Michał Joachim Alojzy Węsławski (; ; 17 September 1849 – 22 August 1917) was a Polish lawyer and politician who served as the Vilnius city councillor from 1897 to 1905, then mayor (president) from 1905 to 1916, and deputy to the 2nd Russian State Duma. He was the first non-Russian mayor of Vilnius since the January Uprising.
As a lawyer, he took part in the defense of the victims of the so-called Kražiai massacre. He served as mayor of Vilnius for multiple terms but lost his job during the German occupation in 1916. His service to Vilnius includes an attempt to implement a so-called "Europeanization" plan for the city. Prior to the outbreak of World War I, he managed to start the construction of an electric tramway, water supply systems, and sewage systems, which were continued in the interwar period. He recreated theater life in the city after the restrictions imposed following the January Uprising of the 1860s. He also campaigned to reopen a university in Vilnius. During the occupation, the German authorities stripped him of his post as mayor in 1916. He died of a heart attack in 1917, in Vilnius.
Married to Maria Grużewska, he had no children. His brother was Witold Węsławski, a doctor and politician. Witold's son served as underground mayor of the city during World War II.
Biography Youth and education
Węsławski was born on 17 September 1849 in the family estate in as the second son of Antoni and Kazimiera Gadon. He had three siblings brother Stanisław (born 1847), sister Tekla (born 1854) and second brother Witold Jan Narcyz (born 1855). His ancestor was Samuel Węsławski (d. 1690), royal courtier, diplomat, author of memoirs and biography of the Hetman Wincenty Gosiewski. Antoni Węsławski was a landowner, and in his youth fought in the November Uprising as an aide-de-camp to , commander of the Telšiai troops. Because he also took part in January Uprising, the family estate was taken from him by the Russian government. Antoni was then exiled to Povenets in Karelia, where he stayed until 1868 and lost his eyesight. In that year he was released with a ban on returning to his homeland, so the family settled in the Courland Governorate town of Libava, located only 40 versts (roughly 43 kilometers) from the former estate.
Michał Węsławski received his education at the Šiauliai Gymnasium from 1862 to 1870. Later he studied law, first in Moscow and, after a year, at the Imperial University in St. Petersburg. After completing his apprenticeship, he was appointed in 1876 as an investigating judge in the first district of the city of Chișinău. In 1879, he married Maria Grużewska, who brought the , in Šiauliai county, as a dowry. They had no children, and Maria suffered from mental illness beginning in the 1890s and lived separately from her husband at the estate. Santekliai was owned by Maria's daughter Tekla Grużewska. During his childhood Mykolas Biržiška often visited Santekliai with his father.
In Vilnius In 1880, Węsławski started to work as a lawyer in St. Petersburg and from 1883 in Vilnius where he lived in the so-called Müller House on the German Street.
From 1888, he became involved with his younger brother Witold (father of , later an underground mayor of Vilnius during World War II) in creating the structures of secret Polish education, they founded Society of National Education "Oświata". He took part in the works of Vilnius Land Bank (since 1900, as a member of the audit committee) and Vilnius Agrarian Association (1899–1911, until 1906 as a treasurer). He was a member of secret Archeological Circle (1897–1907), Noblemen's Club, and Vilnius Imperial Medical Society. He was also a member from November 1901 of the Society for the Care of Children, which organized summer camps in towns in the Vilnius region. Since 1902 he was a member of the Society for Emergency Medical Care, the society had from two to four ambulances and maintained a permanent duty of doctors and nurses, providing help in the city. Together with his brother Witold, he joined the musical "Lutnia" Society, founded in 1905. He was also member of Vilnius Cyclic Society (since 1908) and Vilnius Artistic society (1908–1915, as a president).
In 1894, he took part in the preparation of the defense, and later in the trial itself as an assistant defense attorney for the victims of the Kražiai massacre. During the trial, together with , he also served as an interpreter for peasants who spoke only the Samogitian dialect of Lithuania and did not know Russian. After the trial, in 1895, he became chairman of the Commission of Sworn Attorneys of the Vilnius Court Chamber. He probably also took part in the defense of Emilia Węsławska, the wife of his brother Witold, who was accused of violating the law, because she was speaking Polish publicly in a store. In 1899 he took part in raising funds for the renovation of St. Anne's Church (the first renovation of a Catholic church in Vilnius since 1863) and St. Michael's Church. In 1905, Michał Węsławski became a contributor to the first Polish daily newspaper published in Vilnius in years, Kurier Litewski, founded by Hipolit Korwin-Milewski. The first issue of the paper appeared on 14 September 1905.
