Lech Wałęsa
Lech Wałęsa[a][b] (born 29 September 1943) 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 democratically elected president of Poland since 1926 and the first-ever Polish president elected by popular vote. A shipyard electrician by trade, Wałęsa became the leader of the 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.
"Wałęsa" redirects here. For other uses, see Wałęsa (disambiguation).
Lech Wałęsa
Wojciech Jaruzelski (in country)
Ryszard Kaczorowski (in exile)
29 September 1943
Popowo, Poland
Solidarity (1980–1988)
Solidarity Citizens' Committee (1988–1993)
Nonpartisan Bloc for Support of Reforms (1993–1997)
Solidarity Electoral Action (1997–2001)
Christian Democracy of the Third Polish Republic (1997–2001)
8, including Jarosław
While working at the Lenin Shipyard (now Gdańsk Shipyard), Wałęsa, an electrician, became a trade-union activist, for which he was persecuted by the government, placed under surveillance, fired in 1976, and arrested several times. In August 1980, he was instrumental in political negotiations that led to the ground-breaking Gdańsk Agreement between striking workers and the government. He co-founded the Solidarity trade-union, whose membership rose to over ten million.
After martial law in Poland was imposed and Solidarity was outlawed, Wałęsa was again arrested. Released from custody, he continued his activism and was prominent in the establishment of the Round Table Agreement that led to the semi-free 1989 Polish legislative election and a Solidarity-led government. He presided over Poland's transition from Marxist–Leninist state socialism into a free-market capitalist liberal democracy, but his active role in Polish politics diminished after he narrowly lost the 1995 Polish presidential election. In 1995, he established the Lech Wałęsa Institute.
Since 1980, Wałęsa has received hundreds of prizes, honors and awards from multiple countries and organizations worldwide. He was named the Time Person of the Year (1981) and one of Time's 100 most important people of the 20th century (1999). He has received over forty honorary degrees, including from Harvard University and Columbia University, as well as dozens of the highest state orders, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, and the French Grand Cross of Legion of Honour. In 1989, Wałęsa was the first foreign non-head of state to address the Joint Meeting of the U.S. Congress. The Gdańsk Lech Wałęsa Airport has borne his name since 2004.[1]
Early life
Wałęsa was born in Popowo, Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia, Germany (German-occupied Poland).[2] His father, Bolesław Wałęsa (1908–1945), was a carpenter who was rounded up and interned in a forced labour camp at Młyniec (outpost of KL Stutthof) by the German occupying forces before Lech was born.[c] Bolesław returned home after the war but died two months later from exhaustion and illness.[4] Lech's mother, Feliksa Wałęsa (née Kamieńska; 1916–1975),[5] has been credited with shaping her son's beliefs and tenacity.[6]
When Lech was nine, Feliksa married her brother-in-law, Stanisław Wałęsa (1916–1981), a farmer.[7] Lech had three elder full siblings; Izabela (1934–2012),[d] Edward (born 1937), and Stanisław (born 1939); and three younger half-brothers; Tadeusz (born 1946), Zygmunt (born 1948), and Wojciech (1951–1988).[8] In 1973, Lech's mother and stepfather emigrated to the US for economic reasons.[7] They lived in Jersey City, New Jersey, where Feliksa died in a car accident in 1975, and Stanisław died of a heart attack in 1981.[7] Both of them were buried in Poland.[8]
In 1961, Lech graduated from primary and vocational school in nearby Chalin and Lipno as a qualified electrician. He worked as a car mechanic from 1961 to 1965, and then embarked on his two-year, obligatory military service, attaining the rank of corporal before beginning work on 12 July 1967 as an electrician at Lenin Shipyard (Stocznia Gdańska im. Lenina), now called Gdańsk Shipyard (Stocznia Gdańska) in Gdańsk.[9]
Personal life
On 8 November 1969, Wałęsa married Mirosława Danuta Gołoś, who worked at a flower shop near the Lenin Shipyard where Wałęsa worked. Soon after they married, she began using her middle name more often than her first name, per Lech's request.[111] The couple had eight children; Bogdan (born 1970), Sławomir (born 1972), Przemysław[112] (1974–2017), Jarosław (born 1976), Magdalena (born 1979), Anna (born 1980), Maria-Wiktoria (born 1982), and Brygida (born 1985).[10][12] As of 2016, Anna is running her father's office in Gdańsk[62] and Jarosław is a European MP.[113]
In 2008, Wałęsa underwent a coronary artery stent placement and the implantation of a cardiac pacemaker at the Houston Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas.[114] He underwent a heart operation in 2021.[115] In January 2022, Wałęsa tested positive for COVID-19. He said he had received three doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.[115]
Wałęsa has been portrayed, as himself or a character based on him, in a number of feature and television films. The two most notable of them are:
Both of these films were produced in Poland. In December 1989, Warner Bros. intended to produce a "major" movie about Wałęsa, to be made in 1990 and released in 1991.[130] The company paid Wałęsa a $1 million fee for the rights to produce a biopic.[131] Although the movie was never made, this payment sparked controversy in Poland when five years later it emerged that Wałęsa concealed this income to avoid paying taxes on it.[132] The Gdańsk tax office initiated a tax fraud case against Wałęsa but it was later dismissed because the five-year statute of limitations had already run out.[133]
In 1982, Bono was inspired by Wałęsa to write U2's first hit single, "New Year's Day".[135] Coincidentally, the Polish authorities lifted martial law on 1 January 1983, the same day this single was released. Wałęsa also became a hero of a number of Polish pop songs, including a satirical 1991 hit titled Nie wierzcie elektrykom (Don't Trust the Electricians) from the second studio album by the punk rock band Big Cyc which featured a caricature of Wałęsa on its cover.[136]
Patrick Dailly's chamber opera Solidarity, starring Kristen Brown as Wałęsa, was premiered by the San Francisco Cabaret Opera in Berkeley, California, in September 2009.[137]
Sid Meier's Civilization V video game lists Lech Wałęsa amongst its world leader rankings. Wałęsa is ranked 11th on a scale of 1 to 21, with Augustus Caesar ranked as the best world leader of all time and Dan Quayle as the worst. Wałęsa is immediately outranked by Simon Bolivar and is ranked just above Ivan the Terrible. Lech Wałęsa ranks 9th out of 21 in Sid Meier's Civilization VI, immediately outranked by Marcus Aurelius and ranked just above Hatshepsut.