Franciszek Ptak

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 Błażej Czepiec and Franciszek Ptak in the Chamber in Bronowice village, a pastel by Włodzimierz Tetmajer (c. 1900). Ptak is seated in the middle. Picture in the collection of the Historical Museum of Kraków

The Ptak family from Bieńczyce. Seated from the left: Zofia Norkowa née Ptak, Franciszek and Marcjanna Ptak and their son Wojciech (1917)

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.

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." (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. 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.

On 25 February 1908, Ptak was elected a member of the Diet of Galicia and Lodomeria (Sejm Krajowy), representing the rural communes of the Kraków poviat. In the Diet, he was a member of the petition committee and the commune committee. From 1910, he spoke on the abolition of the national toll (1 October 1908) and the establishment of a school of rural housewives in the poviat of Kraków (14 October 1909), and was also a parliamentary auditor. He and his fellow Members made an urgent proposal to prevent hunger threatening populations throughout the country (19 March 1913). On 8 March 1908, Ptak was re-elected a member of the Supreme Council of the Polish People's Party. The “Falcon” House was built from the contributions of the residents of Bieńczyce on the plot given by Ptak. The construction work took place under his leadership and with his significant financial participation. He was a member of the supervisory board of the National Central Fund for Agricultural Companies in Lviv (1913–1914).

During World War I (1914–1918) Ptak did not serve in the army and remained at home. During the short-lived reunification of the Polish People's Party "Piast" and the Polish People's Party "Left", he was elected a member of the Central Board of the Polish People's Party at the congress in Tarnów on 1 December 1918.

Witos also illustrated Ptak's parsimony with an episode that took place in the first months after the establishment of the Polish state, around 1919, when a Polish military detachment commandeered Ptak some oats. Poland was at the time in a war with the Soviet Union to the eastern border. “Mr. Ptak defended himself against giving away oats so much that they had to be overtaken by force. It resented and at the same time upset him so much that not only did he cover the soldiers with insults on the spot, but also in public.”

In the Polish People's Party "Piast" – the final years

In 1924, he left the Polish People's Party "Left" and joined the People's Party "Piast". In Bieńczyce he founded a branch of Kasa Stefczyka, a savings and loan cooperative created on the model of Raiffeisen cooperatives in several spots in Galicia, and served more than a dozen neighboring villages being a long-time president of the branch. In 1932, with the Banderia of Cracovians he welcomed Wincenty Witos who was going to nearby village of Pleszów. He was buried at the parish cemetery in Raciborowice three days later, on August 1. and Wiesław Ptak, a chemist.

Commemoration and cultural references One of the streets in Kraków, in the district Bieńczyce, was named after Franciszek Ptak.

A few souvenirs of Ptak have been preserved, including a wide leather belt, richly decorated and studded with brass studs. Natural-size oil portraits of Franciszek and Marcjanna Ptak by Józef Krasnowolski were put into a deposit of the Regional Chamber of Culture Center of the then- Vladimir Lenin Steelworks in 1973 by Władysław Ptak, the son of Franciszek and Marcjanna. Currently, the portraits are owned by the C. K. Norwid Culture Centre in Kraków (Ośrodek Kultury im. Cypriana Kamila Norwida w Krakowie).

The old print depicting Franciszek Ptak is part of the decoration of the Eszeweria Café in Kraków at Józefa Street in Kazimierz.