Franciszek Nowicki


Franciszek Henryk Siła-Nowicki was a Young Poland poet, a mountaineer, socialist activist, and designer of the Orla Perć High Tatras mountain trail.

Life

Franciszek Nowicki was the son of Maksymilian Nowicki — a zoologist and pioneer Polish conservationist — and Antonina Kasparek, sister of Franciszek Kasparek, professor of international law, rector of Kraków University, and founder of the first chair in international law in Poland.
As a university student, Nowicki co-edited a socialist-leaning journal, Ognisko. Some years later, he co-founded the Polish Socialist-Democratic Party. From 1894 he taught at a secondary school.
On February 5, 1901, Nowicki proposed to Towarzystwo Tatrzańskie the building of Orla Perć, which was partly realized in 1903-07. In 1902 he climbed to the then-as-yet-unnamed Przełęcz Nowickiego in the Buczynowe Turnie Tatras peaks.
In 1924 Nowicki retired from teaching, and in 1934 he became an honorary member of the Polish Writers' Union.

Writings

Nowicki published poems and stories and, in 1891, his sole little volume of Poems, comprising two parts: "The Tatras" and "Songs of Time". He also translated from German, e.g., Goethe's idyll of Hermann and Dorothea. He ceased writing poetry following an unhappy romantic involvement.