The Nobel Peace Prize 1983
Awarded on: 1983-10-05
"for non-violent struggle for free trade unions and human rights in Poland"
Lech Wałęsa
Born: 1943-09-29 in Popowo, Poland
Gender: male
Field: President of Poland from 1990 to 1995
Biography
Lech Wałęsa is a Polish statesman, dissident, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as the president of Poland between 1990 and 1995. After winning the 1990 election, Wałęsa became the first democratically elected president of Poland since 1926 and the first-ever Polish president elected by popular vote. An electrician by trade, Wałęsa became the leader of the Solidarity movement and led a successful pro-democratic effort, which in 1989 ended Communist rule in Poland and ushered in the end of the Cold War.