Background
Drzewiecki was born into Polish szlachta family of national patriots.
engineer journalist submariner
Drzewiecki was born into Polish szlachta family of national patriots.
His father Karol Drzewiecki took part in the November Uprising. Young Stefan was sent by him away from partitioned Poland to complete his education in France. With a knack for creativity and invention, Stefan Drzewiecki invented such useful tools as the kilometric counter for taxicabs.
At the special request of Grand Duke Konstantin and his financial insentives, Drzewiecki moved to Saint St. Petersburg in 1873.
While in Russia he made an instrument that drew the precise routes of ships onto a nautical chart. Drzewiecki distinguished himself mainly in aviation and ship building.
Beginning in 1877, during the Russo-Turkish War, he developed several models of propeller-driven submarines that evolved from single-person vessels to a four-man model. He developed the theory of gliding flight, developed a method for the manufacture of ship and plane propellers (1892), and presented a general theory for screw-propeller thrust (1920).
He also developed several models of early submarines for the Russian Navy.
His work Theorie générale de l"hélice (1920), was honored by the French Academy of Science as fundamental in the development of modern propellers.