This year of 2022 has been designated by the Parliament of the Republic of Poland as the year of Jan Ignacy Lukasiewicz.

He was a Polish pharmacist, engineer, businessman and philanthropist. The Jubilee Lukasiewicz Year justification reads "in gratitude for the unparalleled achievements for Poland's industry and economy, as well as for his activity for the independence of the Homeland and care for personnel employed by him." Ignacy Lukasiewicz was born on March 8, 1822 in Zaduszniki, Poland. Educated at the Vienna University and the Royal Jagiellonian Univ. in Krakow, Ignacy Lukasiewicz was the first to distill kerosene from crude oil and use it to illuminate a pharmacy. He was the world's pioneer in street lighting installing the first street lamp in 1853 in Lwow, first oil well at Bobrka near Krosno in 1854 and world's first oil refinery in 1856. Today, the Ignacy Lukasiewicz Institute for Energy Policy popularizes knowledge and awareness about the importance of the world's energy and climate policies/energy security. Please check out our PMA exhibits to learn more about Polish trailblazers in art, in history, in science!
B. Czerkawski (with thanks to Iwona Bozyk)

Photos present our PMA Library collection book 100 Greatest Figures in the History of Poland/Jan Ignacy Lukasiewicz with his inventions, the kerosene lamp and oil well;
The Polish Biographical Dictionary by Stanley Sokol, 1992.

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