Wysłouch (Wisłouch, Visłavuch and others) is the name of a Lithuanian-Polish aristocratic family. It traces its lineage back to 1385, when alongside with other major Lithuanian noble clans its forbears were admitted to the ranks of Polish nobility. The line begins with Stanislaw Koscia, a Polish knight born in 1390, however, the first mention of the Wysłouch family name was recorded in a document dating from the first half of the 16th century.[1] The Wysłouch family uses the "Odyniec" coat of arms.
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The family is particularly notable for the participation of its members in public life and politics. This dates back to the end of the 16th century, when a number of Wysłouchs held important public offices, including a Royal Castellany.[1] At the end of the 18th century, Zenon Kazimierz Wysłouch was a member of the Great Sejm, the Polish Parliament which created the Constitution of May 3, 1791, which historian Norman Davies calls "the first constitution of its kind in Europe".[2] In the 19th century the family was involved in promoting education for and the emancipation of the lower classes, for which spacial note should be given to Antoni Wysłouch and his wife Teofila. Their nephew, Bolesław Wysłouch, was a senator of the Second Polish Republic and co-founder of the Polish People's Party "Piast", currently known as the Polish People's Party. Bolesław's cousin Antoni Izydor, was also a politician and a member of the Parliament in the 1930s.
Members of the Wysłouch family were also noteworthy for their involvement in the independence movement during the period of the Partitions of Poland. At the end of the 18th century, Emmanuel Wysłouch was an officer serving in the Polish Legions during Napoleon's campaign in Italy. Later, in the 19th century Antoni Wysłouch and his wife, Teofila, took an active part in the January Uprising; they were close friends with the uprising leader, Romuald Traugutt and Eliza Orzeszkowa, a well known positivist writer.[3]
The family owned the estates of Pirkowicze, Sacha, Leżajka and others, most of which are currently abandoned or ruined. The exception is Pirkowicze house, nowadays in Belarus, which serves as a local school.
Descendants of the family include, among others, Małgorzata Sąsiadek, a renowned medicine professor at the University of Wrocław, and Stefan Cieśla, Warsaw lawyer and banker.[4] Both of them were involved in Solidarność, the opposition movement in the People's Republic of Poland.