A few months ago, his name inspired indifference. When it was not the laughter. Karol Nawrocki? An austere historian reading his files. An almost unknown, without political scope, which chained confidential meetings in touched gymnasiums and the holiday rooms with pale neon lights, leprous vestiges of the People’s Republic. The applause was badly embarrassing vis-à-vis this figurative figure of a campaign too big for him. No future was lent to this candidate appointed in November 2024 by the USE, the all -powerful Polish conservative party. And yet … In a few years, European rights will carefully study this improbable comeback.
Warsaw’s media sneered, the intelligentsia of Krakow buried him. But it was silent Poland that had the last word: Karol Nawrocki signed the most masterful of raising of the country’s post -communist history. From Voïvodies forgotten to the top of the state, Karol Nawrocki embodies this other Poland, a needy, believer, tenacious. The counterpart in central Europe of this Middle America who votes Trump, a man he admires.
Novice in politics
We crossed his journey, at the Tangwall Campagin, last March, when he was holding a meeting in Wieruszow, a city of 8,000 inhabitants of the Voivodie de Lodz, in the center of the country. Nawrocki had trouble filling the room in the Maison de la Culture, a small sinister building inherited from communism. The polls gave him beaten in the second round by Rafal Trzaskowski, candidate of the civic platform, the pro-European party of Donald Tusk, sometimes with more than twenty points apart. Behind him, Slawomir Mentzen, the nationalist leader of Konfederacja, held him.
We should have paid more attention to these few trinkets for sale on a modest POS stand. Among them, a T-shirt diverted his name in the blink of an eye: “Now Rocky. A revealing pun, recalling that Karol Nawrocki was, in his youth, boxing champion in Pomerania. Like a certain Balboa, it has mounted in without radiance rings, without fear of ridiculous. And, against all odds, he ended up winning.
Former footballer, passed by the KS Gedania then captain of the former Siedlce Gdansk, two clubs in his hometown, Nawrocki has kept the sculpted look of his years of sport: straight back, salient features, assured approach. A physique with the antipodes of that of his mentor, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the irremovable president of the Pis, who has been reigning for twenty years on the Polish right. At 76, Kaczynski remains this discreet man, small, with a tired face, often perceived as fragile. At 42, Nawrocki, meanwhile, always gives the impression of getting out of a bodybuilding session.
“Youth errors”
The Polish press searched in its trash cans. Nawrocki was only a thug, a puppet in the hands of Kaczynski. Son of a miller who left to work in Great Britain, raised by a household mother who connected books to reach both ends, he could only have things to hide.
To pay for his history studies, the young Nawrocki works as a vigil at the Grand Hotel de Sopot, a coatchy seaside resort on the Baltic. Between 2003 and 2008, according to a report published by the ONET.PL site – without tangible evidence – he would have organized an escorting network for certain customers of the establishment, taking a percentage on each pass. In 2009, it was his name that appeared in a ustawkaa brawl organized between supporters: 70 men from Lechia Gdansk against 70 others from Lech Poznan. Nawrocki would have been at the heart of the confrontation. The portrait which is then essential, in the left press, is that of a “Wood Hooligan”Palace pimps, half-reproductive thug. “Youth errors”he said.
“I am a being of flesh and blood. I am one of yours ”
There was also this apartment affair, which was able to taint his campaign, without ever really poisoning him. Housing acquired with an old handicapped man, in exchange for the promise he would be treated until the end of his days. But the story turned short: the old man was later found in a retirement home and never received the promised help. Faced with the controversy, the ex-boxer finally gave the apartment to a charity.
Nawrocki is certainly not an angel. If he does not have the smooth varnish of Andrzej Duda, the outgoing president, he also has the brutality that his opponents wanted to lend him. During his campaign, he never ceased to recall his anchoring: “I am a being of flesh and blood. I am one of yours. »»
Historian by training, he devoted his doctoral thesis to anti-communist opposition in northeast Poland, a harsh territory where memories of persecution is still lively. In 2017, it is to him that the management of the Museum of the Second World War, an institution born under the aegis of the relatives of Donald Tusk, is entrusted. Kaczynski, who sees him more than a performer, assigns him as a task of restoring the permanent exhibition the colors of a more patriotic national story. He lingered brilliantly.
A foreign chapter invites itself into its career. In 2018, he released a book, under the pseudonym of Tadeusz Batyr, a biography of the Polish gangster Nikodem Skotarczak, alias “Nikos”, a figure of the crime organized under the communist regime. During an interview broadcast on Polish public television TVP in 2018, “Batyr”, blurred face and modified voice, declares that “Karol Nawrocki had inspired him”. The revelation, made last March, has sparked neither investigation nor sustainable eddies.
Married in Marta since 2010, Nawrocki raises three children: Antoni, Katarzyna and Daniel, the elder, born from a previous Marta relationship
In 2021, Nawrocki took the reins of the Institute of National Memory, brought to his head by a vote of the diet, then dominated by the wisdom. Nawrocki tracks down the crimes committed under the Nazi and Communist regimes between 1917 and 1990, brings together and preserves the archives of this bruised memory, engages legal proceedings against identified officials. In February 2024, Karol Nawrocki was even scored by Moscow on the list of people wanted. At the head of the Institute of National memory, he tumbled in the Soviet statues, “Monuments of shame”he said in October 2022, supervising their demolition. “The Soviets did not release, they have enslaved!” »»
The man of public fights leads, out of spotlights, a family life built on other commitments. Married in Marta since 2010, Nawrocki raises three children: Antoni, Katarzyna and Daniel, the elder, born from a previous Marta relationship. He meets his future wife on a staircase while she is still a high school student and already a mother. Far from fleeing this responsibility, he recognizes Daniel as his own son and legally adopted him. On the evening of victory, several figures of the Polish left mocked Katarzyna, 7, a poundy girl who drew hearts with the hand towards the crowd. “Kasia”, like her father, was not dismantled and has become a darling of social networks.
Freedom is a line of force at Nawrocki – and it could well turn into a nightmare for Kaczynski. The boss of Pis tried to place his men in the future presidential chancellery, his eyes, his ears in short. Nawrocki, more conservative, even more right -wing than his sponsors, pushed them back. For the moment, a common interest unites them: to drop the Tusk government before the legislative elections, in two years. And for that, the elected president, who will take office in August, still needs the machine worse, his networks, his nuisance power. But after? The election was just a first round. And in the ring of Polish politics, Nawrocki no longer intends to box for another.
