Ryszard Markwart

Ryszard Markwart, or Richard Marquardt (1868-1906) was a German-Polish Catholic priest and Polish national activist who served in Magdeburg, Berlin and Bydgoszcz.

Early life and occupations Richard Marquardt was born on 9 September 1868 in Ostróda, then part of the German Empire, from a Polish-German family.

His father was a German of the Evangelical faith and worked as a veterinarian. His mother Norberta was a Polish Roman Catholic woman. She had the most influence on Ryszard and was critical to shape her son's attachment to Polishness and Catholic faith.

After graduating from gymnasium, he attended lectures at different universities: Greifswald; Würzburg; Münster.

Furthermore, Markwart was educated in theological seminaries in Poznań and Gniezno. He finally received ordination in Gniezno.

He was first a "manservant" "", i.e. below the rank of priest in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, in Środa Wielkopolska during two years (1892–1894). Ryszard then became a vicar at the Gniezno Cathedral.

Between 1894 and 1899, he worked as a priest in the German imperial army. He transferred as parish priest to the garrison church in Magdeburg, then moved as the military chaplain of the 7th division, billeted in Berlin.

During this period, he permanently showed support to Polish national activities, in particular by actively participating in meetings and happenings organised by Polish organizations in Berlin. Concurrently, Markwart expressed tactfulness towards German Catholics, gaining also their sympathy.

Activities in Bydgoszcz In 1899, the parish church in Bydgoszcz lost his priest, Father Józef Choraszewski. To replace him, Florian Stablewski, the serving archbishop of Gniezno, supported Markwart candidacy for the position of parson of the only catholic parish of Bromberg.

With the tacit agreement of the German authorities, Ryszard Markwart was nominated to this place on 15 November 1899.

In 1904, the archbishop of Gniezno granted him the title of "honorary clerical counselor". on the Baltic Sea, where he died on 16 August 1906, while swimming. He was buried at the Nowofarny Cemetery, in a ceremony attended by a multitude of Polish inhabitants of Bydgoszcz and its surroundings.

Feeling deep attachments to his mother Polish roots he had changed his birth name Richard Marquardt to Ryszard Markwart.

Actually, he combined the pastoral work with a dynamic support to national activities among Polish inhabitants. In this matter, he became in 1905 a member of the Bydgoszcz board of the "K. Marcinkowski Society for Scientific Support", established in 1841 by Marcinkowski and Maciej Mielżyński in Prussian occupied Poland. Additionally he participated to the "Straż" organization, which opposed the Germanisation policy of the ruling authorities.