He was born on 17 January 1854 in Bystrzejowice near Lublin. During his studies at the University of Warsaw, he became involved in underground activities, for which he was arrested several times by the Russian authorities and finally exiled deep into Russia (1878). In 1882, he was able to return and started to contribute to the Prawda [“Truth”] magazine published by Aleksander Świętochowski. Put off by the fact that Świętochowski planned to open his columns to socialists, in 1886 he founded the Głos [“Voice”] magazine. He joined the Polish League founded by Zygmunt Miłkowski, acting as the League’s commissioner in the Kingdom of Poland. In 1894, he participated in a demonstration on the centenary of the Kościuszko Uprising, for which he was arrested and imprisoned in a citadel for a few months. Subsequently, Głos was closed by the decision of the tsarist authorities. After being released on bail following 13 months of imprisonment, Popławski moved to Lviv. He started intensive cooperation with Roman Dmowski, which was of great importance for the development of the Polish national movement. His journalism had a great influence on the ideological formation of the National Democracy. He co-edited the Przegląd Wszechpolski [“All-Polish Review”], which was of key significance to the development of the National Democratic ideology. He was also editor of the political and educational journal Polak [“Pole”] addressed to peasants and workers, and was one of the founders of the National League and of the National Democratic Party. Having moved to Warsaw in 1906, he became the political editor of the Gazeta Polska [“Polish Gazette”] daily. He died on 12 March 1908 in Warsaw. Popławski’s most important political articles appeared in 1910 in the two-volume edition entitled Pisma polityczne [“Political writings”]; in the same year, his Szkice literackie i naukowe [“Literary and scientific sketches”] were published.