Abstract

It is officially assumed that the Salesian Society, founded by St. John Bosco, opened its first house in Poland in 1898, at Oświęcim. Several years before, in 1892, Father Bronisław Markiewicz had been sent to Poland from Turin, but he later broke contact with the Salesians and established his own congregation.
Yet even before the Salesians came to Poland there had been links between Poles and Don Bosco. It is these early links that are the subject of this article. How did people in Poland learn about Don Bosco? The news was transmitted orally or through correspondence with the Saint; there also were biographies of Don Bosco published in Poland still in his lifetime. Much information about his activities appeared in the Salesian Bulletin, sent out to the Society’s benefactors, members of the family of Salesian Cooperators. As we can leam from the extant letters, which are the main source for this analysis, there were many Salesian Cooperators among Poles, probably even a few thousand.
Further information about Don Bosco’s educational work was brought by retuming pupils to whom he had given shelter in his schools. According to tradition, they came from among Polish emigrants who had to leave Poland after the anti-Russian rising of 1863. Also other young Poles who were looking for a better life abroad sometimes found their way to Don Bosco’s hospice. A few tried to embrace the religious life with the Salesians, but they later left the Society. Urged by numerous reąuests, Don Bosco even considered opening hospices in Poland, but he was unable to do so for lack of personnel.
We know four priests of Polish nationality who had close links with Don Bosco. One later became a secular priest, another set up his own congregation. The remaining two are the pride of Polish Salesians. Prince August Czartoryski, who died prematurely, is a candidate for beatification. The self-sacrificing life of Father Wiktor Grabelski prepared the ground for new vocations which marked the beginning of Polish Salesians’ expansive growth in their own country.