-Lexicon der Gegenwart und Vergangenheit the town's founder was ordered to destroy the town himself. After King Daniel's death, King Lev rebuilt the town around the year 1270 at its present location, choosing Lviv as his residence, made Lviv the capital of Galicia-Volhynia; the city is first mentioned in the Halych-Volhynian Chronicle regarding the events that were dated 1256. The town grew due to an influx of Polish people from Kraków, after they had suffered a widespread famine there.
Around 1280 Armenians lived in Galicia and were based in Lviv where they had their own Archbishop. In the 13th and early 14th centuries, Lviv was a wooden city, except for its several stone churches; some of them, like the Church of Saint Nicholas, have survived to this day, although in a rebuilt form. The town was inherited by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1340 and ruled by voivode Dmytro Dedko, the favourite of the Lithuanian prince Lubart, until 1349. During the wars over the succession of Galicia-Volhynia Principality in 1339 King Casimir III of Poland undertook an expedition and conquered Lviv in 1340, burning down the old princely castle. Poland ultimate
Versoix
Versoix is a municipality in the Canton of Geneva, which sits on the north-west side of Lac Léman north-east of the city of Geneva. Versoix has an area, as of 2009, of 10.51 square kilometers. Of this area, 3.06 km2 or 29.1 % is used for agricultural purposes, while 38.1 % is forested. Of the rest of the land, 3.4 km2 or 32.4% is settled, 0.08 km2 or 0.8% is either rivers or lakes and 0.01 km2 or 0.1% is unproductive land. Of the built up area and buildings made up 19.4% and transportation infrastructure made up 8.7%. While parks, green belts and sports fields made up 2.8%. Out of the forested land, 36.1% of the total land area is forested and 2.0% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 23.1% is used for growing crops and 3.5% is pastures, while 2.5% is used for orchards or vine crops. Of the water in the municipality, 0.4 % is in lakes and 0.4 % streams. The municipality of Versoix consists of the sub-sections or villages of Richelien, Sauverny, Petit-Saint-Loup, Versoix-la-Ville, Pont-Céard, Port-Choiseul, Versoix-Bourg, Versoix - lac, Crève-Cœur.
It is the last town of the Canton of Geneva on the road northeast towards Lausanne, before the Canton of Vaud starts. It is a train stop on the Swiss Federal Railways line running between Geneva. On the Vaud side, the next village is called Mies; the distance from the centre of Geneva is about 10 km, it takes around 15 minutes by train or car to get into downtown. Versoix has a population of 13,329; as of 2008, 41.7% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has changed at a rate of 23.3%. It has changed at a rate of 5.8 % due to births and deaths. Most of the population speaks French, with English being second most German being third. There are 3 people who speak Romansh; as of 2008, the gender distribution of the population was 51.7 % female. The population was made up of 2,831 non-Swiss men. There were 2,713 non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality 1,979 or about 19.2% were born in Versoix and lived there in 2000. There were 1,978 or 19.2% who were born in the same canton, while 1,603 or 15.5% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, 4,052 or 39.3% were born outside of Switzerland.
In 2008 there were 75 live births to Swiss citizens and 54 births to non-Swiss citizens, in same time span there were 57 deaths of Swiss citizens and 10 non-Swiss citizen deaths. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens increased by 18 while the foreign population increased by 44. There were 40 Swiss women who emigrated from Switzerland. At the same time, there were 124 non-Swiss men and 94 non-Swiss women who immigrated from another country to Switzerland; the total Swiss population change in 2008 was an increase of 56 and the non-Swiss population increased by 211 people. This represents a population growth rate of 2.2%. The age distribution of the population is children and teenagers make up 28.3% of the population, while adults make up 60.5% and seniors make up 11.2%. As of 2000, there were 4,482 people who never married in the municipality. There were 689 individuals who are divorced; as of 2000, there were 3,977 private households in the municipality, an average of 2.4 persons per household.
There were 1,282 households that consist of only one person and 296 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 4,089 households that answered this question, 31.4% were households made up of just one person and there were 28 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 906 married couples without children, 1,323 married couples with children There were 384 single parents with a child or children. There were 54 households that were made up of unrelated people and 112 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing. In 2000 there were 671 single family homes out of a total of 1,179 inhabited buildings. There were 243 multi-family buildings, along with 201 multi-purpose buildings that were used for housing and 64 other use buildings that had some housing. Of the single family homes 113 were built before 1919, while 90 were built between 1990 and 2000; the greatest number of single family homes were built between 1981 and 1990.
