Polish Association of Freethinkers (PAF) () was a secular

movement Movement may refer to: Generic uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Movement (sign language), a hand movement when signing * Motion, commonly referred to as movement * Movement (music), a division of a larger co ...

established in 1907 in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

. Polish Association of Freethinkers was the first such organization in the Polish lands.

History

On December 8, 1907, Delegates and the National Congress of Polish Freethinking in

, established the Polish Association of Freethinkers. Among the participants-founders were social activists

Aleksander Świętochowski Aleksander Świętochowski (18 January 1849 – 25 April 1938) was a Polish writer, educator, and philosopher of the Positivism in Poland, Positivist period that followed the January Uprising, January 1863 Uprising. He was widely regarded as the ...

and

Ludwik Krzywicki Ludwik Joachim Franciszek Krzywicki (21 August 1859 – 10 June 1941) was a Polish Marxism, Marxist anthropologist, economist, and sociologist. An early champion of sociology in Poland, he approached historical materialism from a sociological vie ...

. The Association set itself the goal of fighting for the introduction of: secular standards of public life, secular metrics, secular wedding and funeral, and abolition of coercive religious education in schools. Tsarist repression led to the rapid outlawing PAFT already in 1909. In May 1920. By

Jan Niecisław Baudouin de Courtenay Jan Niecisław Ignacy Baudouin de Courtenay, also Ivan Alexandrovich Baudouin de Courtenay (; 13 March 1845 – 3 November 1929), was a Polish linguist and Slavist, best known for his theory of the phoneme and phonetic alternations. For most ...

reactivated activity PAFT. De Courtenay became the first president. Among the founders were: Romuald Minkiewicz, Jan Hempel and

Józef Landau Józef Landau (1875 – November 1933) was a poet, essayist, philosopher, educational activist, assimilationist, a leading representative of the movement of freethought. Member and promoter of the progressives united in the Association of Commerci ...

. The movement demanded above all a real separation of church and state, legal recognition lack of religious beliefs. At the third congress of the PAFT in 1925. It made a split in the organization's supporters and liberal enlightenment tradition led by Jan Baudouin de Courtenay and Joseph Landau, and supporters of

Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...

. A group of left-wing activists close to the Communist Party with Jan Hempel seized the leadership of the organization, for which the earlier demands of the movement were too liberal. The Association began to emphasize threads anticlerical and atheistic, acceded to the International of the Proletarian Freethinkers. A group of activists associated with the old leadership had left the organization and set up in 1926 Polish Association of Free Thought. In 1928. The administrative authorities resolved the Polish Association of. Most of Freethinkers the activists of the banned PAFT joined the Polish Association of Free Thought, which eventually began to refer to leftist slogans, which led to its outlawing in 1936.

References

Bibliography

Od racjonalizmu do kryzysu. Towarzystwo Kultury Świeckiej. Urząd Miasta Łodzi
{{Authority control Clubs and societies in Poland Irreligion in Poland 1907 establishments in Poland