The Independence Foundation presents the results of the completed project „Research and Dissemination of Innovative Economic and Social Achievements of the Gazolina Company in the Second Republic of Poland,” subsidized by the Minister of Science and Education under the Science for Society program (ID No. NdS/550914/2022/2022). The results of the project were finally verified and positively accounted for at the beginning of 2025. As of April 14, 2025, further care of this site and its documents is taken by the Gazolina Wieleżyński Association of Brwinów, keeping in grateful memory the great commitment and professionalism of the staff of the Independence Foundation of Lublin.
Since the beginning of the project, the Independence Foundation has been cooperating with descendants of the co-founders of the „Gazolina” fuel company scattered around the world, including those affiliated with the Gazolina Wieleżyński Association. It is thanks to the long-term efforts of the descendants of the founders of the „Gazolina” company, Marian Wieleżyński and Wladyslaw Szaynek, that priceless documents testifying to the extraordinary history of the pioneering economic enterprise have been collected in the country.
After coming across the unique family archives, the Independence Foundation decided to make it possible to disseminate them, through a project funded by the Science for Society program. A thorough study of the collected collection was carried out, preceded by the digitization of its key elements. The results of this research were presented as part of the project covered conferences and in related publications, which are available free of charge on this site under „Download”. Arranged archivistically and digitized documents stored in the family archive of the Gazolina Wieleżyński Association in Brwinów near Warsaw (hereinafter: Brwinów Archive) are presented in the section „Inventory structure”.
An attractive complement to the message are the materials available in the „Multimedia”, making it possible not only to get acquainted with the video record of the papers presented at the conference by experts on the subject from Poland and abroad, but also presenting the film materials produced as part of the project - a TV report on the history of the „Gazolina” company and a series of four documentary films describing the achievements of its creators.
The implementation of the project and its various elements was accompanied by the slogan „Working together, yielding together”.”, reflecting the life mission of the creator of „Gazolina” Eng. Marian Wieleżyński, who was supported in this pioneering work for the Polish energy industry by Eng. Władysław Szaynok.
As a result of their actions, the economic development of the company - founded in 1912 - was strengthened from its early years by the implementation of the concept that employees of the company should also become co-owners (employee shareholding).
It should be noted that one of the main rationales of the Polish founders of Gazolina, who funded their company even before the outbreak of World War I, was that, through a targeted ownership structure, a Polish company with high profitability should be protected from takeover by foreign capital.
The founders of „Gazolina” pursued their, often pioneering, technological and business achievements in close connection with patriotic attitudes. Shaped in the multicultural space of Eastern Lesser Poland and Lviv while they were still under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, they excelled in using the advantages of such an environment to create an enterprise that, with its market success, could support the economy of the resurgent Polish state.
Among the pioneering achievements of the founders of the „Gazolina” company, we should mention the construction and building of the first compression, then absorption gas plant in Europe and the launch of one of the world's first liquid natural gas plants (then called gazolem). Liquid gas in cylinders was also exported to Belgium, Syria and Palestine, for example.
Other achievements of the „Gazolina” company include the construction of the country's first natural gas pipeline, the bringing of natural gas from the Boryslav Basin to Lviv (1929), and finally, from the early 1930s, the gasification of the nascent city of Gdynia, using modern dual-gas production technology.
Among the numerous organizational and research initiatives of the founders of the „Gazolina” company, the creation - together with Prof. Ignacy Moscicki, who worked at the Lviv Polytechnic Institute - of the „Metan” natural gas laboratory, later transformed into the Chemical Research Institute (its heir today is the Institute of Industrial Chemistry - Lukasiewicz Research Network in Warsaw), is particularly noteworthy. „Metan” was a company performing the role of a think-tank, which developed its own technological solutions and protected them with patents to make the „Gazolina” company independent of foreign technologies.
At the heart of our project was the availability of „Gazolina” archival materials, much of it carefully preserved in the hands of the descendants of the company's founders. We would like to thank the heirs of Marian Wielezynski and Wladyslaw Szaynok for the opportunity to conduct in-depth research into their legacies.
The ethical rationale for the economic success of the Gazolina creators, clearly evident in this legacy, encouraged the Independence Foundation to launch and implement the project with public funding under the Science for Society program.
The study and dissemination of the innovative economic and social achievements of the „Gazolina” Company in the Second Republic under the „Science for Society” program, can today contribute not only to demonstrating the strong roots of the Polish fuel and energy industry, but also support the building of the economic patriotism so much needed today.