Stanisław Staszic

For the village in eastern Poland, see Staszic, Lublin Voivodeship.
Stanisław Staszic

Stanisław Staszic
Born November 6, 1755(1755-11-06)
Piła
Died January 20, 1826(1826-01-20) (aged 70)
Warsaw
Nationality Polish
Occupation Philosopher, educator and writer
Religion Roman Catholicism

Stanisław Wawrzyniec Staszic [staˈniswaf ˈstaʂit​͡s] (November 6, 1755 – January 20, 1826) was a Polish priest, philosopher, statesman, geologist, scholar, poet and writer, a leader of the Polish Enlightenment, famous for works related to the "Great" or "Four-Year Sejm" (1788–1792) and its Constitution of May 3, 1791.

Contents

Life

Staszic was born into a burgher family in the town of Piła. He graduated from a Jesuit school in Poznań and was ordained a Catholic priest. Between 1779 and 1781 he continued his theological studies in France and Germany. He also spent some time abroad between 1790–1791 and 1794-1797.

Due to his burgher origin, he was barred from owning land and holding many official posts in the monarchical Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but due to the friendship of Józef Wybicki he got a position of a tutor in the house of the great chancellor, Andrzej Zamoyski.

His Remarks upon the Life of Jan Zamoyski (Uwagi nad życiem Jana Zamoyskiego, 1787), published anonymously on the eve of the Great Sejm, transformed the little known tutor into one of the chief political thinkers of the late 18th century Commonwealth.[1] It also begun a flood of political books and pamphlets unprecedented in the Commonwealth history.[1]

Within his Remarks, Staszic potrayed not the life of Zamoyski; rather, he argued that reforms are needed, and that Zamoyski already proposed or supported many of them two centuries ago.[1] Staszic was a strong partisan of reforms and an ardent advocate of the interests of the lower classes.[1] He advocated the abolition of the second serfdom and improvements of the peasants fate (by granting them land and private rights).[1] He criticized the szlachta for inefficient governance, and argued that it showed itself inept to be allowed to govern alone.[1] He argued for a slight increase in taxes, which should allow the Commonwealth to create an army of 100,000 that would at least stand a chance against the still-larger armies of its neighbours.[1] Although he preferred republicanism in theory, in the Commonwealth context he agreed that strenghtening the central (royal) power was the most practical solution for reforming the country.[1] A physiocrat, monist, pan-Slavist (after 1815) and laissez-fairist, he was a leading supporter of the reforms introduced by the May Constitution of Poland of 1791.

After the partitions of Poland, he organized mining schools, societies of learning, departments of industry and arts. From 1808 he was director of the Society of Friends of Learning (Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Nauk), predecessor to the Polish Academy of Sciences (Polska Akademia Nauk). After the fall of the Duchy of Warsaw in 1815, he became a member of the Council of State of the successor Congress Poland.

He studied and wrote about geography and geology, discovered coal in Dąbrowa Górnicza, where he initiated the building of a coal mine. He was also an active supporter of industrial development in Poland. Between 1816 and 1824, he was de facto minister of industry of the Congress Poland and began construction of the Old Polish Industrial Area (Staropolski Okręg Przemysłowy), with steel and zinc mills around Kielce and Sandomierz. The Imperial Russian authorities praised Staszic's accomplishments in Russian-administered Congress Poland.

In 1816 he founded the Hrubieszowskie Towarzystwo Rolnicze (Hrubieszów Agricultural Society), the first Polish cooperative.

He died in Warsaw in 1826. His testament left his property at Hrubieszów to its tenants.

Remembrance

He is one of the figures immortalized in Jan Matejko's 1891 painting, Constitution of May 3, 1791. There is a statue of Stanisław Staszic in Łódź. In April 1951, he was honored on a postage stamp of the Republic of Poland as part of the set issued for the First Congress of Polish Science.[2]

Awards

Works

His best-known works include:

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Krzysztof Bauer (1991). Uchwalenie i obrona Konstytucji 3 Maja. Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne. p. 36-37. ISBN 978-83-02-04615-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=WLNGAAAAIAAJ. Retrieved 2 January 2012. 
  2. ^ The stamp was issued with a denomination of 25 groszy and is listed in Scott's Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue as Poland #511. "Poland" Scott, volume 5 (2011)

External links