Hugo Kołłątaj

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Hugo Kołłątaj
Deputy Chancellor of the Crown
Polish philosophy
SchoolPolish Enlightenment
Kołłątaj's Forge
InstitutionsWarsaw Society of Friends of Learning
Main interests
Pedagogy, history, political philosophy, geology, mineralogy, anthropology

Hugo Stumberg Kołłątaj, also spelled Kołłątay (1 April 1750 – 28 February 1812), was a prominent Polish constitutional reformer and educationalist, and one of the most prominent figures of the

philosopher, and polymath
.

Biography

Early life

Hugo Kołłątaj was born on 1 April 1750 in Dederkały Wielkie (now in Western Ukraine) in Volhynia into a family of Polish nobility. Soon after, his family moved to Nieciesławice, near Sandomierz, where he spent his childhood.[3][4][5][6] He attended school in Pińczów.[7][8][9] He began his studies at the Kraków Academy, subsequently, Jagiellonian University, where he studied law and gained a doctorate.[1][4] Afterwards, around 1775 he took holy orders.[10] He studied in Vienna and Italy (Naples and Rome), where he would have encountered Enlightenment philosophy.[1][4][6][11] He is thought to have gained two further doctorates abroad in philosophy and theology.[10]

Returning to Poland, he became a

canon of Kraków,[11] and parish priest of Krzyżanowice Dolne and Tuczępy.[5] He was active in the Commission of National Education and the Society for Elementary Books, where he took a prominent role in the development of the national network of schools.[1][6][12] He spent two years in Warsaw, but returned to Kraków where he reformed the Kraków Academy, on whose board he sat from 1777, and whose rector he was between 1783–1786.[1][10][11][12] The reform of the Academy was very substantial. It established innovative standards. Notably, he substituted Polish for Latin which till then was used for lectures. The removal of Latin in favour of a national language in higher education was then still uncommon in Europe.[13] The reform proved so controversial that his political enemies plotted successfully to have him temporarily removed from Kraków in 1781, on grounds of corruption and immorality. Although in 1782 the decision was rescinded.[14]

Reforms of the Great Sejm

Kołłątaj

Kołłątaj was also active politically. In 1786 he assumed the office of the

reform movement, heading an informal group that was on the radical wing of the Patriotic Party, and labelled by their political enemies as "Kołłątaj's Forge".[1][6][10][12] As leader of the Patriotic Party during the Great Sejm, he set out its programme in his Several Anonymous Letters to Stanisław Małachowski (1788–1789) and in his essay, The Political Law of the Polish Nation (1790).[1][6] In his works he advocated a republican-tinged constitutional reform and the need for other social reforms.[1][12] Among the goals he pursued were the strengthening of the king's constitutional position, a larger national army, abolition of the liberum veto, the introduction of universal taxation, and the emancipation of both townspeople and the peasantry.[6] An organizer of the townspeople's movement, he edited a text that demanded reform and which was delivered to the king during the Black Procession of 1789.[1][6]

Kołłątaj co-authored the

Crown Vice Chancellor (Podkanclerzy Koronny).[1][12]

During the

3 May Constitution, Kołłątaj, along with other royal advisers, persuaded King Stanisław August, himself a co-author of the Constitution, to seek a compromise with their opponents and to join the Targowica Confederation that had been formed to bring down the Constitution.[12] However, in 1792, when the Confederates' won, Kołłątaj emigrated to Leipzig and Dresden, where in 1793 he wrote, with Ignacy Potocki, an essay entitled, On the Adoption and Fall of the Polish May 3 Constitution.[1][6]

Exile and final years

Kołłątaj, by Jan Pfeiffer, 1810

In exile, his political views became more radical and he became involved with the preparation for an insurrection.

Germanized form.[11][12]

Kołłątaj, Jordan Park, Kraków

In his The Physico-Moral Order (1811), Kołłątaj sought to create a socio-ethical system emphasizing the

Jesuit domination of education and presented a study of the history of education.[15]

He died on 28 February 1812, "forgotten and abandoned" by his contemporaries.[1][10] He was buried in the Powązki Cemetery.[10]

Remembrance

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Despite his lonely death, Kołłątaj became an influence on many subsequent reformers and is now recognized as one of the key figures of the

Constitution of May 3, 1791
.

Several learned institutions in Poland are named in Hugo Kołłątaj's honour, including the

Agricultural University of Cracow
of which he was co-founder and patron.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t (in Polish) Kołłątaj Hugo Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine, WIEM Encyklopedia
  2. ^ "The Year of Hugo Kołłątaj". Jagiellonian University. pp. 12–14. Retrieved 14 May 2014.
  3. ^ a b (in Polish) M.J. Minakowski, Hugo Kołątaj ze Sztumbergu h. wł., Wielka Genealogia Minakowskiego
  4. ^
    ISBN 978-8302046155
    . Retrieved 2 January 2012.
  5. ^ a b (in Polish) Historia, Urząd Gminy w Tuczępach
  6. ^
    ISBN 978-0313034565
    . Retrieved 2 December 2011.
  7. ^ Dembowski, Edward (1845). Piśmiennictwo polski w zarysie (in Polish). Poznań: N. Kamieński. p. 312.
  8. ^ Kołłątaj, Hugo (1912). "O księdzu Hugonie Kołłątaju". In Rymar, Stanisław (ed.). Wybór pism (in Polish). Krakowska drukarnia nakladowa. p. 10.
  9. ISBN 978-83-214-1083-8
    .
  10. ^ a b c d e f g (in Polish) Hugo Kołłątaj, Katolicka Agencja Informacyjna
  11. ^ a b c d (in Polish)Halina Zwolska, Towarzysze Szkoły Głównej Koronnej Archived 2012-04-15 at the Wayback Machine, Alma Mater, wiosna 1997, nr 4
  12. ^
    ISBN 978-0781806374
    . Retrieved 13 August 2011.
  13. ISBN 978-8302046155
    . Retrieved 2 January 2012.
  14. ISBN 978-8302046155
    . Retrieved 2 January 2012.
  15. ^
    Encyklopedia Interia
  16. ISBN 978-0865162457
    . Retrieved 2 December 2011.

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hugo Kołłątaj.

External links

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