Czartoryski

Czartoryski, ADAM GEORGE, son of Prince Adam Czartoryski (1734–1823), was born at Warsaw, 14th January 1770. Educated at Edinburgh and London, he returned to Poland, and took part against Russia in the war of 1794. Sent to St Petersburg as a hostage, he gained the friendship of the Grand-duke Alexander and the confidence of the Emperor Paul, who made him ambassador to Sardinia. When Alexander ascended the throne, he appointed Czartoryski assistant to the Minister of Foreign Affairs; and he took an active part in official life until after the peace of Tilsit. As enrator of the university of Wilna (1803) he exerted all his influence to keep alive a spirit of nationality; and when some of the students were sent to Siberia on a charge of sedition, Czartoryski resigned his office. His successor reported to the emperor that the amalgamation of Russia and Lithuania had been delayed a century by Czartoryski. Russian favours could not deaden or even dull Czartoryski's pure patriotism. Into the revolution of 1830 he threw himself with all his heart. He was elected president of a provisional government, and in this capacity summoned a national diet, which in January 1831 declared the Polish throne vacant, and elected Czartoryski head of the national government. He immediately devoted half of his large estates to the public service, and adopted energetic measures to meet the power of Russia. In August he resigned his post, but continued to fight as a common soldier. After the suppression of the rising (see POLAND), Czartoryski—specially excluded from the general amnesty, and his estates in Poland confiscated—escaped to Paris, where he afterwards resided, the liberal friend of his poor expatriated countrymen, and the centre of their hope of a revived nationality. In 1848 he liberated all his serfs in Galicia, and during the Crimean war he ineffectually endeavoured to induce the allies to identify the cause of Poland with that of Turkey. He refused the amnesty offered to him by Alexander II., and died 15th July 1861. See his Memoirs, translated by Gielgud (1888).