In 1900, he and his friends: Restytut Sumorok, Michał Minkiewicz and Tadeusz Wróblewski renewed the fraternal organization that had existed in Vilnius at the beginning of the 19th century. They called themselves Neoszubrawcy to distinguish themselves from the predecessors. Węsławski adopted the nickname "Wadwicz" and the dignity of "Grand Warden of the Shovel," which gave him the right to interrupt anyone who referred to an issue or led a polemic. The society had 33 members at its peak. The society was a place for the exchange of views on local and national issues, the members had different political views and were united by their progressiveness. Many of them belonged to the Krajowcy milieu.
In the Vilnius City Council In May 1897, he was elected to the Vilnius City Council, where he sat until 1905. Among the 54 councillors, there were six Russians, two of them , and five Jewish councillors nominated by the governor, as Jews did not have the right to vote. The city's constitution was based on the 1870 Cities Law, which was introduced to the Northwestern Krai in 1876. Power in the city belonged to the City Council (Duma), which was elected for a four-year term; the City Board and Mayor were elected from among the councilors. The majority of Polish councillors gave the opportunity to elect Józef Montwiłł as president, but the election was not approved by Interior Minister Ivan Goremykin. A repeat vote in December led to the election of a Russian, Pavel Vasilevich Berthold. This was the second attempt to elect a Pole to the post; in 1893, the election of Antoni Tyszkiewicz was cancelled in a similar manner. The next town council elections were held in April 1901, the composition of the council changed slightly. Berhold remained in his position. One of the magistrate's major achievements was the launch of Vilnius' power plant in January 1903, the first in the Western Krai.
In 1904, Governor-General of Vilna Pyotr Sviatopolk-Mirsky organized a ceremony to unveil a statue of Catherine the Great in Vilnius. Because he was leaving his post to become Minister of the Interior, he invited Polish landowners to the unveiling of the monument, in return promising them to bring the rights of the Polish nobility on a par with those of the Russian nobility. Węsławski was among those who were invited in person. Despite this, he was not present at the ceremony, which was attended by about 50 Poles. A wave of criticism from the Polish public fell on them, and they were called .
During the revolutionary period, a state of emergency was imposed in Vilnius on 3 May 1905. The councillors worked to calm the situation, Węsławski was at the head of a committee negotiating with the workers of the city bakeries.
In the State Duma
In 1905, he ran unsuccessfully for the State Duma from the Šiauliai district and the city of Vilnius. As mayor, he also organized the election process himself. The election in Vilna was won by Shmaryahu Levin.
After the first Duma was dissolved after 10 weeks, re-elections were organized. On 6 and 7 December 1906, a convention of delegates of Polish electoral committees from Western Krai took place in Vilnius, in the apartment of Aleksander Chomiński. The delegates established a joint election committee of Lithuania and Ruthenia, and pledged to establish a Kresy Circle in the Duma to cooperate with the Polish Circle, which would include deputies from the Congress Poland. This time Węsławski ran only in Vilnius and as the only candidate supported by all Polish parties.
Lithuanians refused to support his candidacy and presented Jonas Basanavičius as their candidate. The Jewish candidate was Oscar Gruzenberg. The election of electors took place on 28 January 1907. Poles won 47 electoral seats and Jews won 33. The final vote on 19 February was a formality, with Węsławski winning it by 44 to 31 votes.
In an interview with the Kurier Litewski, when asked about his views, he replied:
He also advocated enfranchisement reform, but on the condition that it be carried out by local authorities, not St. Petersburg. He also advocated electoral reform. He was one of 46 Polish deputies there, and was active in the , which he became a president of. He was also a member of three committees: Finance, Personal Integrity, and Public Education. During the Duma, he took part in work on the reform of local courts, the introduction of zemstvo in the Western Krai and supported the rejected proposal to introduce autonomy for the Congress Poland.
The Second Duma functioned for more than three months, after which it was dissolved by a decree of the Emperor Nicholas II. Along with the decree dissolving the Duma, a new electoral law was announced severely limiting the number of deputies of national minorities. Węsławski returned to Vilnius. He was offered to run for the Duma again, but refused.
President of Vilnius
First term The 1905 elections were held under new conditions: 971 people were eligible to vote, they were mostly Poles and Jews, and a small group of Russians, the number of councillors was increased by 10. Jewish circles, demanding full voting rights, boycotted the elections and refused to accept the positions of nominated councillors. The Polish circles decided to fight for the full pot and to win the position of president. Only 300 eligible voters took part in the 9–10 June vote. Of the 65 council seats, 56 Poles were elected, with six seats earmarked for Jews left vacant, who eventually decided to join the council. Neither the incumbent mayor nor anyone from the City Board got into the city council. On 2 October 1905, elections were held for mayor, which Węsławski won decisively by a ratio of 57 votes to 10. Mieczysław Malinowski and Aleksander Łapiński were elected to the City Board.