HISTORY

Doctor Marcinkowski

Karol Marcinkowski was born 200 years ago on 23rd June 1800 in Poznań to a lower middle class family. He was a typical representative of a family, whose life-time achievements could be attributed only to hard work.

Since his youth Marcinkowski showed a gift for academic studies and scientific research. Having graduated from the renowned St. Maria Magdalene Grammar School, he went on to study medicine at the Berlin University in the years 1817-1823. It was there that he got involved in the patriotic self-study group "Polonia". Having been arrested and imprisoned he nearly missed a chance to take final exams allowing him to work as a doctor, had it not been for the intercession of Duke Antoni Radziwiłł, the governor of the Grand Duchy of Poznań.

In 1823 Karol Marcinkowski settled in Poznań. He soon made a name for himself as an excellent doctor who cared for his patients. There were cases when he provided medicines for the poor free of charge, however, he was by no means inexpensive for the well-off. Doctor Marcinkowski was available at any time of the day and any day of the month. Far from being envious he co-operated professionally with all people on the same principles. With time he became an expert in fighting a cholera epidemic, which decimated the population of Europe at that time.

The outbreak of the 1830 uprising in the Congress Kingdom triggered Marcinkowski’s decision to leave in secret for the Russian partition in order to take part in the fighting. He was enlisted in the army initially as a simple uhlan, later as a staff officer and finally as a doctor of the Poznań cavalry unit. He followed the whole fighting route of the unit and eventually he crossed the Prussian border. Until 1838 he travelled widely in Europe, upgrading his education and getting to know the conditions of living of Polish emigrants. Finally, he took a decision to come back to the Grand Duchy of Poznań. Sentenced to strict confinement, he soon returned to assist in the fight against a cholera epidemic in Poznań.

This was how the last period of his life began, a period most prolific in terms of social achievements. It was also the time when organic work evolved as a new direction in the struggle for independence amongst the Polish activists of the Grand Duchy of Poznań. They believed that the idea of armed uprisings had to be given up for the time being and the nation should be first of all strengthen economically and academically. Moreover, they aimed at raising national awareness, broadening the knowledge of history and geography and cherishing national traditions and culture in order to become competitive for the administration of the occupants and then be able to strike, at an appropriate moment, once and for ever.

Karol Marcinkowski soon became the leader of this circle and the main organiser of national undertakings in the Grand Duchy. On his initiative the Bazar Company was formed in 1838 and later the edifice of the Bazar trade house was built in Poznań. He greatly contributed to the establishment of the Society of Scientific Assistance for the young people of the Grand Duchy of Poznań. Marcinkowski gradually began to shape something of an ideology and manifesto, which step by step, generation after generation led to the success of the Wielkopolska uprising of 1918-1919.

Marcinkowski died on 6th November 1846. Following an ostentatious funeral he was buried in Poznań at the cemetery at Towarowa street. Exhumed in 1910 and 1923, he was finally laid in a sarcophagus in the southern nave of St. Adalbert's church in Poznań.

It must be stated that Karol Marcinkowski was an embodiment of typical independence activists from Wielkopolska, who apart from a sword embraced a plough and a book on their way to an independent Poland. It is not accidentally that the Poznań Medical School and a representative artery in the centre of Poznań were named after this greatest hero of the 19th-century Wielkopolska.

Marek Rezler