When Polish President Lech Kaczynski’s plane went down near Smolensk, Russia on April 10, 2010, democracy lost a generation of Polish men and women who earlier in life had pushed aside the Communist totalitarian state and went on to build and run the democratic institutions that govern the country today.  One of those who lost their lives that day was Member of Parliament Arkadiusz “Aram” Rybicki (1953-2010), who represented Gdansk in the Polish Sejm.  As a native of the city that launched the Solidarity trade union movement, Rybicki’s life was closely intertwined with Poland’s successful struggle for democracy. 

Rybicki entered the opposition in secondary school in 1968–1969, by distributing leaflets and destroying communist propaganda posters in Gdansk.  Just after graduating from the University of Gdansk in 1976, he began working with the Komitet Obrony Robotnikow (KOR - Workers’ Defense Committee), the first major anti-communist civil society group founded to give aid to prisoners detained after the labor strikes of that year.  Very often it was in his apartment that people gathered to attend lectures of the “Flying University” established by the KOR to discuss ideas about freedom and democracy that were forbidden to be discussed in public.  Although suffering many searches of his house, he and his wife Malgorzata never quit and even illegally printed underground newspapers.  In 1977 Rybicki co-founded the Studencki Komitet Solidarnosci (SKS - Student Committee of Solidarity) in Gdansk.

From 1977 to 1979, Rybicki was an active member of the Movement for the Defense of Human and Civic Rights, an organization that attempted to resist the regime by denouncing it for violating Polish and international laws.  Rybicki was responsible for publishing the movement’s paper Opinia (Opinion) and in August 1980, he helped those striking in Pomeranian shipyards.  Together with his future brother-in-law Maciej Grzywaczewski, Rybicki wrote down the 21 demands of the shipyard strikers on wooden table tops.  Those table tops bearing Rybicki’s handwriting were entered in UNESCO’s World List of Documentary Heritage, called the “Memory of the World,” on October 16, 2003.

After the strikes in 1980, Rybicki joined the Solidarity trade union, founded at the Gdansk Shipyard by Lech Walesa.  During martial law in Poland, Rybicki was interned for one year on the decision of General Wojciech Jaruzelski.  After the internment he started a close working relationship with Walesa that lasted for many years and resulted in the writing of Rybicki’s 1991 biography of Walesa, which was translated and published in 14 countries.  When Walesa became president of Poland, Rybicki held the position of minister at the Chancellery of the President from 1990 to 1991. 

In 1991, Rybicki co-established the Koalicja Republikańska (Republican Coalition), a small, conservative party which entered the structures of the Conservative Party in 1992.  Rybicki was the vice president of the Conservative Party from 1992 to 1996, and from 1996 to 2002, he was a member of the Conservative People’s Party.  In 2001, he cofounded the Civic Platform, Poland’s current ruling party, and in 2005 he became a member of the Sejm and was re-elected in 2007.

As one of Poland leading historian-politicians, Rybicki was travelling with President Kaczynski’s delegation to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre when he was killed.   In his remarks at Rybicki’s funeral, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk praised his long-time friend and fellow soccer player from Gdansk, asking God to remember that in both soccer and politics, Rybicki always defended the right flank.  In life and in death, Arkadiusz Rybicki symbolized Poland’s great progress from communism to peace, stability, prosperity and democracy.   

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