page_title: Franciszek Ptak
section_title: Member of the Diet of Galicia and Lodomeria
hierarchical_section_title: Franciszek Ptak / Biography / Member of the Diet of Galicia and Lodomeria
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Dom Polskiego Towarzystwa Gimnastycznego "Sokół" w Krakowie-Bieńczycach.
context_page_description: Franciszek Ptak 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 1908–1913.
  He ran an inn in the village of Bieńczyce, on the outskirts of Kraków. Reportedly, the inn prospered, thanks to Ptak's entrepreneurship, outmatching the competitive Jewish innkeeper.
  Ptak 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. 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 mentioned in the plot of The Wedding by Stanisław Wyspiański, in one of the dialogues: 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.
context_section_description: Ptak collaborated with Jan Stapiński, a priest and co-organizer of the People's Party (SL) in Galicia. In 1897–1909, as a representative of the rural communes, he was a member of the Poviat Council of the People's Party in Kraków and the deputy member of the Poviat Department in Kraków. From 1904 he was a member of the Poviat Department of the People's Party in Kraków. From 1904 to 1910 he was a member of the District School Council in Kraków on behalf of the Poviat Council of the People's Party. On January 20, 1907, he was elected a member of the Supreme Council of the Polish People's Party. He resigned from candidacy for the benefit of Franciszek Wójcik before the elections to the Austrian Imperial Council in May 1907.
  In 1908, Ptak organised together with Władysław Bogacki a sizable live show in Vienna, titled The Cracovian Wedding. The show has been performed to the eyes of the Emperor of Austria Franz Joseph I to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of his accession to the Austrian throne. Ptak's daughter Zofia Ptak played the part of a bride, the painter Henryk Uziembło performed as the groom, while Wojciech Kossak played the starost. The performance sparked enthusiasm in Vienna and echoed widely in Galicia, in the latter also resulting in a wave of harsh criticism. Stanisław Szczepański referred to Ptak as “Kraków paradebauer”, pejoratively meaning a peasant or farmer making an empty and meaningless performance in a parade just for the sake of the government to avoid claims of excluding peasantry from the public life.
  On February 25, 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 was also a member of the dearness committee. He spoke, among others, on the abolition of the national toll (October 1, 1908) and the establishment of a school of rural housewives in the poviat of Kraków (October 14, 1909), and was also a parliamentary auditor. He and his fellow Members made an urgent proposal to prevent hunger threatening populations throughout the country (March 19, 1913).
  On March 8, 1908, Ptak was re-elected a member of the Supreme Council of the Polish People's Party.
  In 1909 he founded a branch of the “Falcon” Polish Gymnastic Society in his village Bieńczyce. 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).
caption: The “Falcon” Polish Gymnastic Society House in Bieńczyce, constructed thanks to the financing of Franciszek Ptak
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