The most multi-family homes were built before 1919 and the next most were built between 1991 and 1995. There were 19 multi-family houses built between 1996 and 2000. In 2000 there were 4,536 apartments in the municipality; the most common apartment size was 3 rooms of which there were 1,406. There were 293 single room apartments and 991 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 3,734 apartments were permanently occupied, while 676 apartments were seasonally occupied and 126 apartments were empty; as of 2009, the construction rate of new housing units was 6.1 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, in 2010, was 0.12%. The historical population is given in the following chart: The Bourg, a Bronze Age littoral settlement, the Villa Bartholony (Sans Souci
Ciechanów
Ciechanów is a city in north-central Poland with 45,900 inhabitants. It is situated in Masovian Voivodeship, it was the capital of Ciechanów Voivodeship. The settlement is first mentioned in a 1065 document by Bolesław II the Bold handing the land over to the church; the medieval gord in Ciechanów numbered 3,000 armed men, together with the province of Mazovia, it became part of the Polish state in the late 10th century. In 1254, Ciechanów is mentioned as the seat of a castellany. In 1400 Janusz I of Czersk granted Ciechanów town privileges; the area become a separate duchy with Casimir I of Warsaw using the title "dominus et heres lub dominus et princeps Ciechanoviensis." In the Middle Ages, the defensive gord of Ciechanów protected northern Mazovia from raids of Lithuanians, Old Prussians and the Teutonic Knights. It is not known; this must have happened before 1475, as a document from that year, issued by Duke Janusz II of Warsaw, states that Ciechanów has a Chełmno town charter. In the period between the 14th and 16th centuries, Ciechanów prospered with the population reaching 5,000.
In the late 14th century, Siemowit III, Duke of Masovia, began construction of a castle, while his son Janusz I of Warsaw invited the Augustinians, who in the mid-15th century began construction of a church and an abbey. In 1526, together with all Mazovia, Ciechanów was annexed by the Kingdom of Poland. In the Masovian Voivodeship, Ciechanów was the seat of a separate administrative unit, the Land of Ciechanów; the town was handed over as her dowry. Ciechanów prospered until the Swedish invasion of Poland, when the town was ransacked. After the second partition of Poland, Ciechanów became seat of a newly created voivodeship. In 1795, it was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia, reduced to the status of a provincial town in Przasnysz county. In 1806, during the Napoleonic Wars, Ciechanów was destroyed. Since 1815, the town belonged to Russian-controlled Congress Poland, its residents supported Polish rebellions. In the late 19th century, Ciechanów emerged as a local industry center. In 1864, a brewery was opened, in 1867 it became seat of a county, in 1877 a rail station of the Vistula River Railroad was completed, in 1882 a sugar refinery was opened.
The period of prosperity was short, as during World War I, Ciechanów was completely destroyed. In the Second Polish Republic, Ciechanów remained seat of a county in Warsaw Voivodeship. In 1938, its population was 15,000, the town was a military garrison, home to the 11th Uhlan Regiment of Marshall Edward Smigly-Rydz. Ciechanów was captured by the Wehrmacht on the night of September 3/4, 1939; the town was known as Zichenau in German. It was the capital of a new subdivision of the Province of East Prussia; the vast majority of Polish and Jewish population was seen as racially inferior and Germany planned its eventuall anihiliationThe first stage of German plans aimed at exterminating Polish elites, with destruction of the rest of the Polish population. On January 17, 1945, Ciechanów was captured by the Red Army, was restored to Poland after the war. Before World War II, it was home to a large Jewish community but during the Nazi occupation, in the winter of 1942, the majority of the Jewish community were transported to the Red Forest north-east of town and murdered by gunfire.
