Kaczynski Often a Source of Tension Within E.U.
By JUDY DEMPSEY and DIANE CARDWELL
Published: April 10, 2010
Lech Kaczynski, who died Saturday in a plane crash in western Russia, rose from childhood fame as an actor to become president of Poland. He was 60.
Michal Cizek/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Lech Kaczynski
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Times Topic: Poland
Half of an unusual tandem of power, Mr. Kaczynski was elected president in 2005 from the nationalist-conservative Law and Justice Party, led by his identical twin, Jaroslaw, whom he later appointed prime minister.
Swept into office as voters repudiated the group of former Communist officials who had dominated the country’s politics for much of the preceding decade, Mr. Kaczynski and his brother struggled at the top. They frequently put Poland on a collision course with its European Union partners and Russia, while polarizing voters at home with a shift to the right.
“His approach is to first destroy and then think about what to build,” Lech Walesa, hero of the Solidarity movement and former president, said in 2006 of Lech Kaczynski, who once served as Mr. Walesa’s national security chief.
Poland joined the European Union in 2004, but Mr. Kaczynski often preferred dealing with the United States.
As soon as Mr. Kaczynski took office in the presidential headquarters in the center of Warsaw, he forged close relations with Ukraine and Georgia, determined to bring them closer to NATO and eventually have them admitted to the American-led military organization.
His defense of those two countries often upset leading members of the European Union, especially Germany, which was concerned that an expanded NATO would make Russia feel threatened and lead to new East-West tensions. Mr. Kaczynski, however, believed passionately that a strong NATO would prevent Russia from reasserting its influence over Eastern and Central Europe.
Mr. Kaczynski was born on June 18, 1949, when Warsaw was in ruins. His suspicions of Russia and Germany had deep roots. His father, Rajmund, an engineer, and his mother, Jadwiga, who studied linguistics, had been active in the Polish resistance against the Nazis.
He and his brother — who could be told apart only by a mole on Lech’s left cheek — became famous at age 12 when they starred in a film version of “The Two Who Stole the Moon,” a beloved children’s story. They began their rise to political prominence in the underground Solidarity movement in the 1980s.
They were close, at first, to Mr. Walesa, but they fell out with his movement during the 1990s, claiming that the intellectuals, led by Adam Michnik, had made too many compromises with former Communists and the secret police. The brothers remained active in politics, with Lech Kaczynski serving as justice minister from 2000 to 2001 and gaining popularity by emphasizing his tough stance against crime.
He became mayor of Warsaw in 2002, and critics began to see his brand of nationalism — he and his brother wanted a complete break with the past by purging the civil service and the media of former Communists — as overzealous and provincial. But the twins were helped in their rise to power by an image of honesty in a country that had witnessed one corruption scandal after another for years.
Yet he was not reluctant to create tensions with Moscow or Berlin. Poland joined NATO in 1999, part of the first bloc of former Communist countries, along with Hungary and the Czech Republic, to join the alliance.
“It was obvious to us that this was the only tough security structure there was in the world, and that the membership of NATO would only mean benefits for Poland,” Mr. Kaczynski said in an interview last year.
He added that did not mean that Russia’s leaders had “abandoned their ideas to regain influence, like using natural resources, natural gas, as a weapon and trying to influence politicians.”
“Indeed,” he said, “back in the early 1990s, my impression was that Poland’s entry into NATO would finally resolve those questions. And here I must admit I was wrong.”
He lobbied hard for the United States to deploy part of its controversial shield against ballistic missiles in Poland, arguing that it would enhance Poland’s security against Russia. Those plans, supported by President George W. Bush, were scaled back by President Obama.
A devout Roman Catholic, Mr. Kaczynski was regarded as skeptical of the European Union while he fought to defend Poland’s sovereignty against Brussels and to protect its traditional, conservative values. In 2008, he argued against ratifying the union’s Lisbon Treaty for fear its prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation would become Polish law.
Mr. Kaczynski’s star had been fading in recent years, and he would have faced a difficult re-election battle this year.
His wife, Maria, an economist, also died in the crash. Mr. Kaczynski is survived by his brother, Jaroslaw, who was forced to step down as prime minister in 2007 after a bruising party defeat at the polls. He is also survived by his daughter, Marta; two granddaughters, Ewa and Martyna; and his mother.
欧洲 | 2010.04.11
波兰总统莱赫·卡钦斯基生平
- 莱赫·卡钦斯基于1949年6月18日出生在波兰首都华沙。他在华沙大学学习了法律，并获得法律学博士学位。
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: 2009年，卡钦斯基与妻子在梵蒂冈一同参加教皇带领的祈祷仪式
- 1962年时，他与孪生哥哥雅罗斯瓦夫·卡钦斯基（Jaroslaw Kaczynski）因主演了儿童电影《偷月二人行》而成为轰动一时的童星。
- 1981年至1982年在波兰实施戒严法期间，他曾因参加军事行动而被捕入狱，并被关押数月。
- 东欧剧变之后，卡钦斯基建立了法律与正义党，并先后在不同政府机构内任职，并从2000年6月出任司法部长，2002年又当选华沙市长。
- 2005年时，卡钦斯基当选为波兰总统。他在大选中击败的竞争对手就是如今的国家总理图斯克（Donald Tusk）。卡钦斯基的孪生哥哥雅罗斯瓦夫曾于2006年至2007年担任总理。
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: 童星卡钦斯基兄弟
- 卡钦斯基以秉持保守态度著称。他对死刑表示支持，对于同性恋实行压制。卡钦斯基形象正直廉洁，从来不从政治中谋取个人利益。
- 卡钦斯基的夫人玛丽亚·卡钦斯基也在4月10日的空难中丧生。两人有一个女儿名为玛尔塔。
作者：月洋（综合报道）
责编：苗子
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