Polish president who governed with his twin brother

Kaczynski 1949-2010
Poland's late president. Lech Kaczynski, had a lifelong obsession with the tragic history of his country, said The Guardian. Born in a Warsaw still racked by the depredations of the Second World War, he was brought up by his parents to sing the national anthem - sometimes known as Poland Is Not Yet Lost - every night after saying his prayers. Jailed during the Cold War for his dissident activities, he went on in later life to hound those he believed had collaborated with the communists. One of the defining moments of his three-year stint as mayor of Warsaw was the opening in 2004 of the Museum of the Warsaw Uprising, which he had promoted. And by a malign coincidence, it was while

Kaczynski was on his way to commemorate one of his nation's worst catastrophes, the murder of thousands of Poles at Katyn in Russia in 1940, that he was killed in a plane crash along with 95 others, including the governor of Poland's central bank, the deputy speaker of parliament, the head of national security, 15 MPs and his own wife, Maria.
The son of an engineer. Lech Aleksander Kaczynski was born in 1949, shortly after his identical twin, Jaroslaw. (In later life, they could often only be told apart by the mole on Lech's left cheek.) The pair had a moment of early fame in 1962 when they starred in the film The Two Who Stole the Moon. Yet "the swotty duo had little in common with the scamps they portrayed", said The Economist. Both were highly academic, and Lech became a respected professor at Gdansk University, specialising in labour law. He was then chosen to act as adviser in the disputes between the unions and the state in the 1970s and 1980s, disputes that culminated in the rise of the Solidarity movement and the fall of Communism in Poland. The struggle brought him together with Solidarity's leader. Lech Walesa (who had been one of his pupils in Gdansk), and Kaczynski went on to serve as security minister when Walesa became president. In 1992, however, he resigned



after the pair fell out, and the two men remained bitter opponents.
Kaczynski's career can be divided into two halves, said The Times. In the first half he was a freedom fighter; in the second, an advocate of traditional, right-wing sentiments. Returning to politics in 2000, he made a name for himself as a tough justice minister, winning wide support by cracking down on corruption and sup- porting the return of the death penalty. The following year he was sacked from the post, but he continued to push his policies both as mayor of the capital and as a founder member, along with his brother, of the conservative Law and Justice party. A devout Catholic, Kaczynski was also famously opposed to homosexuals. He

banned gay pride marches in Warsaw, bur allowed a counter- demonstration, the "Parade of Normality". (He became notorious for remarking that "the promotion of homosexuality would lead to the eventual destruction of the human race'*.) These popular - one might say populist - measures led to his being swept to power in 2005 as his country's president.
A small man at just 5ft 5in, Kaczynski "looked nervous" on the public stage and petulant defending Polish interests at EU summits, said The Economist. His foreign policy was excessively simple - America good, Russia and Germany bad - and he- pursued it clumsily. He offended Moscow by allowing the US to build part of its anti-ballistic missile system inside Polish borders; he rebuffed Chancellor McrkcPs friendly overtures in Germany, where he and his brother were dubbed "the Polish potatoes" by a hostile press. Even at home his popularity had recently plummeted, and he was thought unlikely to be re-elected later this year. Yet after his tragic death at the age of 60, Kaczynski will be remembered for his warmth in private and for the triumphs of his public career. He and his wife were laid to rest in the Wawel Cathedral in Krakow, alongside the poets, kings and heroes of his beloved Poland's past.