During the war many Polish Jews and resistance fighters were executed by the Germans in the castle. Castle of the Mazovian Dukes from the 14th century, alongside the Łydynia river Farska Hill – fortified settlement from the 7th century with a Neo-Gothic belfry from the 19th century St. Joseph's parish church in Ciechanów – Late Gothic building from the 16th century Monastery Augustinian Church from the 16th and 18th centuries City Hall from the 19th century Parish cemetery which has functioned since 1828 Hyperboloid water tower, built in 1972 Państwowa Wyższa Szkoła Zawodowa Wyższa Szkoła Biznesu i Zarządzania Through the city are leading two national roads, numbered 50 and 60. Just 25 km away to the West there is the national road number 7, a part of the E77 European route; the Ciechanów railway station is on the Warsaw - Gdańsk railway. However, the Warsaw-Gdańsk-Gdynia express train, colloquially referred as'Pendolino', does not stop here. Other trains offer connection to Warsaw, Gdańsk, Gdynia, Kołobrzeg, Kraków and Łódź.
Mieczysław Jagielski Maria Konopnicka Ludwik Krasiński Zygmunt Krasiński Ignacy Mościcki Roza Robota Zbigniew Siemiątkowski Aleksander Świętochowski Stefan Żeromski Kasia Struss Dorota Rabczewska Ciechanów is twinned with: Meudon, France Haldensleben, Germany Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine Brezno, Slovakia Wojciech Górczyk, Ciechanów – zarys dziejów do XV w. Kultura i Historia, Uniwersytet Marii Curie Skłodowskiej w lublinie,19/2011, ISSN 1642-9826 Official homepage Architecture of Ciechanow Czas Ciechanowa Jewish Community in Ciechanów on Virtual Shtetl Ciechanów city forum Ciechanow website www.ciechanowonline.pl - all you need to know about Ciechanow, including a contemporary gallery of the city Site dedicated to preserving the memory of Ciechanów's Jewish community, including an English translation of the memorial book Website of Ciechanow City www.eciechanow.pl – City news, history of Ciechanow, information where you can eat and dance Castle of the Dukes of Mazovia in Ciechanów M
May Coup (Poland)
The May Coup was a coup d'état carried out in Poland by Marshal Józef Piłsudski between 12 and 14 May 1926. The coup overthrew the government of President Stanisław Wojciechowski and Prime Minister Wincenty Witos. A new government was headed by Lwów Polytechnic Professor Kazimierz Bartel; the events were inspired by the need for extraordinary measures in the face of newly emerging threats to the stability of Poland's independence by Piłsudski's own assessment of the foreign treaties signed by Weimar Germany with France in 1925 and with the Soviet Russia in April 1926, to which Poland's representatives had not been invited. Piłsudski was offered the presidency, but he declined in favor of Ignacy Mościcki. Piłsudski, remained the most influential politician in Poland, became the "power behind the throne" until his death in 1935. In November 1925 the government of Prime Minister Władysław Grabski was replaced by the government of Prime Minister Aleksander Skrzyński, which had received support from the National Democrats and the Polish Socialist Party.
General Lucjan Żeligowski became the new government's minister of military affairs. However, after the PPS withdrew its support, this government fell and was replaced by that of Prime Minister Wincenty Witos, formed by Polish People's Party "Piast" and Chrześcijański Związek Jedności Narodowej. However, the new government had less popular support than the previous ones, pronouncements from Józef Piłsudski, who viewed the constant power shifts in the Sejm as chaotic and damaging, set the stage for a coup d'état. Apart from domestic turmoil, Polish politics had been shaken by a trade war with Germany, begun in June 1925, by the signing of the Treaty of Locarno on October 16. Under the terms of the treaty, the World War I western European Allied powers and the new states of Central and Eastern Europe sought to secure a postwar territorial settlement in return for normalized relations with defeated Germany. On 10 May 1926 a coalition government of Christian Democrats and Agrarians was formed, that same day Józef Piłsudski, in an interview with Kurier Poranny, said that he was "ready to fight the evil" of Sejmocracy and promised a "sanation" of political life.
The newspaper edition was confiscated by the authorities. The night of 11 May to 12 May a state of alert was declared in the Warsaw military garrison, some units marched to Rembertów, where they pledged their support to Piłsudski. On 12 May they captured bridges over the Wisła River. Meanwhile, Wincenty Witos' government declared a state of emergency. At about 17:00 hours, Marshal Piłsudski met President Stanisław Wojciechowski on the Poniatowski Bridge. Piłsudski demanded the resignation of Witos' cabinet, while the President demanded Piłsudski's capitulation. With no result in this round of negotiations, fighting erupted about 19:00 hours. Next day a new round of negotiations was begun, mediated by Archbishop Aleksander Kakowski and Marshal of the Sejm Maciej Rataj; these negotiations, brought no change to the stalemate. On 14 May the Polish Socialist Party declared its support for the rebels and called for a general strike, supported by the Railwaymen's Union; the strike by socialist railwaymen paralyzed communications and prevented pro-government military reinforcements from reaching Warsaw.
