Wincenty Kowalski
| Wincenty Kowalski | |
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| Executive Director of the Józef Piłsudski Institute of America | |
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In office 1956–1963 |
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| Preceded by | Damian Stanisław Wandycz |
| Succeeded by | Wacław Jędrzejewicz |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 11 September 1892 Warsaw, Congress Poland |
| Died | 29 November 1984 River Forest, Illinois |
| Nationality | Polish-American |
Wincenty Kowalski (1892–1984) was a Polish military commander and a general of the Polish Army. A veteran of both World War I and World War II, he fought in all the inter-war conflicts of Poland. During the Invasion of Poland of 1939 he commanded the Polish 1st Legions Infantry Division.
Wincenty Kowalski was born on 11 September 1892 in Warsaw to a family of humble workers. After graduating from a lyceum of Stanisław Konarski, he joined the high school of Hipolit Wawelberg, the only institution of higher education in Warsaw to allow Polish language (though not openly). Afterwards he moved to Liège in Belgium, where he graduated from the Machinery Building faculty of the Polytechnical Institute. During that time he joined the Związek Walki Czynnej, a secret Polish anti-tsarist organization preparing the cadres for a future anti-Russian uprising aimed at liberation of Poland. He was also a member and a tutor of the Związek Strzelecki (ZS). Drafted into the Russian Army, between 1912 and 1913 he studied at the Officers' School of Artillery in Smolensk. After that he moved to Austro-Hungarian Galicia, where he settled in Kraków. There he continued his military training at the NCO and officers' school of the ZS.
After the outbreak of the Great War, in August 1914 he joined the Polish Legions. Initially a member of the legendary 1st Cadre Company, with time he became a battalion commander within the 1st Legions Infantry Regiment. After the Oath Crisis of 1917 he was interned in Beniaminów, along with most of the Legionaries with official Russian citizenship. In November 1918, after Poland regained her independence, he joined the newly formed Polish Army and was promoted to the rank of First Lieutenant. As one of the first experienced officers to join the army, he was immediately dispatched to Lwów, where he took part in the battle for that city and the Polish-Ukrainian War. He also fought with distinction in the Polish-Bolshevik War, for which he was promoted to the rank of Captain (in 1919) and then Major (1920).
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