Hoover Archives has digitized and made available to researchers the memoirs and drawings of Polish diplomat, agronomist, writer, and nobleman Mieczyslaw Jalowiecki.
During World War I, Jalowiecki served in the civilian arm of the Russian Army, reaching the rank of colonel. In the post-war period, worried about worsening relations between Poles and Lithuanians, he worked for the government of Second Polish Republic, employed as a diplomat for the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was the Polish government's delegate to Gdańsk (Danzig) in the years 1919–1920. In Gdańsk he was involved with Herbert Hoover's American Relief Administration. After German invasion of Poland during WWII he left for the United Kingdom, where he was a politician and social activist in the Polish government in exile. He stayed in the UK after the war, dying in London in 1962. In addition to serving as a diplomat, Mieczysław was also a writer, and published several books in the Polish language about his diplomatic career and on agronomic subjects. He also wrote a diary trilogy.
Hoover’s Mieczyslaw Jalowiecki collection relates to historical events in Russia and Lithuania before, during, and after the Russian Revolution and Civil War; Poles in Lithuania; and agricultural developments in Lithuania, 1881-1939. The collection includes watercolor drawings and sketches of scenes and manor houses in Lithuania and Poland, as well as parts of Belarus, Ukraine, Latvia, and Estonia.