To prevent the Warsaw fighting from turning into a country-wide civil war and Witos resigned their offices. During these events, 215 soldiers and 164 civilians were killed, some 900 people were wounded. A new government was formed under Prime Minister Kazimierz Bartel, with Piłsudski as minister of military affairs. On 31 May the National Assembly nominated Piłsudski to be president. Ignacy Mościcki became the new president. Piłsudski initiated Sanation government — conducted at times by authoritarian means — directed at restoring moral "health" to public life. Although until his death in 1935 Piłsudski played a preponderant role in Poland's government, his formal offices — apart from two stints as prime minister in 1926-28 and 1930 — were for the most part limited to those of minister of defense and inspector-general of the armed forces; the adoption of a new Polish constitution in April 1935, tailored by Piłsudski's supporters to his specifications — providing for a strong presidency — came too late for Piłsudski to seek that office.
But the April Constitution would serve Poland until the outbreak of World War II and would carry its Government in Exile through the war and beyond. Joseph Rothschild, Pilsudski's Coup D'État, Columbia University Press, 1967, ISBN 0-231-02984-5
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of its properties. Chemists describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms. Chemists measure substance proportions, reaction rates, other chemical properties; the word'chemist' is used to address Pharmacists in Commonwealth English. Chemists use this knowledge to learn the composition and properties of unfamiliar substances, as well as to reproduce and synthesize large quantities of useful occurring substances and create new artificial substances and useful processes. Chemists may specialize in any number of subdisciplines of chemistry. Materials scientists and metallurgists share skills with chemists; the work of chemists is related to the work of chemical engineers, who are concerned with the proper design and evaluation of the most cost-effective large-scale chemical plants and work with industrial chemists on the development of new processes and methods for the commercial-scale manufacture of chemicals and related products.
The roots of chemistry can be traced to the phenomenon of burning. Fire was a mystical force that transformed one substance into another and thus was of primary interest to mankind, it was fire. After gold was discovered and became a precious metal, many people were interested to find a method that could convert other substances into gold; this led to the protoscience called alchemy. The word chemist is derived from an abbreviation of alchimista. Alchemists discovered many chemical processes. Chemistry as we know it today, was invented by Antoine Lavoisier with his law of conservation of mass in 1783; the discoveries of the chemical elements has a long history culminating in the creation of the periodic table by Dmitri Mendeleev. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry created in 1901 gives an excellent overview of chemical discovery since the start of the 20th century. Jobs for chemists require at least a bachelor's degree, but many positions those in research, require a Master of Science or a Doctor of Philosophy.
Most undergraduate programs emphasize mathematics and physics as well as chemistry because chemistry is known as "the central science", thus chemists ought to have a well-rounded knowledge about science. At the Master's level and higher, students tend to specialize in a particular field. Fields of specialization include biochemistry, nuclear chemistry, organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, polymer chemistry, analytical chemistry, physical chemistry, theoretical chemistry, quantum chemistry, environmental chemistry, thermochemistry. Postdoctoral experience may be required for certain positions. Workers whose work involves chemistry, but not at a complexity requiring an education with a chemistry degree, are referred to as chemical technicians; such technicians do such work as simpler, routine analyses for quality control or in clinical laboratories, having an associate degree. A chemical technologist has more education or experience than a chemical technician but less than a chemist having a bachelor's degree in a different field of science with an associate degree in chemistry or having the same education as a chemical technician but more experience.
There are degrees specific to become a chemical technologist, which are somewhat distinct from those required when a student is interested in becoming a professional chemist. A Chemical technologist is more involved in the management and operation of the equipment and instrumentation necessary to perform chemical analyzes than a chemical technician, they are part of the team of a chemical laboratory in which the quality of the raw material, intermediate products and finished products is analyzed. They perform functions in the areas of environmental quality control and the operational phase of a chemical plant. In addition to all the training given to chemical technologists in their respective degree, a chemist is trained to understand more details related to chemical phenomena so that the chemist can be capable of more planning on the steps to achieve a distinct goal via a chemistry-related endeavor; the higher the competency level achieved in the field of chemistry, the higher the responsibility given to that chemist and the more complicated the task might be.
