Ignacy Moscicki

Born Dec. 1, 1867, in Mierzanów, near Plock; died Oct. 2, 1946, in Versoix, Switzerland. Polish political figure and chemist.

Moscicki joined the Union of Polish Socialists Abroad in 1892. He worked with J. Pilsudski, on whose recommendation he was elected president of Poland. During Moscicki’s term of office from June 1, 1926, to September 1939 the so-called sanacja (“moral cleansing”) regime was consolidated. Moscicki was one of the initiators of a foreign policy aimed at creating an anti-Soviet bloc. After fascist German troops invaded Poland on the night of Sept. 17, 1939, he fled to Rumania, where he announced his resignation. From Rumania he went to Switzerland.

Moscicki was a professor of chemical technology and electrochemistry from 1912. He developed methods of obtaining nitric acid and studied problems of petroleum extraction and purification.