Fryderyk Skarbek
Florian Frederick Skarbek (15 February 1792 – 25 September 1866) was a member of the Polish nobility, an economist, novelist, historian, social activist, administrator and politician.[1]. He is also known for his personal relations with Frédéric Chopin and his family.
Biography
Frederick Skarbek's life took place during a difficult period of the history of Poland: it began at the end of independance (1792-1795), and went on in the Prussian Poland (1795-1806), then in the Duchy of Warsaw (1807-1813), then (from 1815) in the Kingdom of Poland, the King of which was the Russian emperor.
- Childhood and education (1792-1818)
Skarbek was born in Torun, son of Casper Skarbek, whose aristocratic family had roots dating back to medieval times, and of Ludwika Fenger, daughter of a rich Torun merchant of German ascent. Frederick Skarbek was the first of four children. Around 1800 the family who lived in Izbica Kujawska went to Zelazowa Wola. In 1802 Nicolas Chopin (the composer's father) was hired to be the teacher of the children.
From 1805, Frederick made a secondary cursus at the Warsaw Lyceum and got his maturity in 1808; he left in 1809 to Paris where he began studying economics. In 1812 he returned to Poland and worked as a translator in the high administration of the Duchy; then he devoted some years to the local administration of the Sochaczew district.
- University teacher and social expert
In 1818 he became professor of economics at the University of Warsaw. He got a doctorate at the University of Kraków in 1819; during the decade 1820-1830 he published some books on economics, in Polish (1821, 1824) and in French (1829). He also interested himself (under Stanislaw Staszic’s influence) in the problems of the poors, of charity houses and of prisons and became sort of an expert: he worked for the department of prisons and charitable establishments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. When in 1828 he went to Paris for the publication of his book, the government commissionned him to report on prisons in Holland and Great-Britain; after coming back to Warsaw, he designed the Pawiak prison (completed in 1835).
- The 1830-31 crisis
On a political level, he represented the party of agreement with the Russian authority. In November 1830, at the outbreak of the uprising against the Russian domination, he was not in Poland, because tsar Nicolas I had summoned him in Saint Petersburg for an observation mission of Russian prisons.
During the uprising he stayed in Russia; in March 1831 he became a member of the Provisional Council of the Kingdom[2], and came back only after the taking of Warsaw by general Paskevich in September.
- Late career (1832-1858)
In spite of the degradation of the situation while Paskevich was namestnik of the Kingdom of Poland (1831-1855) -changing of the Constitution in 1832, closing of the University in 1833, russification-, he went on to serve in the high administration, as president of the Central Council of Welfare Charity Works and later as president of the Directorate of Insurance[3].
Tsar Nicholas I awarded him the Order of Saint Stanislaus II class and gave him the Russian hereditary title of Count in 1846.
In 1854 Skarbek became director of the Justice Committee (minister of Justice).
- Last years
He entered retirement in 1858 and returned to scientific and literary work.
He died in Warsaw in 1866 from a septicemy.
- Private life
He was vicariously godfather to the composer Frédéric Chopin (1810 – 1849), born in the Skarbek house in Zelazowa Wola, while Frederick was in Paris[4].
He was twice married:
- in 1818 with Prakseda Gzowska (dead 1836: they had one child, Joseph, who was to marry Chopin's fiancée, Maria Wodzinska;
- in 1838 with Pelagia Rutkowska: they had one daughter and two sons, who were several times imprisoned for patriotic activities.
- Works
He was a pioneer in economic theory[3] and his 1829 work Théorie des richesses sociales influenced Karl Marx in formulating his theory of labour.[5].
He has also had a literary activity, as an author of dramas and of novels.
During his retirement he wrote his Memoirs which were published in 1876.
Selected scientific works
- National economy, 1829
- Théorie des richesses sociales, 1829
- General principles of the national economy of science, 1859
- The farm and the national economy, 1860 ;
- The history of the Duchy of Warsaw, 1860 ;
Selected literary works
- Pan Antoni (Mr. Anthony), 1824
- Pan Starosta (Mr. Foreman), 1826
- Życie i przypadki Faustyna Feliksa na Dodoszach Dodosińskiego (Life and cases of Faustin Felix Dodosiński from Dodoszi), 1838
- Pamiętniki Seglasa (Seglasa Memoirs), 1845
Bibliography
- Sewer Jerzy Dunin-Borkowski, Almanac blue, Lviv, 1909, s.547 and n.
- Theodore Zychlinski, Golden Book of the Polish nobility, Vol XXV, Poznan, 1903, pp. 109–110.
- Piotr Mysłakowski, Andrzej Sikorski, Fryderyk Chopin. The Origins, Narodowy Instytut Fryderyka Chopina (The Fryderyk Chopin Institute), Warsaw, 2010, pp. 216–230
- Piotr Mysłakowski, Andrzej Sikorski, Fryderyk Skarbek (in Polish), NIFC, 2007
References
- ^ Hertz, Aleksander (1988). The Jews in Polish culture. Northwestern University Press. p. 254. ISBN 0-8101-0758-9.
- ^ Cf. NIFC 2007. This "provisional council" was probably a creation of the tsar, in front of the "national government" created in January 1831 by the Polish Diet.
- ^ a b Wandycz, Piotr Stefan (1974). The Lands of Partitioned Poland, 1795-1918. University of Washington Press. p. 93. ISBN 0295953586.
- ^ Chopin's register of baptism (23 april 1810) indicates "Franciszek Grembecki" as the godfather, but Chopin had also had an emergency baptism after his birth (around the 1st of March), and in some letters (for instance in 1846) he writes about Skarbek being his godfather.
- ^ Dussel, Enrique D.; Moseley, Fred (2001). Moseley (ed.). Towards an unknown Marx: a commentary on the manuscripts of 1861-63. Routledge. p. 35. ISBN 0-415-21545-5.
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