Lech Kaczyński
President 2005-2010
Born 1949, twin brother of Jarosław Kaczyński. Died in a plane crash in Smolensk (Russia) on 10 April 2010, killing 96 people in total, including the majority of the Polish top administration.
Tough line against corruption
Born 1949, twin brother of Jarosław Kaczyński. Died in a plane crash in Smolensk (Russia) on 10 April 2010, killing 96 people in total, including the majority of the Polish top administration.
Intellectual upbringing
Lech Kaczyński was born in 1949 into a family that belongs to the capital’s so-called “intelligentsia”. Trained as a lawyer, then professor of law. His wife, Maria, also died in the 2010 plane crash. They are both buried in the old royal castle, Wawel, in Krakow, in a crypt next to Poland’s freedom hero, Piłsudski.
Both parents were active in the nationalist resistance movement during WW2. He was characterised by strong nationalistic views, which was probably crucial to his worldview.
Co-operation with Walęsa
Interned during Martial Law 1981-1982. Collaborated with Walęsa in the 1980s, but distanced himself from him from the mid-1990s. As president, he worked to strengthen Central Europe against Russia.
In 2018, the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza reported that 143 statues have been erected, and since then, new ones have been added all the time, as have Lech Kaczynski streets and squares. In this way, in a short number of years, PiS has managed to create a cult of personality around the late Lech Kaczynski, and perhaps also a little about his twin brother.
This cult of personality also means that everything Lech has done is good and right. He has almost become politically infallible in the same way that the Pope is infallible in religious matters. On Poland’s great ceremonial square, Pilsudski Square, the statue of Kaczynski is at least 50% bigger than the size of the statue of the square’s namesake, Pilsudski.
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