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StanisÅ‚aw Jerzy Komorowski (18 December 1953 â€“ 10 April 2010) was a Polish
diplomat A diplomat (from ; romanization, romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state (polity), state, International organization, intergovernmental, or Non-governmental organization, nongovernmental institution to conduct diplomacy with one ...
and
physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...
. He was long-term Polish Ambassador to Great Britain and the Netherlands, the Deputy Minister of National Defence and Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister. He was one of the new wave of Polish diplomats who reestablished Polish diplomatic services after the
Polish Round Table Agreement The Polish Round Table Talks took place in Warsaw, communist Poland, from 6 February to 5 April 1989. The government initiated talks with the banned trade union ''Solidarity'' and other opposition groups to defuse growing social unrest. Hist ...
.


Life


Education and Physics

Komorowski was born 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 ...
, Poland. His parents were Henryk and Violetta Komorowski. He went to Limanowski High School in the
Żoliborz Żoliborz () is one of the northern dzielnica, districts of the city of Warsaw. It is located directly to the north of the Warszawa-Śródmieście, City Centre, on the left bank of the Vistula river. It has approximately 50,000 inhabitants and is ...
quarter of Warsaw. He studied physics at the Physics Department at the
University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw (, ) is a public university, public research university in Warsaw, Poland. Established on November 19, 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country, offering 37 different fields of study as well ...
between 1972/73 and 1977/78 and graduated March 11, 1978 with a degree in biophysics. His M.Sc. was written under professor David Shugar and dealt with magnetic resonance. In 1985, he was awarded a Ph.D. in physical chemistry for his work on photoacoustics. Between 1978 and 1990, he worked at the Institute of Physical Chemistry at the Polish Academy of Sciences, mostly collaborating with the Photochemistry and Spectroscopy group. In 1986 and for a half year between 1989 and 1990, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Chemistry Department at the
University of Utah The University of Utah (the U, U of U, or simply Utah) is a public university, public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret (Book of Mormon), Deseret by the General A ...
in professor Edward Eyring's lab.


Diplomacy

He started his diplomatic career almost by chance, without any prior diplomatic experience, by applying for a position in the Foreign Ministry opened at the time by Minister Krzysztof Skubiszewski, who was seeking to renew diplomatic services in Poland after the regime change in 1989. In 1991, he was appointed as Skubiszewski's chief of staff. Between 1994 and 1998, he was the Polish ambassador to the Netherlands and, between 1999 and 2004, he was the Polish ambassador to Great Britain. He played a role behind the curtains in the diplomatic events leading to Poland's acceptance to NATO as well as the European Union. He was a part of a new wave of Polish diplomats that emerged along with Poland's new democratic government following the
Polish Round Table Agreement The Polish Round Table Talks took place in Warsaw, communist Poland, from 6 February to 5 April 1989. The government initiated talks with the banned trade union ''Solidarity'' and other opposition groups to defuse growing social unrest. Hist ...
. He was Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister and between 2007 and 2010 Deputy Minister of the National Defense. In the Department of Defense he was responsible for foreign affairs and, among other tasks, he negotiated the US missile defense system to be deployed in Poland. The US Ambassador Feinstein said "Minister Komorowski was our invaluable partner on bilateral defense issues of vital importance to both countries, including Missile Defense and the upcoming rotation of Patriot Missiles in Poland. With Minister Komorowski seated across the table from our negotiators during U.S.-Polish talks on a Status of Forces Agreement, we knew we would come up with an agreement that met both sides’ needs, and we did. His energy, his leadership and his mastery of security issues will be sorely missed by his American colleagues at the United States Departments of State and Defense. America mourns a true friend."


Interests

He was an avid skier and ski instructor as well as tennis player. During his university years, he was an active member of the Academic Ski Association (his father was a member of the International Ski Federation) and during his high school years he skied with members of the Catholic Intelligentsia Club (pol. Klub Inteligencji Katolickiej). One of his passions was parks and gardens and, for a short time in 1990, he had a small gardening company; with his wife Maria Komorowska they created three gardens before they closed the company. His other passion was French culture; as a student he spent his vacations in France with Dziadulski family. Later, at the end of his life, he rebuilt the garden at the Komorowski’s ''Dziewanna'' villa on the outskirts of Warsaw. He was married three times and had three sons â€“ Karol and Maciej with Irena Komorowska and Jerzy with Maria Komorowska. His third wife was Ewa Komorowska.


