Bogdan Borusewicz

Bogdan Michał Borusewicz (; born 11 January 1949) is a Polish politician who served as the Marshal of the Polish Senate from 20 October 2005 to 11 November 2015. Borusewicz was a democratic opposition activist under the Communist regime, a member of the Polish parliament (Sejm) for three terms and first Senate Marshal to serve two terms in this office. He served as the Acting President of Poland for a few hours in 2010.

Democratic opposition in communist Poland Borusewicz was born in Lidzbark Warmiński, Poland. When still a secondary school student of School of Fine Arts in Gdynia, he was arrested in May 1968 during the Polish 1968 political crisis on charges of printing and distributing opposition fliers.

In 1975, he graduated from the Catholic University of Lublin in the field of history. During the 1970s he took part in a campaign of support for striking workers in Radom, and became a part of the Workers' Defence Committee. In the years 1977–1978 he was a co-organiser of the Free Trade Unions of the Coast, "the cradle of Solidarity," established by Andrzej Gwiiazda, Krzysztof Wyszkowski and Antoni Sokolowski.

He was the point of contact for the opposition in Gdansk—a recruiting and networking role similar to Jacek Kuron in Warsaw—and a principal organiser of the August 1980 strike in the Gdańsk Shipyard which led to the formation of the Solidarity trade union, and a co-author of the strikers postulates. He took part in the formation of the Solidarity free trade union.

After the institution of martial law by the regime on 13 December 1981, he spent more than four years hiding from the authorities and organising the underground structures of the then-outlawed Solidarity trade union. In 1983, he secretly married fellow activist Alina Pienkowska, an underground event cited in Andrzej Wajda's Man of Iron starring Lech Walesa and Anna Walentynowicz. The following year, disguised as a woman, he attended the baptism of their daughter Kinga. Between 1984 and 1986, he was a member of the Provisional Solidarity Coordination Committee and then Provisional Solidarity Trade Union Council. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1986 and released under an amnesty in 1988. He supported the May and August strikes in the Gdańsk Shipyard in that year but, along with many Solidarity leaders, he initially opposed the round table compromise believing communism would crumble.

Called by the Polish media "The President for One Day", Borusewicz said, "at least I'll end up as a question in quizzes".

Awards In 2009 Borusewicz received the Dr. Rainer Hildebrandt Human Rights Award endowed by Alexandra Hildebrandt. The award is given annually in recognition of extraordinary, non-violent commitment to human rights.