Chemistry, as a field, have so many applications that different tasks and objectives can be given to workers or scientists with these different levels of education or experience. The specific title of each job varies from position to position, depending on factors such as the kind of industry, the routine level of the task, the current needs of a particular enterprise, the size of the enterprise or hiring firm, the philosophy and management principles of the hiring firm, the visibility of the competency and individual achievements of the one seeking employment, economic factors such as recession or economic depression, among other factors, so this makes it difficult to categorize the exact roles of these chemistry-related workers as standard for that given level of education; because of these factors affecting exact job titles with distinct responsibilities, some chemists might begin doing technician tasks while other chemists might begin doing more complicated tasks than those of a technician, such as tasks th
Kazimierz Świtalski
Kazimierz Stanisław Świtalski was a Polish politician, soldier, military officer in the Polish Legions and 18th Prime Minister of Poland between April and December 1929. Kazimierz Świtalski was born on 4 March 1886 as the son of Albin Świtalski, governor of Rudki and Sanok, his second wife Marie Antoinette Veith, whose grandfather, by the order of Emperor Francis I, arrived in Austrian Poland in 1834, together with eight other German families. Between 1897 and 1904 Kazimierz attended the Queen Sofia High School located in Sanok. At that time, the school was led by the Organization called "Radius". On 21 June 1904 Świtalski received a certificate of maturity with honors and began studying at the Faculty of Philology at the Polish Academy in Lwów. After graduation, he received a doctorate of philosophy in 1910. In the same year he became a professor at a local high school called "gymnasium". In his youth Świtalski belonged to an organization of socialist independence parties called "Flame" and "Life".
Along with Stanisław Kot he directed the work of the Representative Commission of Progressive Youth. In 1910 Świtalski joined the Związek Walki Czynnej, an underground organisation formed by future Marshal of Poland and chief-of-state Józef Piłsudski and since October 1912 he was a member of the Rifle Association. In ZWC for the first time he met with Józef Piłsudski. Shortly before the outbreak of World War I, he was an adjutant for Marian Kukiel at the Headquarters of the Rifle Associations in Eastern Galicia and Lwów. From 24 August until 27 October 1914 he was a soldier in the Polish Legions. On 4 November 1914, he was appointed to the rank of lieutenant. Since February 1915 he served as a military office clerk in the Military Department. From 5 January 1916 he was the head of the office of the Legion Brigade Headquarters, he held this position until the Oath crisis. On 9 July 1917, he was arrested, four days dismissed from service in the Legions; as a result, he went to Lwów. During the Polish–Ukrainian War he became a member of the Polish National Committee, which played a major role in the conflict.
He managed to escape from the besieged city with an aircraft. He went to a nearby city called Przemyśl, to Kraków, where he sought help for Lwów. By mid December 1918 he took part in the work of the Polish Liquidation Committee and the Interim Governing Committee. During the 1926 May Coup d'état in Poland, Świtalski supported Marshal Piłsudski, rather than President Stanisław Wojciechowski. Following the Coup, he was given several political posts. In the same year he appointed the Head of the Civil Chancellery of the President and between 1926 and 1928 he was the director of the Political Department of the Ministry of the Interior. In June 1928 Świtalski became Minister of Education and from April to December 1929 he served as Prime Minister of Poland in competition with Kazimierz Bartel. In 1930 he was elected to the Sejm and between 1933 and 1935 he was its Marshal, he was appointed by the President to the Senate in 1935, where he was Vice-Marshal. In parallel, he was the Voivode of Kraków from December 1935 until April 1936.
