5th President of the Polish National Alliance.

Born in Lwow, he settled in Chicago and practiced law. Satalecki was a fine public speaker and was fluent in several languages. He was also a prolific essayist and ran unsuccessfully for local public office on a number of occasions.

 

Elected Vice President of the PNA in 1889, Satalecki served as President for two terms (1891-1895), a period that proved particularly eventful for the fraternal. During his tenure, the competing elements in Polonia cooperated to raise money to put up an exhibition hall in Lwow to commemorate the centennial of the Kosciuszko uprising. They also worked together in sponsoring the "Polish Day" celebration during the Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago and collaborated in opposing a proposed American Russian treaty considered to be adverse to the cause of an independent Poland.

 

It was also during Satalecki's presidency that the Polish League, inspired by the Reverend Vincent Barzynski was formed, only to collapse due to PNA opposition led by Censor Theodore Helinski. (Several PNA leaders initially supported the ideas of the Polish League including Vice President Victor Bardonski and Erasmus Jerzmanowski. Satalecki's position is unclear.)

 

Satalecki's friendship with Henry Kalussowski is believed to have led Kalussowski to donate his personal library to the PNA. This collection of more than six thousand volumes served as the basis of the Alliance's later efforts to provide the immigrants with reading materials on Poland's history and literature and led to the creation of a PNA library and reading room in Chicago.

 

Satalecki's connections with Polish emigre in Western Europe also strengthened their ties with the PNA. In 1894, a North American branch of the Polish National Treasury was set up under PNA direction to facilitate the collection and forwarding of money to assist the work of the Polish national democratic movement centered in Switzerland.

 

Satalecki did not seek reelection in 1895 and disappeared from the scene, except for the years between 1899 and 1901 when he was once more in Chicago and again active in PNA matters. "A mysterious and romantic figure," in the words of the PNA historian Adam Olszewski, he apparently spent a good deal of time in the American West and even in Alaska engaged in various business interests. He is believed to have died in Poland while employed by the Austrian government in the resettlement of Poles returning from America.