Walenty Stefański

Walenty Maciej Stefański ( born February 12, 1813 in Śródka (now part of Poznan ), † June 30, 1877 in Pelplin ) was a Polish journalist and revolutionary.

Life

He came from a family of fishermen. Nevertheless, he was able to visit the school for a short time. He then completed a printing apprenticeship and continued his education self-taught. In 1831 he moved illegally across the border to Russia to take part in the November Uprising. After his return, he and his family were subjected to repression.

In 1838 or 1839 he opened a bookstore and a printing company. Until long this industry has been mostly been in the region in German or Jewish hands. He has published popular religious and historical writings and also sold smuggled banned political works. Stefanski also had contacts with emigrants in Western Europe.

After 1840 and worsened in the Grand Duchy of Posen, the Polish political aspirations. Stefanski founded 1842/43 the plebeian Union and also edited a newspaper. This movement should be a mass political organization of the Polish peasants and artisans. He represented an early socialism | utopian socialism and called for the restoration of the Polish state in its ancient boundaries. In the new Poland, there should be no class distinctions, the soil should be evenly distributed and everyone should have the right to work.

The authorities he was suspected of communist activities. It developed in the sequel to one of the busiest underground activists and broke with the moderate Poznań Committee to Karol Libelt.

In other radicals Stefanski was planning an uprising against the rule of Prussia. The plan failed and the authorities were attentive. Stefanski tried to contacts across the borders in the Austrian and Russian -controlled part of Poland. He criticized the inaction of the Poznań 1845 Committee and planned this to take over with his followers. He was denounced and arrested. In the meantime, an attempt at rebellion was in 1846 failed in Poznan. When Poland process in Berlin not to blame him could be proved and he was acquitted end of 1847.

Back in Poznan, he became one of the driving forces for the uprising of 1848. March 20, 1848, he organized a public meeting, which elected a national committee to lead. Stefanski was elected to the Committee, but in which the moderates were in the majority. He was with the Gazeta Polska out a Polish-language newspaper. In the following time he approached the moderate majority of the national committee. On April 11, he signed on behalf of the committee, the agreement of Jaroslawiec. At the height of the uprising, he argued for a guerrilla tactics of the insurgents.

In the following years until 1850, he was one of the leading members of the League Polska. He also continue publishing various newspapers. After the authorities closed his printing in 1851, he became a merchant. He was there not economically successful. In 1853 he went to Pomerania. In 1863 and 1864 he was imprisoned for political offenses. In his last years he turned to mysticism.