Maciej Rataj was a Polish

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

, socialist activist and writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

.

Born in the village of Chłopy

Horodok Raion

Horodok Raion is a raion in Lviv Oblast in western Ukraine. Its administrative center is Horodok. It has a population of 73,974.It was established in 1939.-External links:*...

 near Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine) on 19 February 1884, he attended a gymnasium

Gymnasium (school)

A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...

 in Lwów and studied classical linguistics

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

 at the University of Lwów. Upon the completion of his studies he became a gymnasium teacher first in Lwów, and later in Zamość

Zamosc

Zamość ukr. Замостя is a town in southeastern Poland with 66,633 inhabitants , situated in the south-western part of Lublin Voivodeship , about from Lublin, from Warsaw and from the border with Ukraine...

.

He became involved in politics after the Second Polish Republic

Second Polish Republic

The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...

 gained independence following the First World War

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. He was a member of the PSL Piast political party

Political party

A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...

, and from 1931 a member of the Stronnictwo Ludowe

Stronnictwo Ludowe

The People's Party was a Polish political party, active from 1931 in the Second Polish Republic. An agrarian populist party, its power base was composed mostly from peasants....

. He became president of the Stronnictwo and the chief editor of the party's official paper, the 'Zielony Sztandar' in 1935. From 1919 to 1930 and from 1934-1935 he was a Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for the Sejm

Sejm

The Sejm is the lower house of the Polish parliament. The Sejm is made up of 460 deputies, or Poseł in Polish . It is elected by universal ballot and is presided over by a speaker called the Marshal of the Sejm ....

 (Polish Parliament), and from 1922 to 1928 he was the Marshal of the Sejm. Between 1920-1921 he was the Minister of Religion and Public Education, and took part in work on the March Constitution.

He was President of Poland twice: first in December 1922 after the assassination of president Gabriel Narutowicz

Gabriel Narutowicz

Gabriel Narutowicz was a Lithuanian-born professor of hydroelectric engineering at Switzerland's Zurich Polytechnic, and Poland's Minister of Public Works , Minister of Foreign Affairs , and the first president of the Second Polish Republic....

 as Acting President of the Republic of Poland

Acting President of the Republic of Poland

The Acting President of the Republic of Poland is a temporary post provided for by the Polish Constitution.The constitution states that the President is the Head of state...

 for one week, and again in May 1926, after Józef Piłsudski's May Coup and the resignation of president Stanisław Wojciechowski. His second term lasted half of a month.

During both times he oversaw special election and appointed new governments.

In December 1940 he was arrested by Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 and executed in Palmiry

Palmiry

Palmiry During World War II, between 1939 and 1943, the village and the surrounding forest was one of the sites of German mass executions of Jews, Polish intelligentsia, politicians and athletes, killed during the AB Action. Most of the victims were first arrested and tortured in the Pawiak prison...

 during the German AB-Aktion operation in Poland.

Works

• Pamiętniki (Memoirs) (1965)
• Wskazania obywatelskie i polityczne: Wybór pism i przemówień z lat 1919-1938 (1987)
• Maciej Rataj o parlamentaryzmie, państwie demokratycznym i sanacji (1998)