Everything about Stanis Aw August Poniatowski totally explained
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Stanisław II August Poniatowski (born
Count Stanisław Antoni Poniatowski;
January 17,
1732-
February 12,
1798) was the last King and Grand Duke of the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1764-95). He was the son of
Count Stanisław Poniatowski,
Castellan of
Kraków, and
Princess Konstancja Czartoryska ; brother of
Michał Jerzy Poniatowski,
primate of the
Roman Catholic Church in Poland; and uncle to Prince
Józef Poniatowski.
Royal titles
(English translation, from the Polish text of the
May 3,
1791, Constitution:)
Stanisław August, by the grace of God and the will of the people King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania and Duke of Ruthenia, Prussia, Masovia, Samogitia, Kiev, Volhynia, Podolia, Podlachia, Livonia, Smolensk, Severia and Chernihiv.
Biography
Poniatowski was born in
Wołczyn,
Belarus. By the age of twenty, in 1752, as a
Sejm deputy, Poniatowski had attracted attention with his oratory. He ultimately owed his career, however, to his uncles, the powerful Czartoryski clan, who in 1755 sent him to
Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the suite of the
British ambassador,
Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams. There, through the influence of
Russian Chancellor
A. P. Bestuzhev-Ryumin, he gained accreditation to the Russian court as ambassador of
Saxony. Through Hanbury-Williams he met twenty-six-year-old
Grand Duchess Catherine, who was irresistibly attracted to the handsome and brilliant young nobleman, for whom she forsook all other lovers. He was
stolnik litewski in
1755 and later
starost przemyski.
After a
coup d'état by the Czartoryski
Familia — supported by Russian troops — on
September 7,
1764, Poniatowski was elected King of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The coronation took place in
Warsaw on
November 25,
1764. The new King's uncles in the
Familia would have preferred another nephew, Prince
Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski, on the throne but Czartoryski had declined to seek the office.
Stanisław August--as he now styled himself--or "Ciołek", as he was deprecatingly called by some contemporaries and later historians (after his
Ciołek Coat of Arms)--as King of the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was at that time almost entirely controlled by the much more powerful neighboring powers (Russia and Prussia), remained at the mercy of circumstances. Nevertheless, in his difficult situation he strove to do his duty. He inaugurated some useful economic changes. He supported the
Familia's reform program until 1766, when he fell out with his uncles. As king, Poniatowski effectively supported the Russian army's crushing of the
Bar Confederation, between 1768-1772. On
October 22,
1770, the
Council of the Bar Confederation proclaimed him dethroned. Poniatowski was briefly a prisoner after being kidnapped by members of the Confederation in 1771, and held outside of Warsaw.
Although he protested the first
partition of the Commonwealth (1772), he was powerless to do anything about it, and in the face of implacable opposition from the Polish
magnates, he was obliged to place his reliance in Russia's German ambassador,
Otto Magnus von Stackelberg. In
1783/
1784 he married morganatically his lover Elżbieta Szydłowska (
1748-
1810), whose first husband Jan Jerzy Grabowski was
general inspektor wojsk litewskich, and by whom he'd an only son, born before marriage, Count Stanisław Konopnicy-Grabowski (
1780-
Dresden,
1845), who married firstly Cecylia Dembowska (
December 19 1787-
January 17 1821), and secondly
May 8 1822 Countess Julia Zabiello; he left issue, his descendants were the
Counts Konopnicy-Grabowski. Acting in concert with him, he hoped to strengthen his authority and bring about essential reforms. It was only during the
Four-Year Sejm of 1788-1792 that he threw in his lot with the reformers, centered in the
Patriotic Party, and with them co-authored the
Constitution of
May 3,
1791.
Poniatowski's eloquent speech before the
Sejm on taking an oath to uphold the newly adopted Constitution moved his audience to tears. Shortly thereafter, the
Targowica Confederation was formed by Polish nobility to overthrow the Constitution. The confederates aligned with Russia's Catherine the Great, and the Russian army entered Poland, starting the
Polish-Russian War of 1792. After a series of battles, Poniatowski, upon the advice of
Hugo Kołłątaj and others, acceded to the Confederation. This undermined the operations of the Polish Army, which under
Tadeusz Kosciuszko and the King's own nephew, Prince
Jozef Poniatowski, had been performing prodigiously on the battlefield.
The war was ended, and Russia and Prussia undertook the
Second partition of Poland in 1793.
) and drawing to this portrait .]]
King Stanisław August remains a controversial figure. He was accused by some of striving for absolutism, of doing away with the liberties of the
szlachta (Polish nobility), of desiring the downfall of the
Roman Catholic Church; by others, of weakness and subservience, even of treason, especially after he'd joined the
Targowica Confederation.
Nevertheless, he did accomplish much in the realm of culture and education. He founded the
School of Chivalry (otherwise "
Corps of Cadets"), which functioned 1765-1794 and whose alumni included
Tadeusz Kościuszko; and the
Commission of National Education (1773), the world's first national ministry of education. In 1765 he helped found the
Monitor, the leading periodical of the
Polish Enlightenment, and the Polish national theater. He hosted his famous "
Thursday dinners", the most brilliant social functions in the Polish capital. He supported the establishment of manufactures and the development of mining. He remodeled the
Royal Castle in Warsaw, and erected the elegant
Łazienki complex in Warsaw's most romantic park. He created a numismatic collection, a picture gallery, and an engravings room. His plan to create an even larger painting gallery in Warsaw was interrupted by the destruction of Poland; nonetheless, most of the paintings he'd ordered can now be seen at the
Dulwich Picture Gallery in
London.
After the final, Third
Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Stanisław August was forced to
abdicate (
November 25,
1795) and left for Saint Petersburg, Russia. There, a virtual prisoner, he subsisted on a pension from Catherine the Great and died deeply in debt. In 1938 his remains were transferred to a church at
Wołczyn, his birthplace, and in 1995, to
St. John's Cathedral in Warsaw, where, on
May 3,
1791, he'd celebrated the adoption of the Constitution he'd co-authored.
Ancestors
Patronage
Image:Stanisław August Poniatowski by Bacciarelli.PNG|Portrait of Stanisław August with Hourglass and crown, by Marcello Bacciarelli, 1793.
Image:Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn 039.jpg|The Polish Rider otherwise known as Lisowczyk, by Rembrandt from King's collection was sold on auction after his death.
Image:Jean-Honoré Fragonard 007.jpg|The Stolen Kiss, by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, 1780s, painting belonged to the King's collection
Image:Poland Warsaw Łazienki Palace 2.jpg|Łazienki Palace in Warsaw, by Dominik Merlini, 1772-1793.
Janusz Poniatowski 1954,
Malgorzata Poniatowski 1985,
Izabella Poniatowski 2006
Further Information
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