Wojciech Kętrzyński

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Kętrzyński-Monument in Kętrzyn

Wojciech Kętrzyński (11 July 1838 – 15 January 1918), born Adalbert von Winkler, was a separatist and the director of the Ossolineum Library in Lemberg (Lviv). He became a historian and focused on Polish history in a time when no independent Polish state existed.

[edit] Biography

Adalbert von Winkler was born to a policeman in Lötzen (Giżycko), Province of Prussia, within the Kingdom of Prussia. He studied at the Königsberg Albertina University and became a nationalist and a propagandist for a Polish Masuria separate from Prussia. By the 19th century this region was largely Protestant and inhabited by both German- and Polish-speaking Prussian (Masurians).

In 1861 Winkler changed his name to Wojciech Kętrzyński after the Slavic name of his grandfather. His father is identified as a Kashubian and his mother as a German; a number of German Ketrzynski families lived in Brandenburg and Berlin at the time. Due to Kętrzyński's separatist activities, Prussian authorities imprisoned him in Allenstein (Olsztyn), Berlin, and Glatz (Kłodzko) in Prussia. After being released from prison, Kętrzyński moved to the liberal Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria within Austria-Hungary to pursue his interests. He became the head (1873) and the director (1876) of the Ossolineum Library in Lemberg (Lviv), then capital of Galicia. Kętrzyński died in Lemberg during World War I; the wartime puppet Regency Kingdom of Poland was followed after the war by the independent Second Polish Republic.

In 1945 following World War II, the German province of East Prussia was divided between Poland and the Soviet Union, with Poland acquiring Masuria. The German population was largely expelled to the remainder of Germany and replaced with Poles. The town Rastenburg (Polish: Rastembork) was placed under Polish administration and later renamed Kętrzyn after Kętrzyński.