MOSCICKI, IGNACY

born Dec. 1, 1867, Mierzanw, Pol., Russian Empire [now in Poland] died Oct. 2, 1946, Versoix, Switz. Polish statesman, scholar, and scientist, who, as president of the Polish republic, was a strong supporter of the dictatorship of Jzef Pilsudski. Moscicki was educated as a chemist. He joined the nationalistic Polish Socialist Party in the early 1890s and was involved in an attempt on the life of the governor-general of Warsaw. Sought by the Russian police for that involvement, Moscicki fled to England (1892), where he met Pilsudski. Returning to the European continent, in 1897 Moscicki began to teach at the Roman Catholic university in Fribourg, Switz. In 1912 he was given the professorship of electrochemistry at the University of Lemberg (Polish: Lww). After World War I Moscicki served the new Polish state by restoring synthetic nitrogen production at Krlewska Huta (now Chorzw), Upper Silesia, at a plant that had been stripped by the Germans. After the Pilsudski coup d'tat in May 1926, Moscicki was installed as president of the republic in June, in which post he served Pilsudski faithfully. He served another seven-year term as president from 1933 until the German and Soviet occupation of Poland in September 1939; at this time Moscicki fled to Romania, where he was interned briefly, and thence to Switzerland, where he resided until his death.