Andrzej Kotula
* 1822, † 1891,
He was born on 10.2.1822, son of Józef – a peasant and village-head in Grodziszcz – and Maria Kasparek. From 1836, he attended the evangelical secondary school in Cieszyn as one of the oldest generation of Polish nationalist activists. His patriotic attitudes were deepened by two years of studying philosophy at the evangelical high school in Bratislava. He began to study law at Vienna University in 1845, graduating in 1848. In the same year, he took part along with Paweł Stalmach in the Slavic Congress in Prague, proclaiming Silesians to be part of the Polish nation rather than the Czech. He was also one of the first contributors to the oldest Polish newspaper „Tygodnik Cieszyński” (“Cieszyn Weekly”), and from early 1849 was at the heart of the Polish Reading Room authorities.
In 1852, he was transferred to Hungary where he worked as a land-register clerk. He returned to the Cieszyn region of Silesia in 1863 to take up a post as a notary in Frysztat, then from 1867 in Cieszyn. He played an important role in the life of Cieszyn’s evangelical Protestant church, and worked along with the People’s Reading Room, run by Paweł Stalmach, and with the “Cieszyn Star”. He published polemical articles in the Star, as well as pieces dedicated to legal and educational matters, poetry and satirical works. He was a leading activist in many Polish societies, including the Agricultural Society, Educational Assistance for the Duchy of Cieszyn Society, Evangelical People’s Educational Society and Mother School of the Duchy of Cieszyn. In his private life, he was interested in botany and over the years amassed a collection of plants, mushrooms, beetles and butterflies. He died on 10.10.1891 in Cieszyn.