Lech Kaczyński in the context of "Habilitation"

Via Carpathia (also Via Carpatia) is a under construction transnational highway network connecting Klaipėda in Lithuania with Thessaloniki in Greece. It is currently planned to open in 2025. The route largely runs through the Carpathian Mountains, hence its name.

The Polish part of Via Carpatia has been named in 2021 after late President Lech Kaczyński.

Jarosław Aleksander Kaczyński (born 18 June 1949) is a Polish politician. He co-founded the Law and Justice (PiS) party in 2001 with his twin brother, Lech Kaczyński, and has served as its leader since 2003. He served as Prime Minister of Poland from 2006 to 2007, and has twice held the post of Deputy Prime Minister of Poland, first from 2020 to 2022, and a second time from June to November 2023. He is considered to have been the eminence grise of Poland, when PiS formed the government in 2005–2007 and again in 2015–2023, with direct political influence over the prime ministers Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, Beata Szydło and Mateusz Morawiecki.

Jaroslaw Kaczyński as a student took part in protest during the March 1968 political crisis. Subsequently, he became involved in the anti-communist opposition as a collaborator of KOR and KSS KOR. He took part in the protests in August 1980 when he was arrested, then joined the Solidarity movement. In 1982 he became a member of the Polish Helsinki Committee. He took part in the 1988 strikes.

On 10 April 2010, a Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft operating Polish Air Force Flight PLF 101 crashed near the Russian city of Smolensk, killing all 96 people on board. Among the victims were the president of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, and his wife, Maria; the former president of Poland-in-exile, Ryszard Kaczorowski; the chief of the Polish General Staff and other senior Polish military officers; the president of the National Bank of Poland; Polish government officials; 18 members of the Polish parliament; senior members of the Polish clergy; and relatives of victims of the Katyn massacre. The group was arriving from Warsaw to attend an event commemorating the 70th anniversary of the massacre, which took place not far from Smolensk.

The pilots were attempting to land at Smolensk North Airport — a former military airbase — in fog, with visibility reduced to about 400 metres (about 400 yards). The aircraft descended far below the normal approach path until it struck trees, rolled, inverted and crashed into the ground, coming to rest in a wooded area a short distance from the runway.

Anna Walentynowicz (Polish pronunciation: [ˈanna valɛntɨˈnɔvʲit͡ʂ]; née Lubczyk; 15 August 1929 – 10 April 2010) was a Polish trade unionist and co-founder of Solidarity, the first recognised independent trade union in the Eastern Bloc. Her firing from her job at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk in August 1980 was the event that ignited the strike at the shipyard, set off a wave of strikes across Poland, and quickly paralyzed the Baltic coast. The Interfactory Strike Committee (MKS) based in the Gdańsk shipyard eventually transformed itself into Solidarity; by September, more than one million workers were on strike in support of the 21 demands of MKS, making it the largest strike ever.

Walentynowicz's arrest became an organizing slogan (Bring Anna Walentynowicz Back to Work!) in the early days of the Gdańsk strike. She is referred to by some as the "mother of independent Poland." She was among the dignitaries killed in the 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash near Smolensk in Russia, which also claimed the lives of Lech Kaczyński, the President of Poland and his wife, and the senior commanders of the Polish Armed Forces.

Law and Justice (Polish: Prawo i Sprawiedliwość [ˈpravɔ i ˌspravjɛˈdlivɔɕt͡ɕ] , PiS) is a right-wing populist and national-conservative political party in Poland. The party is a member of European Conservatives and Reformists Group. Its chairman has been Jarosław Kaczyński since 18 January 2003.

It was founded in 2001 by Jarosław and Lech Kaczyński as a direct successor of the Centre Agreement after it split from the Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS). Despite a poor showing in the 2001 parliamentary election, where it came 4th, it would later win the 2005 presidential and parliamentary elections. Following this victory, PiS formed the Marcinkiewicz and Kaczyński governments. For a brief period, the governments included coalition ministers from the League of Polish Families and Self-Defence before collapsing in 2007. In the 2007 snap election, the rival Civic Platform (PO) emerged victorious and formed a coalition with the Polish People's Party. The coalition served two terms, retaining a majority in the 2011 parliamentary election. Law and Justice also lost the presidency following the death of president Lech Kaczński and many government officials in the Smolensk air disaster — acting president Bronisław Komorowski of PO would be officially elected to the presidency in 2010, winning against Jarosław Kaczyński in the second round. Law and Justice concluded its period in the opposition in 2015, where it won an upset victory in the 2015 presidential election and an outright majority of seats in the 2015 parliamentary election, retaining its majority in 2019 and the presidency in 2020. It governed the country for 8 years, forming the Szydło and Morawiecki cabinets, until losing its parliamentary majority in 2023 and returning to an opposition despite winning the largest amount of seats. The party's candidate, Karol Nawrocki, scored another upset victory in the 2025 presidential election.

The Two Who Stole the Moon (Polish: O dwóch takich, co ukradli księżyc) is a 1962 Polish children's film based on Kornel Makuszyński's 1928 story of the same name.

Despite having been known to Polish children for multiple generations, the film gained renewed fame in the 2000s for starring two of the country's future leaders: Lech Kaczyński, who served as President of Poland from 2005 until his death in a 2010 plane crash, and his identical twin brother Jarosław Kaczyński, the Prime Minister of Poland from 2006 to 2007, Chief of Office of the President of Poland from 1990 to 1991, and current chairman of the Law and Justice party. The twins were thirteen at the time.

The Smolensk air disaster, included Polish Air Force Flight 101 in 2010 killing all 96 people on board. The Polish delegation was heading to Katyn to attend a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, in which the Soviet NKVD killed about 22,000 Polish military officers.

Among those killed in the crash of Flight 101 were Polish President Lech Kaczyński, his wife Maria Kaczyńska, former President-in-exile Ryszard Kaczorowski, Poland's highest-ranking military officers, lawmakers, heads of the Polish National Bank and other central institutions, presidential aides, bishops and priests of various denominations, relatives of those killed in the Katyn massacre, as well as officers of the presidential security detail and crew members.

Maria Helena Kaczyńska (Polish pronunciation: [ˈmarja kaˈt͡ʂɨj̃ska]; née Mackiewicz [mat͡sˈkʲɛvit͡ʂ]; 21 August 1942 – 10 April 2010) was the First Lady of Poland from 2005 to 2010 as the wife of President Lech Kaczyński. She and her husband died in a plane crash in the Russian city of Smolensk.