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Lech Wałęsa

Lech Wałęsa

Acting

Biography

Lech Wałęsa (born 29 September 1943) is a Polish statesman, dissident, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who served as the President of Poland between 1990 and 1995. After winning the 1990 election, Wałęsa became the first democratically elected President of Poland since 1926 and the first-ever Polish president elected by popular vote. A shipyard electrician by trade, Wałęsa became the leader of the Solidarity movement, and led a successful pro-democratic effort, which in 1989 ended Communist rule in Poland and ushered in the end of the Cold War. While working at the Lenin Shipyard (now Gdańsk Shipyard), Wałęsa, an electrician, became a trade-union activist, for which he was persecuted by the government, placed under surveillance, fired in 1976, and arrested several times. In August 1980, he was instrumental in political negotiations that led to the ground-breaking Gdańsk Agreement between striking workers and the government. He co-founded the Solidarity trade-union, whose membership rose to over ten million. After martial law in Poland was imposed and Solidarity was outlawed, Wałęsa was again arrested. Released from custody, he continued his activism and was prominent in the establishment of the Round Table Agreement that led to the semi-free 1989 Polish legislative election and a Solidarity-led government. He presided over Poland's transition from Marxist–Leninist state socialism into a free-market capitalist liberal democracy, but his active role in Polish politics diminished after he narrowly lost the 1995 Polish presidential election. In 1995, he established the Lech Wałęsa Institute. Since 1980, Wałęsa has received hundreds of prizes, honors and awards from multiple countries and organizations worldwide. He was named the Time Person of the Year (1981) and one of Time's 100 most important people of the 20th century (1999). He has received over forty honorary degrees, including from Harvard University and Columbia University, as well as dozens of the highest state orders, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, and the French Grand Cross of Legion of Honour. In 1989, Wałęsa was the first foreign non-head of state to address the Joint Meeting of the U.S. Congress. The Gdańsk Lech Wałęsa Airport has borne his name since 2004. Wałęsa was born in Popowo, Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia, Germany (German-occupied Poland). His father, Bolesław Wałęsa (1908–1945), was a carpenter who was rounded up and interned in a forced labour camp at Młyniec (outpost of KL Stutthof) by the German occupying forces before Lech was born. Bolesław returned home after the war but died two months later from exhaustion and illness. Lech's mother, Feliksa Wałęsa (née Kamieńska; 1916–1975), has been credited with shaping her son's beliefs and tenacity. ... Source: Article "Lech Wałęsa" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Known For

In the Grip of Gazprom
8.3

The war in the Ukraine has changed the way many European countries view Russian politics. Suddenly it became clear how dependent countries had become on Russian gas imports for decades and what Vladimir Putin was up to. However, no country needs more gas than Germany. It was only after Russia's invasion of the Ukraine that the German government realized that Russia had long used gas as a weapon to impose its will on states. The instrument created for this purpose is the natural gas production company GAZPROM. So how did Germany become so dependent on Russian gas? The documentary shows how, over several decades and several changes of government, a broad alliance of politicians and business representatives did everything possible to secure Germany's energy supply with cheap Russian gas, while the Kremlin's foreign policy became increasingly aggressive and the warnings of experts went unheeded.

In the Grip of Gazprom

2023Movie
Have No Fear: The Life of Pope John Paul II
5.1

The eventful life of a humble Polish priest who once decried the pomp of the Catholic Church "a circus" and labeled the Pope a "prisoner of the Vatican" before ascending to the papal throne to usher Catholicism into the 21st century. Born in Poland and forced to carry on following the untimely death of his family, Karol Wojtyla endured both personal hardships and the rape of his homeland by the Third Reich to spread the word of God through the Catholic Church. Later, as Pope John Paul II, Wojtyla was beloved by millions of Catholics worldwide. From the sexual-abuse scandal that shook the American Catholic Church in the later-20th century to the murder of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero and the near-fatal assassination attempt made on his own life, Pope John Paul II endured to bridge the gap between various faiths until his death resulting from Parkinson's disease in April of 2005.

Have No Fear: The Life of Pope John Paul II

2006Movie