Mikołaj Zyblikiewicz

Mikołaj Zyblikiewicz
Mikołaj Zyblikiewicz in the 1860s
President of Kraków
In office July 2, 1874 – February 7, 1881
Preceded by	Józef Dietl
Personal details
Born	November 28, 1823 Stare Miasto near Sambor
Died	Kraków, Austrian partition
Alma mater	Jagiellonian University
Profession	Lawyer

Mikołaj Zyblikiewicz (Polish: [mikɔwaj zɨblikiɛvit͡ʂ]; November 28, 1823 – May 16, 1887) was a Polish politician, lawyer of Ukrainian origin. Two-term Mayor of Kraków – in the then Austrian sector of the Partitioned Poland. A street in Kraków's Old Town is named in his memory, while his monument stands in front of the City Hall. Some of his achievements included the restoration of Sukiennice, the creation of a "national Panthéon" at Skałka, and the campaign towards the renovation of royal Wawel Castle, traditional seat of the Polish monarchs.

Career

File:Mikolaj Zyblikiewicz.jpg

Portrait of Mikołaj Zyblikiewicz by Jan Matejko

Mikołaj Zyblikiewicz was the son of Szymon Zyblikiewicz, a furrier of Ruthenian (Ukrainian) background in the town of Stare Miasto near Sambor (now Sambir, Ukraine). After graduating from high-school in Lviv, he enrolled at the Lviv University while working as a home tutor for local nobility. His political activism began during the Spring of Nations when he joined a series of patriotic Polish youth organizations, and with other young intellectuals (including Platon Kostecki and Jan Dobrzański), became involved with advocacy of Polish national and political rights in the province of Galicia. He moved to Tarnów where he worked at the high school. He relocated to Krakow soon after to continue his studies at the Faculty of Law in the Jagiellonian University with the aim of attaining a doctorate, and eventually securing a career as a politician.

He obtained the license of an attorney in Kraków (1855) and opened his own law firm at ul. Kopernika 14 Street. In the 1850s Zyblikiewicz began his first large-scale political action. It was a legal battle with the German language imposed in the Polish offices and courts by the Austrian Empire. He took part in parallel academic action as well (organized by local students), demanding the restoration of the Polish language at the Jagiellonian University. When Józef Dietl resigned from the post of president of the city, after the turbulent elections he was declared the President of Kraków in 1874.

Political influence

During his presidency, Zyblikiewicz reorganized and greatly improved municipal operations. He cut through the Imperial bureaucratic red-tape, and introduced an increase in his employees' salaries. He contributed to the revival of construction, helped erect new schools, fire station and municipal slaughterhouse. He monitored the construction of a railway viaduct over the Lubicz Street for the Kraków Central station modernized in 1871. He filled-in the northern arm of Vistula (Polish: Wisła) River which used to separate the district of Kazimierz from the Old Town. His contribution to housing development fundamentally changed the appearance of the city's outer limits.

Zyblikiewicz initiated the construction of new apartment buildings at both ends of Planty Park: at ul. Karmelicka and at Wawel. He created favorable conditions for the building of a new Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków at Kleparz across the street from Barbakan. He followed up on the vision of his predecessor Józef Dietl, and in 1877 embarked on the restoration of Sukiennice Cloth Hall with the national Sukiennice Museum upstairs based on design by Tomasz Pryliński (1847–1895); founded on October 3, 1879. One of his important projects was the creation of a "national Panthéon" at Skałka.

Zyblikiewicz was re-elected president of the city in 1880 and met with Franz Joseph I, when he arrived with a visit to Kraków in September. He petitioned the emperor to save the royal Wawel Castle serving as military outpost for the army, and acquired his approval by offering to make Wawel his future residence, a campaign which became the first step towards the restoration of this traditional seat of Polish monarchs. In 1881, he was elected member of the Diet and Sejm Marshal of Partitioned Poland (until 1886). Zyblikiewicz temporarily moved to Lviv and introduced a broad plan for the economic revival of Galicia province largely abandoned by Imperial Vienna. In gratitude, a street was named after him in Lviv in 1886; although, it was also liquidated in 1950 by the Soviet Ukraine under Stalin. He helped finish the Pieniny Road across the Tatra mountains from Szczawnica to Červený Kláštor in Slovakia, built for a decade with private funds.

Zyblikiewicz died in Kraków of pneumonia in 1887 at the age of 64, and was buried at Rakowicki Cemetery, where a tall obelisk is erected to his honor.