After the Polish Defensive War of 1939 Kazimierz Świtalski was taken prisoner of war and taken to Woldenberg camp, where he spent the entirety of World War II. His only child, Jacek Świtalski, was killed on the first day of the Warsaw Uprising. In 1945 he returned to Poland and was imprisoned by the communist authorities from 1948 to 1956, he died in Warsaw following injuries in a tram accident. Kazimierz Świtalski was awarded the Silver Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari, the Order of Polonia Restituta Classes I and IV, Cross of Independence, the War Memorial Medal 1918 – 1921 and the Decade of Independence Medal, as well as the Estonian Order of the Cross of the Eagle Class I. Sanation \
President of Poland
The President of the Republic of Poland is the head of state of Poland. Their rights and obligations are determined in the Constitution of Poland; the president heads the executive branch. In addition the president has a right to dissolve parliament in certain cases, veto legislation and represents Poland in the international arena; the first president of Poland, Gabriel Narutowicz, was sworn in as president of the Second Polish Republic on 11 December 1922. He was elected by the National Assembly under the terms of the 1921 March Constitution. Narutowicz was assassinated on 16 December 1922. Józef Piłsudski had been "Chief of State" under the provisional Small Constitution of 1919. In 1926 Piłsudski staged the "May Coup", deposed President Stanisław Wojciechowski and had the National Assembly elect a new one, Ignacy Mościcki, thus establishing the so-called "Sanation regime". Before Piłsudski's death, parliament passed a more authoritarian 1935 April Constitution of Poland. Mościcki continued as president until he resigned in 1939 in the aftermath of the German Invasion of Poland.
Mościcki and his government went into exile into Romania. In Angers, France Władysław Raczkiewicz, at the time the speaker of the Senate, assumed the presidency after Mościcki's resignation on 29 September 1939. Following the fall of France, the president and the Polish government-in-exile were evacuated to London, United Kingdom; the transfer from Mościcki to Raczkiewicz was in accordance with Article 24 of the 1935 April Constitution. Raczkiewicz was followed by a succession of presidents in exile, of whom the last one was Ryszard Kaczorowski. In 1944–45 Poland became a part of Soviet-controlled central-eastern Europe. Bolesław Bierut assumed the reins of government and in July 1945 was internationally recognized as the head of state; the Senate was abolished in 1946 by the Polish people's referendum. When the Sejm passed the Small Constitution of 1947, based in part on the 1921 March Constitution, Bierut was elected president by that body, he served until the Constitution of the Polish People's Republic of 1952 eliminated the office of the president.
Following the 1989 amendments to the constitution which restored the presidency, Wojciech Jaruzelski, the existing head of state, took office. In Poland's first direct presidential election, Lech Wałęsa won and was sworn in on 22 December 1990; the office of the president was preserved in the Constitution of Poland passed in 1997. The President of Poland is elected directly by the people to serve for five years and can be reelected only once. Pursuant to the provisions of the Constitution, the President is elected by an absolute majority. If no candidate succeeds in passing this threshold, a second round of voting is held with the participation of the two candidates with the largest and second largest number of votes respectively. In order to be registered as a candidate in the presidential election, one must be a Polish citizen, be at least 35 years old on the day of the first round of the election and collect at least 100,000 signatures of registered voters; the President has a free choice in selecting the Prime Minister, yet in practice he gives the task of forming a new government to a politician supported by the political party with the majority of seats in the Sejm.
The President has the right to initiate the legislative process. He has the opportunity to directly influence it by using his veto to stop a bill. Before signing a bill into law, the President can ask the Constitutional Tribunal to verify its compliance with the Constitution, which in practice bears a decisive influence on the legislative process. In his role as supreme representative of the Polish state, the President has power to ratify and revoke international agreements and recalls ambassadors, formally accepts the accreditations of representatives of other states; the President makes decisions on award of highest academic titles, as well as state distinctions and orders. In addition, he has the right of viz. he can dismiss final court verdicts. The President is the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces; the President performs his duties with the help of the following offices: the Chancellery of the President, the Office of National Security, the Body of Advisors to the President. Several properties are owned by the Office of the President and are used by the Head of State as his or her official residence, private residence, residence for visiting foreign officials etc.
The Presidential Palace in Warsaw is largest palace in Warsaw and the official seat of the President of the Republic of Poland since 1993. The first presidential tenant was Lech Wałęsa when he moved to the Palace from Belweder in 1994. Belweder, in Warsaw, was the official seat of the President until 1993, is owned by the Office of the President as the official residence of the President and is used by the President and the Government for ceremonial purposes; the palace serves as an official residence for heads of state on o
.jpg)
