Franciszek Ptak (30 August 1859 – 29 July 1936) was a Polish peasant, innkeeper, politician and publisher active in the peasant movement, who was a member of the Diet of Galicia and Lodomeria between 1908 and 1913.
Ptak ran an inn in the village of Bieńczyce, on the outskirts of Kraków. He began his political activity in the 1890s. He published peasant magazines, that he distributed in his inn, and became a member of the Polish People's Party (PSL). He held various positions in the PSL local structures, and ran for the deputy of the Diet of Galicia and Lodomeria several times. He succeeded in 1908, when he was elected a representative of the rural communes of the Kraków poviat. His lack of success in the elections to the Austrian Imperial Council some years earlier was referenced in the plot of The Wedding by Stanisław Wyspiański (1901), "So it's Ptak that you were taking on the position?"
According to Young Poland's notable literary critic Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński, Ptak was to some extent a model persona of Czepiec, one of the protagonists of The Wedding. Alongside his wife, Ptak was a special guest at the world premiere of The Wedding in the Kraków Municipal Theater.
From 1907, he was a member of the Supreme Council of the Polish People's Party. After the party split, he was a member of the Polish People's Party "Left" (1913–1924) and the Polish People's Party "Piast" (1924–1931). He co-financed the construction of the "Falcon" Polish Gymnastic Society House and the public school in his native village Bieńczyce, as well as in the construction of the Bonifratres Hospital in Kraków, and was friends with several artists, among them Włodzimierz Tetmajer.
Biography
Early years He was born to a peasant family, the son of Antoni Ptak, who owned seven acres, and Salomea née Włodek. The family name Ptak means a bird in Polish.
Franciszek Ptak graduated from a peasant elementary school and was also a self-taught; he read a lot. He started with farming on his three acres. Periodically he was a wage worker in a mill. For nine years he charged a toll tax on the behalf of local authorities. In 1886 he married Marcjanna née Szafrańska (7 January 1864 – 4 August 1947). They had twelve children: five sons and seven daughters.
Innkeeper He founded and ran an inn in the village Bieńczyce outside Kraków. As an innkeeper, he always took care of laying current editions of the folk press on the tables so that the guests could read them. Thanks to his own entrepreneurship and diligence he managed to outmatch the competitive Jewish innkeeper. He was a co-founder and editor of the magazines Wieniec (Wreath) and Pszczółka (Little Bee) that focused on rural issues. His farm was considered exemplary in the district. He promoted the latest achievements in farming and breeding.
Wincenty Witos, a prominent politician of the Polish People's Party and later a prime minister of Poland, recalled Ptak in his memoir. Witos described, among others, the first time he met Ptak in 1895 in Bieńczyce. According to Witos, other peasants expressed unflattering judgements about Ptak, "unable to endure the boasting parvenu". Witos, who served at the time in the Austro-Hungarian Army, moved with his troop to the fort in the village of Krzesławice, and one day he “learned from the peasants coming with the potatoes to the barracks that in the neighboring village of Bieńczyce there is a host and an innkeeper, Franciszek Ptak, who deals with politics and receives folk newspapers.”
On the subsequent Sunday, which was a day off, Witos with a friend of his went to visit the tavern in Bieńczyce, as Witos recalled: "Already on the way we learned from the neighbor of Mr. Ptak, who went to the village, that Ptak is an extremely rich man, but also no less a speculator and flay-flint, that he earns money on masters and priests, and for that money he buys estates and lends usury, that peasants and laborers give him the last pennies, etc. stuff. He also said that Mr. Ptak, in addition to the tavern, has a large stone house, a steam mill, a few dozen acres of land, and yet he rents all tolls in the poviat, takes military and poviat supplies, not giving anyone a chance to earn a penny." This "seemingly talkative and jealous" neighbor peasant, as Witos remarked, also said "that the current rich man, Mr. Ptak, although he comes from the beggar family, is himself worse than many a count. He considers peasants nothing, he only goes in with the masters, he travels to Vienna and Lviv for exhibitions, takes over his daughters around the world and introduces them to the great masters." Finally, the peasant "expressed the hope that this Sodom would end, and God's punishment would not pass Mr. Ptak." Witos commented that "although these details have discouraged him a bit and prejudiced him, he decided to go to the inn", the more that he and his friend were only about fifty steps away from it.
Then Witos goes on describing his first direct encounter with Ptak. "Having entered a very large inn, we found there a crowd of workers sipping vodka and beer, smoking pipes and cigarettes, talking loudly to each other. At a separate table Mr. Ptak was sitting with only few older hosts. In front of them stood a large, yet unfinished glass of beer. We put ourselves in a corner, and started reading the paper Przyjaciel Ludu (Friend of the People), which just lay on the table in front of us, heavily crumpled and stained. Not to be thrown out of the inn, we ordered a small glass of beer. At one point Mr. Ptak got up and went to another table. I looked at him closer. He was a tall, upright, handsome man of good corpulence and posture, a perfect model for a painter, sculptor or even a poet. His face was full of pride, contentment, self-confidence and disrespect for the people who surrounded him. I tried to talk to him in vain, he pushed away the intervening waiter and did not even look at me. And no wonder. I did not belong to those who would impress him with their property or office, or those who would make him earn more. He did not recognize others. I remembered his neighbor's chatter and I could not refuse him right. Although I went out a bit resentful from Mr. Ptak's inn, I did not fail to go there every Sunday afternoon, to read a newspaper and drink a small glass of beer, this way saving myself from being thrown out the door. I did not try to communicate Mr. Ptak any more, he also did not turn to me, always having a more urgent engagement."
