Polish-born Australian sociologist and widely recognised Catholic intellectual Jerzy Zubrzycki, popularly regarded as the Father of Australian Multiculturalism, died in a Canberra hospital aged 89 on May 22. Perth historian, freelance writer and columnist for Western Australian Business News, Joe Poprzeczny, and the Australian Family Association’s John Barich, write for The Record on the significant impact Zubrzycki had on public life both in Australia and abroad.
Jerzy (George) Zubrzycki. AO, MBE, CBE. (1920 – 2009)
By Joe Poprzeczny
Jerzy Zubrzycki was born 14 months after Poland had re-emerged as an independent nation after 123 years, when its three separate segments were ruled by Prussia, Russia and Austria-Hungary.
Since his place of birth and childhood abode was Krakow he was raised in the former Austro-Hungarian segment, the one that Poles have long regarded as the most tolerable, in large part because both Austria and Hungary were Catholic nations whereas Prussia was Protestant and Russia Orthodox.
So tolerable that many leading Krakow Poles, as late as World War I, sought to see the multi-cultural Austro-Hungarian Empire transformed from a dual monarchy into a tripartite entity – an Austro-Hungarian-Polish Empire.
Hopefully a future biographer or historian of Australian multiculturalism, which is so often ascribed to Jerzy’s pioneering work in this area, will not overlook this rarely highlighted aspect of his early years.
I met and spoke at some length with Jerzy several times in Canberra as well as in Perth.
The last time, in Perth, was to canvass aspects of the life of a relative of his by marriage, the now forgotten Jozef Hieronim Retinger, who was briefly married to Jerzy’s aunt Otylia Zubrzycka, who continues to interest me.
Amongst other things Retinger had been dispatched to pre-World War I London by a group of patriotic Krakow-based Supreme National Council as an informal agent of influence to help ensure England became favourably disposed toward Polish independence aspirations.
The Great War temporarily confounded this and Retinger, who was a close friend of Poland’s greatest Englishman, Joseph Conrad (Korzenowski), went on to be an adviser to Mexican union organiser Luis Napoleon Morones and later to President Plutarco Elías Calles.
During World War II Retinger was cabinet secretary to the General Wladyslaw Sikorski-led Polish Government-in-Exile in London.
In 1944 Retinger was parachuted into German-occupied Poland by the Winston Churchill-created Special Operations Executive (SOE) to deliver money to the Polish Underground and assess its prospects in combating Communist forces.
After the war Retinger helped found the European Movement and the Council of Europe and became general secretary of the former which worked to lay the basis for a unified, multi-cultural non-Communist Europe.
As things transpired Jerzy also found himself in wartime London and despite the break between Retinger and his aunt, he had ongoing contact with the enigmatic and influential Retinger.
Jerzy’s links to the former Austro-Hungarian Poland and Retinger are two aspects of his life that will hopefully one day be assessed since they may add a new insight into his 53 years as an Australian and leading humanities academic.
After leaving school he entered the Cavalry Officer Cadet School in Grudziadz (Northern Poland) to complete a year’s compulsory military service before beginning university studies.
Having graduated in June 1939, he was to see front line action in September since German forces had invaded Poland.
Although Jerzy was taken prisoner he managed to escape in the same month and immediately joined a wing of the budding Polish underground.
Because he had studied English he was assigned to work as a courier and was quickly dispatched to France, via Slovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Italy from where he was evacuated to England in June 1940.
With Polish forces then assembling in Britain following the collapse of France and the Dunkirk debacle he was assigned to serve with the Polish Parachute Brigade, and later transferred to the Polish Section of SOE.
His work with SOE involved briefing Polish agents who were to be parachuted into occupied Poland.
In September 1945 he commenced his studies at the London School of Economics and graduated in 1952 with a Master of Science (Economics) specialising in population studies and enrolled to undertake doctoral studies in the Free Polish University in London.
In 1955 he was appointed to a position in the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University (ANU) so emigrated to Australia with his family.
Jerzy’s wife, Alexandra, had reached England in 1942, via the Soviet Union, having been deported to Kazakhstan by the Soviet NKVD as part of a the wartime Stalinist ethnic cleansing of eastern Poland.
He remained at the ANU until his retirement in 1986, founding the Department of Sociology in 1970.
He wrote extensively on Australian immigration and served on several government councils and inquiries into Australian immigration and multicultural policies.
In addition to his academic work he was involved with organisations such as Lifeline, the Australian Family Association, the National Museum of Australia, and was inaugural chairman of the Ethnic Affairs Council.
Since 1994, he had been a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, having been appointed an inaugural member by his friend, Pope John Paul II.
They had attended the same high school in Krakow.
Jerzy was awarded the MBE (Military) in 1945, a CBE in 1978, and made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1984.
‘Let’s be specific on what the civilisation of love is all about’
Australian Family Association national vice-president John Barich knew Zubrzycki well over many years, and testifies to The Record about the man’s strong faith and willingness to fight for the Truth in public life.
In May 1980 Prof. Zubrzycki was a Conference Steering Committee nominee to the National Conference “Towards an Australian Family Policy” hosted by the Council of Social Welfare Ministers of Australia, New Zealand and Papua-New Guinea held at Macquarie University in Sydney.
At the time as Assistant Director General of the Federal Office of Child Care, I was on the steering Committee. Bill Hassell, the then WA Minister for Community Welfare and Brian Peachey were part of the WA delegation.
The then head of Centrecare, then-Monsignor Barry Hickey (now Archbishop of Perth) was also on the delegation.
This Conference voted 48 per cent to 43 per cent “that marriage and two parent families be affirmed as the generally desired pattern and that policies take account of other family structures.”
Emeritus Professor Zubrzycki spoke at the inaugural AFA National Conference in August 1980 on the subject of demography. He concluded “Governments must ensure that measures designed to assist people… might not appear to affirm and encourage… pathological conditions rather than affirming marriage and the two-parent family as the desired situation.” He would have been the first to say that Governments have failed us in this regard.
In 1984 Perth Catholic figure Brian Peachey, founding chairman of Pregnancy Assistance, and Prof. Zubrzycki were speakers at a 2000-strong rally at Canberra’s Bruce Stadium to oppose the legalisation of X-rated videos. Peachey was also active on this issue in WA.
The AFA nationally led the opposition against this form of explicit porn and this resulted in X-rated videos being banned in every State but not in the ACT and the Northern Territory.
In 1992 Prof. Zubrzycki became a National Patron and gave strong support to our work especially during the 1994 United Nations International Year of the Family when he addressed the AFA National Conference on “The importance of the Family”.
He concluded: “Let’s call a spade a spade. Let’s be quite specific what the civilisation of love is all about”. He quoted an American pediatrician and author, T Berry Brazelton, who described “the civilisation of love as the process of attaching to a new baby, attaching to each other as adults for whatever may be in store and daring to be so impassioned about that attachment that we will stay attached.
“And this is the essence of the family as an institution that gives meaning to life in good and bad times.”