Family
Gabriel Narutowicz was born into a Polish-Lithuanian noble family in Telšiai, in Lithuania, which was then part of the Russian Empire (earlier partitioned Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). His father, Jan Narutowicz, was a local district judge and also a landholder in the Samogitian village of Brėvikiai. As a result of his participation in the January 1863 Uprising against Imperial Russia, he was sentenced to a year of imprisonment; he died when Gabriel was only one year old.
Gabriel’s mother, Wiktoria Szczepkowska, was Jan's third wife. Following her husband's death she raised her sons herself. An educated woman, intrigued by the philosophy of the Age of Enlightenment, she had a great influence on the development of Gabriel and his siblings' world view. In 1873 she moved to Liepāja, Latvia, so that her children would not have to attend a Russian school, since after the Uprising of 1863, Russification was less strongly enforced there.
After Lithuania regained independence in 1918, Gabriel Narutowicz’s brother, Stanisław Narutowicz, became a Lithuanian citizen. Earier towards the end of World War I, Stanisław became a member of the Council of Lithuania, the provisional Lithuanian parliament. He signed the Lithuanian Act of Independence of 16 February 1918.
Read more about this topic: Gabriel Narutowicz
Famous quotes containing the word family:
“Providing for one’s family as a good husband and father is a water-tight excuse for making money hand over fist. Greed may be a sin, exploitation of other people might, on the face of it, look rather nasty, but who can blame a man for “doing the best” for his children?”
—Eva Figes (b. 1932)
“Happy or unhappy, families are all mysterious. We have only to imagine how differently we would be described—and will be, after our deaths—by each of the family members who believe they know us.”
—Gloria Steinem (b. 1934)
“If we can find a principle to guide us in the handling of the child between nine and eighteen months, we can see that we need to allow enough opportunity for handling and investigation of objects to further intellectual development and just enough restriction required for family harmony and for the safety of the child.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)