Irreligion in Poland
In the sixteenth century, individuals who were considered to be atheists include the royal courtier Jan Zambocki, the geographer Alexander Skultet, and a professor of the Academy of Krakow, Stanislaw Zawacki.
In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Poles declaring a lifelong or temporary atheistic worldview include Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński, Tadeusz Kotarbiński, Ludwik Krzywicki, Irena Krzywicka, Witold Gombrowicz,[12] Władysław Gomułka, Jan Kott, Jeremi Przybora, Mariusz Szczygiel, Wisława Szymborska,[12][15] Stanisław Lem,[12][15] Tadeusz Różewicz, Marek Edelman, Jerzy Kawalerowicz, Zygmunt Bauman, Maria Janion, Tadeusz Łomnicki, Włodzimierz Ptak, Jacek Kuroń,[12] Kazimierz Kutz, Jerzy Urban, Roman Polański, Jerzy Vetulani, Karol Modzelewski, Zbigniew Religa,[12][16] Jan Woleński, Andrzej Sapkowski, Kora Jackowska, Lech Janerka, Wanda Nowicka, Magdalena Środa, Jacek Kaczmarski, Aleksander Kwaśniewski, Kazik Staszewski, Kuba Wojewódzki, Janusz Palikot, Jan Hartman, Maria Peszek, Dorota Nieznalska and Robert Biedroń.
After World War II to the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, atheist worldview has been propagated by the state, which manifested itself, among others, in limiting building permits, as well as the expansion of new churches, the persecution of the clergy (e.g. the illegal[17] arrest of Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski) and harassment of members of the Communist Party taking regular participation in religious practices.
[18][clarification needed] In the communist Poland Association of Atheists and Freethinkers worked well – supported by the authorities – and later also Society for the Promotion of Secular Culture, formed on its basis in 1969.
On the other hand, some declared atheists were involved in the activities of the democratic opposition, like[citation needed] Jacek Kuroń,[12] and Adam Michnik.
The initiative aims to promote ideological assertiveness among the unbelievers, checking the presence of believers in the social life and the consolidation and strengthening of cooperation between free thinkers.
Many leading Polish media have written dozens of articles about this initiative, causing a discussion on the situation of unbelievers in Poland (Gazeta Wyborcza,[21] Cross-section,[22] Overview,[23] Republic,[24] Newsweek,[25] Trybuna,[26] Gazeta Pomorska,[27] Kurier Lubelski,[28] Wirtualna Polska,[29][30] Życie Warszawy[31][32]), and on the radio TOK FM was a debate about atheism between the academic priest Gregory Michalczyk and the founder and then-president of the Polish Rationalist Association, Mariusz Agnosiewicz.
[38][39] On March 29, 2014, an Atheists' March was organized in Warsaw in the framework of Days of Atheism, during which there was a staging of the execution of Kazimierz Łyszczyński, sentenced in 1689 to death for treaty "the non-existence of the gods," in which the role was played by Jan Hartman, a professor of philosophy, bioethics and then an activist of Your Movement, a progressivist political party.
