Born: November 6, 1755, Pila, Poland
Died: January 20, 1826, Warsaw, Russian partition of Poland
Autobiographic comments. In a brief note Staszic wrote: „Entering the world I was astonished by finding unsurpassable barriers in every estate: clerical, military and civil. That being born to so good and virtuous parents, having for father a man who lately made such sacrifices for his motherland, still I had to be ashamed for my birth, finding everywhere contempt, deprivation of honors, of offices, of land.”
Early days. Staszic was born into a well-to-do burgher family in Pila where his father, Wawrzyniec, was the mayor. His mother wanted him to become a priest. After graduating from the high school in Walcz he began to study at a Jesuit seminary in Poznan. He graduated and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1779. He also became the chancellor of the Szamotuly church. To enable him to continue studies abroad his father gave him his part of the inheritance. In 1779 Staszic went to Paris and studied physics and natural sciences at the College de France till 1781. During his trip back home he visited Alps and Apennines.
Career. In1781 after returning to Poland he found that due to his burgher origin, he was barred from owning land and holding many official posts in the monarchical Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. But thanks to the friendship with general Jozef Wybicki he got a position of a tutor in the house of the former great chancellor, Andrzej Zamoyski. During his tenure at the Zamoyskis Sztasic wrote a book Remarks upon the Life of Jan Zamoyski (Uwagi nad zyciem Jana Zamoyskiego, 1787). In 1790 he wrote Warnings for Poland (Przestrogi dla Polski). These works influenced greatly the Constitution of May 3, 1791. Staszic was a strong partisan of reforms and an ardent advocate of the interests of the lower classes, especially the peasants. He advocated the abolition of the second serfdom and improvements of the peasants’ fate (by granting them land and private rights). After the partitions of Poland, he organized mining schools, societies of learning, departments of industry and arts. Establishment of the Duchy of Warsaw in 1807 allowed Staszic to get official posts which he was-as a burgher-denied in pre-partition Poland. From 1808 he was director of the Society of Friends of Learning (or Society for the Promotion of Learning, Towarzystwo Przyjaciol Nauk), predecessor to the Polish Academy of Sciences (Polska Akademia Nauk). He became a member of the Educational Chamber (Izba Edukacyjna) and in 1810 became a State Councellor (Radca stanu).. After the fall of the Duchy of Warsaw in 1815, he became a member of the Council of State of the successor Congress Kingdom. He deeply believed that man’s role on earth is „love of the neighbor realized through good deeds.” Thus in 1816 he founded the Hrubieszowskie Towarzystwo Rolnicze (Hrubieszow's Agricultural Society), the first Polish cooperative which he endowed with his land property. Also in 1816, thanks to Staszic, a Mining School was founded in Kielce. He studied and wrote about geography and geology, discovered coal in Dabrowa Gornicza, where he initiated the building of a coal mine. Between 1816 and 1824, he was de facto minister of industry of the Congress Kingdom and began construction of the Old Polish Industrial Area (Staropolski Okreg Przemylowy), with steel and zinc mills around Kielce and Sandomierz. The Imperial Russian authorities praised Staszic' accomplishments in Russian-administered Congress Poland. Some claim- based on a book he wrote- that he passionately hated Jews, accusing them for Poland's destruction by selling Poles vodka manufactured by Polish nobles. On the other hand historian Adam Zamoyski wrote in “Poland”, Harper Press, 2009, p.207 „He saw a nation as a ‘moral entity’ consisting of all the citizens of the Commonwealth, whether they were szlachta or peasants, townspeople or Jews....” He also criticized Polish nobility which he blames for the fall of Poland .Staszic was also against the Church overseeing the education, for limiting the servitude and for elimination of the liberum veto. He was a generous man: he paid 90% of the costs of the Copernicus monument and in his testament he left his property at Hrubieszow to its tenants.
Awards Knight of the Order of the White Eagle 1818; St.Stanislaw order 1815
Sources:
This article uses, among others, material from the Wikipedia article "Stanislaw Staszic" licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. :
Wikipedia
Other sources:
sciaga.pl (in Polish)
Terramail (in Polish)
English translations of some of his works:
Constance J. Ostrowski
Return to home page:
Prominent Poles
