Ignacy Mościcki

Ignacy Mościcki (born Dec. 1, 1867, Mierzanów, Pol., Russian Empire [now in Poland]—died Oct. 2, 1946, Versoix, Switz.) was a Polish statesman, scholar, and scientist, who, as president of the Polish republic, was a supporter of the dictatorship of Józef Piłsudski.

Mościcki was educated as a chemist. He joined the Polish Socialist Party in the early 1890s and was involved in an attempt on the life of the governor-general of Warsaw. Sought by the Russian police for that involvement, Mościcki fled to England (1892), where he met Piłsudski.

Returning to the European continent, in 1897 Mościcki began to teach at the Roman Catholic university in Fribourg, Switz. In 1912 he was given the professorship of electrochemistry at the University of Lemberg (Polish: Lwów). After World War I Mościcki served the new Polish state by restoring synthetic nitrogen production at Królewska Huta (now Chorzów), Upper Silesia, at a plant that had been stripped by the Germans.

After the Piłsudski coup d’état in May 1926, Mościcki was elected as president of the republic in June, in which post he served Piłsudski faithfully. He served another term as president from 1933. Following Piłsudski’s death in 1935, Mościcki’s politics became much more liberal. After the German and Soviet occupation of Poland in September 1939, Mościcki fled to Romania, where he was interned briefly, and thence to Switzerland, where he resided until his death.