A bust of the first prime minister of the Third Polish Republic, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, was unveiled on Thursday in Warsaw. The ceremony marked the 30th anniversary of the formation of Mazowiecki's cabinet.
On Thursday morning in Warsaw, a bust of Tadeusz Mazowiecki was unveiled. The ceremony took place exactly 30 years after he had formed the first cabinet after the fall of communism, which operated between 1989 and 1991. The bust sculped by Prof. Adam Myjak has been placed right in front of the building number 34 at Kopernika street, where the publishing office "Więź" had its seat, and where Tadeusz Mazowiecki had worked for many years.
"Udoubtedly, the other important city for Mazowiecki, was and is Warsaw," said former president Bronisław Komorowski referring to Wednesday's unveiling of monument to Tadeusz Mazowiecki in Płock. He added that it was high time to unveil a monument also in the capital city of a country that owes Mazowiecki so much.
"I said in Płock that we have this Polish tendency to unveil monuments to lost battles or heroic soldiers and it's understandable due to our difficult history, however, rarely do we stand a chance to honour victorious battles, better still, battles that hadn't seen a single fire shot, nor single man dead. Poland's first non-communist prime minister, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, commanded such battle," Komorowski said.
Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska quoted Mazowiecki's words: "we may fight or support each other, but we must not hate one another," adding that although spoken many years ago, they are still true.
The Mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski, said that for his generation Tadeusz Mazowiecki has been a symbol of a statesman, always calm but decisive. He added that if not for Mazowiecki's policy, we wouldn't have a democracy like the one we have today. He informed that he had decided to establish a yearly Tadeusz Mazowiecki award for young Varsovians engaged in civic and social activities and in streghtening local communities.
The son of Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Wojciech, said "the monumunt is exactly how it should be, it's humble". He added that the battle his father started was still ongoing and Tadeusz Mazowiecki was its patron. "These days deserve such breakthrough like the one 30 years ago," Wojciech Mazowiecki added.
On September 12, 1989, the Sejm of the Polish People's Republic appointed the cabinet of prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the first non-communist Polish PM since the end of the Second World War.
In the course of nearly 500 days of the cabinet with Mazowiecki at its helm has introduced reforms which changed the functioning of the state and sybolically opened the history of the Third Polish Republic.
Tadeusz Mazowiecki died in 2013.
Autor: gf / Źródło: TVN24 News in English, PAP