Lech Wałęsa
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Lech Wałęsa is a Polish statesman, dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as the president of Poland between 1990 and 1995. After winning the 1990 election, Wałęsa became the first democr
Wałęsa in 2026
Wałęsa during the strike at the Lenin Shipyard, August 1980
Wałęsa signs autographs during the strike in August 1980.
Wałęsa with Alojzy Mazewski in January 1981
Solidarity, full name Independent Self-Governing Trade Union "Solidarity", is a Polish trade union founded in August 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland. Subsequently, it was the first indepe
Lech Wałęsa
…of Poland since 1922 and the first-ever Polish president elected by popular vote. An electrician by trade, Wałęsa became the leader of the opposition Solidarity movement and led a successful pro-democratic effort, which in 1989 ended Communist rule in Poland and ushered in the end of the Cold War. While working at the…
Strike committee at the Lenin Shipyard, August 1980. On stage are Bogdan Lis (left) and Lech Wałęsa (right).
Meeting between Wałęsa and U.S. President George H. W. Bush, 1989
30th anniversary mural depicting the murdered priest Jerzy Popiełuszko who publicly supported Solidarity during the 1980s
The logo of Solidarność painted on an overturned Soviet era T-55 in Prague in 1990