Poland’s central bank will soon release a new banknote featuring late president Lech Kaczyński, the identical twin brother of current ruling party chairman Jarosław Kaczyński.
The National Bank of Poland (NBP) yesterday showed the design for the 20-zloty bill. It features an image of Lech Kaczyński – who served as president from 2005 until his 2010 death in the Smolensk plane crash – alongside his words “Being a Pole has value” (“Warto być Polakiem”).
The back of the note will include an image of the Warsaw Rising Museum, which was created with the support of Kaczyński when he was mayor of Warsaw, and the cranes of the Gdańsk Shipyard that was home to the anti-communist Solidarity movement in which Kaczyński was a prominent figure.
“By issuing this banknote, which is especially important for millions of Poles, but also for me personally, we want to pay tribute to a great man, Lech Kaczyński, who confirmed with his whole life: being a Pole has value,” said the head of the NBP, Adam Glapiński, when signing the bill in April on the anniversary of Kaczyński’s death.
Last year, the bank issued special coins with an image of Lech Kaczyński and his wife, Maria, who also died at Smolensk, to mark the tenth anniversary of the crash.
The new banknote, which will be released on 9 November, will be printed in 80,000 copies. While they will be legal tender, it is expected that they will serve mainly as a collector’s item.
A previous issuance of 20-zloty notes with an image of interwar Polish statesman Józef Piłsudski, printed in 2018 for the centenary of Poland regaining independence, now fetches ten times its face value at auctions, reports Gazeta Wyborcza.
Other figures to feature on Polish collectable banknotes have included double Nobel winner Marie Skłodowska Curie, writer Juliusz Słowacki, composer Fryderyk Chopin, and renaissance chronicler Jan Długosz.
Lech and Jarosław Kaczyński were founders of the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party that today rules Poland. Since Lech’s death, Jarosław has sought to promote his twin brother’s legacy and has also suggested that his death at Smolensk was not an accident, as official reports found, but actually a deliberate attack.
Main image credit: NBP
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