Death

He was listed on the flight manifest of the
Tupolev Tu-154 The Tupolev Tu-154 (; NATO reporting name: "Careless") is a three-engined, medium-range, narrow-body airliner designed in the mid-1960s and manufactured by Tupolev. A workhorse of Soviet and (subsequently) Russian airlines for several decades, ...
of the 36th Special Aviation Regiment carrying the
President of Poland The president of Poland ( ), officially the president of the Republic of Poland (), is the head of state of Poland. His or her prerogatives and duties are determined in the Constitution of Poland. The president jointly exercises the executive ...
Lech Kaczyński Lech Aleksander Kaczyński (; 18 June 194910 April 2010) was a Polish politician who served as the city mayor of Warsaw from 2002 until 2005, and as President of Poland from 2005 until his death in 2010 in an air crash. The aircraft carrying ...
which crashed near Smolensk-North airport near Pechersk near
Smolensk Smolensk is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River, west-southwest of Moscow. First mentioned in 863, it is one of the oldest cities in Russia. It has been a regional capital for most of ...
,
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, on 10 April 2010, killing all aboard. At the last moment he replaced Polish defense minister Bogdan Klich and traveled to Smolensk.Interview of Monica Olejnik with Bogdan Klich, Radio Zet, April 17, 2010 He was buried on April 16, 2010 at
PowÄ…zki Cemetery PowÄ…zki Cemetery (; ), also known as Stare PowÄ…zki (), is a historic necropolis located in Wola district, in the western part of Warsaw, Poland. It is the most famous cemetery in the city and one of the oldest, having been established in 179 ...
in Komorowski's family grave (#116/VI). During the church ceremony a tennis racket was placed on his coffin. Members of the government including prime minister and president of Poland were in attendance. He was decorated,
posthumously Posthumous may refer to: * Posthumous award, an award, prize or medal granted after the recipient's death * Posthumous publication, publishing of creative work after the author's death * Posthumous (album), ''Posthumous'' (album), by Warne Marsh, 1 ...
, with the Commander's Cross of the
Order of Polonia Restituta The Order of Polonia Restituta (, ) is a Polish state decoration, state Order (decoration), order established 4 February 1921. It is conferred on both military and civilians as well as on alien (law), foreigners for outstanding achievements in ...
.


Selected scientific publications

*E.M. Eyring, N.F. Leite, S.J. Komorowski, and T. Masujima, "Photoacoustic Instrumentation," in Analytical Instrumentation Handbook, G.W. Ewing, Ed., Marcel Dekker, Inc.: New York, 1990, Chapter 10, pp. 337–360. *D.P. Cobranchi, N.F. Leite, J. Isak, S.J. Komorowski, A. Gerhard, and E. M. Eyring, "Pulsed Laser Photothermal Radiometry and Photothermal Beam Deflection Spectroscopy: Determination of Thermal Diffusivities of Liquids," in Photoacoustic and Photothermal Phenomena II (Springer Series in Optical Sciences, Vol. 62), J.C. Murphy, J.W. Maclachlan-Spicer, L. Aamodt, and B.S.H. Royce, Eds., Springer-Verlag: Berlin, Germany, 1990, pp. 328–330. * Isak S.J., S.J. Komorowski, C.N. Merrow, P.E. Poston, E.M. Eyring, 1989, ''Thermal lens measurements in liquids on a submicronsecond time scale'', Applied Spectroscopy, 43, 419–422. * Komorowski S.J., I. Ekiel, E. Darzynkiewicz, D. Shugar, 1981, ''C-13-NMR analysis of the effects of dissociation of the hydroxyl groups of 1-beta-d-arabinofuranosylcytosine and its O'-methyl derivatives on conformation'', Carbohydrate Research, 89, 21–32. * Komorowski S.J., Z. R. Grabowski, and W. Zielenkiewicz, 1985, ''Pulsed photoacoustic determination of the quantum yield of triplet-state formation'', Journal of Photochemistry, 30, 141-151. * Komorowski S.J., E.M. Eyring, 1987, ''Pulse shapes of nanosecond photoacoustic signals in liquids detected by piezoelectric foil'', Journal of Applied Physics, 62, 3066–3069. * Mordzinski A., S.J. Komorowski, 1985, ''Electronic relaxation on aza derivatives of 1,2 benzanthracene and their protonated forms â€“ a comparative study of the quantum yield of triplet state formation'', Chemical Physics Letters, 114, 172–177. * Sabbah R., S.J. Komorowski, 1980, , Thermochimica Acta, 41, 379–381. * Waluk J., S.J. Komorowski, 1986, ''Solvent-dependent photophysics of indoloquinoxaline'', Journal of Molecular Structure, 142, 159–162. * Waluk J., S.J. Komorowski, J. Herbich, 1986, ''Excited state double proton treatment in 1-azacarbazole alcohol complexes'', Journal of Physical Chemistry, 90, 3868–3871. * Waluk J., S.J. Komorowski, 1987, ''Modification of photophysical behavior by hydrogen bonding indoloquinoxaline and its methylated derivatives'', Chemical Physics Letters, 133, 368–372. * Waluk J., B. Pakula, S.J. Komorowski, 1987, ''Photophysics of pseudoazulenes 7-azaindole derivatives'', Journal of Photochemistry, 39, 49–58.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Komorowski, Stanislaw 1953 births 2010 deaths Ambassadors of Poland to the United Kingdom 20th-century Polish physicists Burials at PowÄ…zki Cemetery Commanders of the Order of Polonia Restituta Victims of the Smolensk air disaster Diplomats from Warsaw University of Warsaw alumni Ambassadors of Poland to the Netherlands Scientists from Warsaw