Beginnings in the people's movement Ptak went to politics, becoming a member of the Polish People's Party (PSL). He was associated with the Christian-folk movement of Father Stanisław Stojałowski, a priest. In 1892, unsuccessfully he stood for the supplementary election to the Diet of Galicia and Lodomeria. From 1898 to 1902, he was an editor of the magazine Obrona Ludu (The Defend of the People) issued by the Stojałowski group in Kraków.
Together with Witos, Ptak financially supported the construction of the Bonifratres Hospital at Trynitarska Street in Kraków. He was inscribed on the list of benefactors of the Order of Bonifratres. When he later did not want to stay in the hospital during his illness, the monks took care of him at home due to his services to the convent. He also contributed to the construction of a brick school in Bieńczyce, the first of its kind in the poviat, and to the construction of a parish house in Raciborowice, next to the gothic fifteenth century church of St Margaret.
Ptak was friends with several artists. Among them was Włodzimierz Tetmajer. The correspondence of the two was preserved. In one of his pastels, Tetmajer depicted Ptak and other peasant Błażej Czepiec. Ptak, on the other hand, made his old house available to the painter Józef Krasnowolski, who found himself together with his family in a difficult financial situation. The guests in Ptak's house, apart from Tetmajer and Krasnowolski, included Stanisław Wyspiański, Lucjan Rydel, and Wojciech Kossak.
The Wedding episode
In December 1900 Franciszek Ptak ran unsuccessfully to the Austrian Imperial Council. A reference to that event appeared in one of the dialogues of Stanisław Wyspiański play The Wedding (1901). According to Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński, a notable figure of the Young Poland, the fictional figure of Czepiec brought to life by Wyspiański was modeled mainly after Błażej Czepiec, a peasant from the village of Bronowice, but in fact included some characteristics of both Błażej Czepiec and Franciszek Ptak. Boy-Żeleński pointed out that “Wyspiański, portraying Czepiec in several authentic situations of that wedding reception, strengthened his physiognomy with some of the features taken from another sub-Krakow peasant, Ptak. Mr. Ptak, even taller than Czepiec, a peasant of enormous strength, popular in the poviat, magnificent in his white coat, a figurehead on all “national parades” (...) also did not let others to push him around; when some kind of intellectual tried to offend his honor, Ptak said only: – Beware, sir, because I am of the Ptaks that beat in the face” (in Polish: of the Birds that beat in the face).
Wyspiański invited Mr. and Mrs. Ptak to the premiere show of The Wedding in the Kraków Municipal Theatre. Author of the play was particularly interested in the opinion of Mrs. Marcjanna Ptak, whom he “valued for practical peasant reason”. A columnist, literary critic and wife of the then-director of the Municipal Theatre Lucyna Kotarbińska recalled: “Wyspiański wanted to check what impression would The Wedding make on the countrywoman who doesn't have any closer contact with our artistic and literary world. We have agreed that, following his wishes, we will invite a peasant from Tonie, near Kraków, Mr. Ptak, with his wife. Mr. Ptak was a wise peasant. Deputy. Editor of the magazine. The only one eager to help to make decorations during ceremonies. Indeed he made the Jew move out from the tavern in the village, but he took the tavern himself, and his wife traded well at the canteen. Apart from that, she was also very strict. So we go to them, on Sunday afternoon, with our sister Teofila Kotarbińska, who was staying at our place, and Włodzimierz Tetmajer. The host welcomed us like Piast. In a white sukmana with a loaf of bread, putting a jar of honey, which we liked so much that we forgot about the hour. And here's the show and we have to get on the train we just hear whistling. We run as if we were shot from a sling, as if we all had wings, trotting through the fields, with waving hands, handkerchiefs and screams, that the train stands in the middle of nowhere and takes us to Kraków. Well, that's when we invited Mr. and Mrs. Ptak to the lodge, in which Mrs. Ptak was the main subject of our observation. She behaved quite indifferently to the whole. She only reacted to one thing, namely, when in response to a long epistle of The Poet, Czepiec says: – Take a simple wife: much bliss, little cost. – If someone takes a simple wife, the costs are smaller, it's true, but that it gives much bliss – I do not believe it, judged Mrs. Ptak.”
Member of the Diet of Galicia and Lodomeria
Ptak collaborated with Jan Stapiński, a priest and co-organizer of the People's Party (SL) in Galicia. In 1897–1909, as a representative of the rural communes, he was a member of the Poviat Council of the People's Party in Kraków and the deputy member of the Poviat Department in Kraków. From 1904 he was a member of the Poviat Department of the People's Party in Kraków. From 1904 to 1910 he was a member of the District School Council in Kraków on behalf of the Poviat Council of the People's Party. On 20 January 1907, he was elected a member of the Supreme Council of the Polish People's Party. He resigned from candidacy for the benefit of Franciszek Wójcik before the elections to the Austrian Imperial Council in May 1907.