Mikołaj Zyblikiewicz Monument
Poland
To acknowledge the merits of Mikołaj Zyblikiewicz, who was the president of Kraków, a monument was built in 1887 on Plac Wszystkich Świętych, designed by Walery Gadomski. It was removed in 1954 but was re-erected in 1985.
Mikołaj Zyblikiewicz
Mikołaj Zyblikiewicz was a Polish politician, lawyer, President of Kraków, and Marshal of the Galician Regional Sejm.
He completed his secondary education in Lviv (according to Professor Kyryło Studynski, Mikołaj finished high school in Sambor) and studied at the Faculty of Philosophy at Lviv University, graduating in 1846. During the Spring of Nations in 1848, he was part of a delegation to the students of the University of Vienna to establish contacts with them in the name of equality and freedom (together with Łukasz Solecki, Hilary Treter, and Franciszek Siemianowski). From 1849 to 1851, he studied law at Jagiellonian University. On October 5, 1851, he obtained his doctorate, and in 1855, he became a qualified lawyer. In 1856, he worked as a syndic, a legal advisor to the city of Kraków, and fought for the restoration of the Polish language in schools and offices. From 1861, he was a member of the Regional Sejm. During the January Uprising, he worked in the organization. Since 1866, he was a member of the Kraków City Council.
From 1874 to 1881, he served as the President of Kraków. He continued the changes in the city initiated by figures such as Józef Dietl and was the initiator of new investments, such as the creation of the Crypt of the Meritorious at Skałka, the renovation of the Cloth Hall, the establishment of the National Museum in Kraków, and the construction of a complex of buildings for the fire brigade. On April 24, 1880, as a recognition of his high merits for the city of Kraków, Mikołaj Zyblikiewicz received a valuable ceremonial sabre, and on February 1, 1881, the Kraków City Council unanimously granted him honorary citizenship.
From 1881 to 1886, Zyblikiewicz served as the Marshal of the Regional Sejm. During this time, he initiated the construction of a road through the Pieniny Mountains along the Dunajec Gorge from Szczawnica to Czerwony Klasztor. After handing over the marshal's baton in November 1886, he returned to Kraków. On November 11, 1886, he received honorary citizenship of Lviv.
He died of pneumonia and was buried in the Rakowicki Cemetery (section III). The funeral ceremonies were conducted in the Greek Catholic and Roman Catholic rites. The tombstone was funded by the city of Kraków.