Kazimierz count Grocholski
125 years ago, 10th December 1888 at the age of 73 – Kazimierz count Grocholski (CofA – Nałęcz) had died in Opatija, Croatia, a gentleman (of landed gentry), a lawyer and a conservative politician (“Podolak”); in his youth a radical and a conspirator (a member of the “Association of Polish People” (“Stowarzyszenia Ludu Polskiego”) and of the Polish Carbonari (charcoal burners) – delegate of “poręb lwowski” to a dicastery), arrested and imprisoned in 1843 and imprisoned until 1.01.1845; in 1848 a member of the National Council in Tarnopol, a co-founder (1861) of the liberal “Voice” gentry newspaper and in the same year elected to the Galician Parliament for the first time, where from 1866 he held an office of a Secretary; simultaneously a member of a parliamentary delegation to the State Council in Vienna, where he became (until his death, including a six month ministerial break ) a president of the Polish Coterie (Koło Polskie), exercising within it a “dictatorship” like authority; in the parliament he called upon Austria to back the January Uprising and in 1864 – to lift the siege of Galicia; he played a key role in the fight for Galicia’s autonomy and the provision of advantages in self-governance for Its gentry (he was an editor of the so-called Galician resolution from 24th IX 1868); in count Hohewarts’ government (11 IV- 25 IX 1871) he became the first minister of Galicia, conducting polonisation of the Lwów (Lviv) University; in co-operation with the Austrian right he defended the Concordat and fought against the legalisation of divorce and Freemasonry; in the famous speech of 1878 he proclaimed the famous conservative Podolak maxim: „naj bude jak buwało”(“ let it be as it was”); in 1881 he led to a merger with the cracovian Stańczyk’s; he was an activist of various national institutions: Farmyard Society (President 1868-1869), Florianka, the Cracovian Savings and Credit Gentry Society.
prof. Jacek Bartyzel
translated by Arek Jakubczyk
Kategoria: Reactionary Diary
