Józef Dietl (1804–1878)

Born in Ukraine, he knew Polish quite poorly, and is rumoured to have told his students: “I will teach you medicine, and you will teach me Polish”. Physician, politician, professor and Head of the Chair of Internal Medicine and of the Medical Clinic of the Jagiellonian University, the first Mayor of Kraków once the city regained autonomy (1866–1874). Kraków owes to Dietl the doubling of the city’s revenue, ordering of the Planty garden ring and the area of the old walls and defence towers, renovation of the façades of townhouses, drafting of plans to refurbish and conserve the Cloth Hall, the cleansing of the Old Vistula riverbed, construction of municipal water works, development of the Jagiellonian University, establishments of the School of Fine Arts, and institution of the municipal fire service. He was the first to classify Polish curative mineral waters, and it is thanks to him that the spas of Krynica, Rabka, Iwonicz, Szczawnica, and Żegiestów became famous. Buried in the Rakowicki Cemetery, he is commemorated by a monument by Xawery Dunikowski standing in Wszystkich Świętych Square, besides the Municipal Office of Kraków.


Monument to Józef Dietl by Xawery Dunikowski, All Saints' Square, Kraków, photo by Jakub Meissner