Stanisław Kostka Potocki

Stanisław Kostka Potocki (1755–1821) was a politician, writer, patron of the arts, Four-Year Sejm member, President of the Council of State in the Duchy of Warsaw and Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Poland (the governing body of Freemasonry in Poland). He was also involved in planning the Kościuszko Uprising. Potocki was a prominent educational reformer. A university, institute of technology, several seminaries and rabbinical schools were all founded in Warsaw and the number of junior high school teachers and elementary school pupils was doubled during his tenure as Director of the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Education. Potocki wrote several dissertations on language and art history. As a radical freethinker, he also published the satirical novel Podróż do Ciemnogrodu [Journey to the City of Darkness], albeit anonymously. His authorship, however, was revealed to Tsar Alexander I by the poet Bp. Jan Paweł Woronowicz. The result was that clerical conservatives were brought to power and the reactionary Stanisław Grabowski, who was averse to public education, was put in charge of the Ministry of Education.