Sciegienny, Piotr

Born Jan. 19, 1800, in Bilcza, near the city of Kielce; died Nov. 6,1890, in Lublin. Polish revolutionary.

The son of peasants, Sciegienny became a priest. In the late 1830’s he began writing revolutionary propaganda, which he disseminated among the peasants. In these works he attacked social inequality and exploitation, asserted the legality and justice of a revolutionary war by the exploited against their oppressors, and advocated the union of all the popular masses, regardless of nationality.

In the early 1840’s, Ściegienny founded a secret peasant organization, which was active in the southern parts of the Kingdom of Poland and which advocated Ściegienny’s program. Sciegienny planned an uprising for October 1844; however, he was betrayed and sentenced to hard labor, completing his term in 1861. In 1871 he returned to his homeland. Ściegienny was in sympathy with the first Polish socialists.