Author
Kajetan Skrzetuski 1743-1806

He was born on 31 March 1743 in the Ruthenian Province. After being educated in Piarist schools, he joined the Piarist Order in 1759. He studied rhetoric in Rzeszów, philosophy in Międzyrzecze Korzeckie, and finally theology in Warsaw. In the years 1769–1777, 1779–1781 and 1794–1796 he was a Professor of History at Collegium Nobilium. In 1773, he published Historia polityczna Królestwa Francuskiego [“Political History of the Kingdom of France”] and Historia polityczna dla szlachetnej młodzi… [“Political history for the noble youth…”] (the second volume appeared in 1775). He was inspired, inter alia, by the works of Bossuet and Montesquieu. From 1781 to 1788 and from 1793 to 1794, he lectured at the Corps of Cadets. In the era of the Four-Year Sejm (1788–1792), he participated in the political and journalistic discussions that took place at the time. In 1791, he published Widok polityczny w teraźniejszych okolicznościach Polski [“Political prospects in Poland’s present circumstances”], in which he supported the party that advocated a close alliance with Prussia and sharply criticised Russian and Austrian policies. He died on 30 April 1806 in Książ Wielki where he had lived from 1797. Apart from the aforementioned historical and political works, he was also a translator: he translated Voltaire’s tragedy Brutus (1780) and Fanny de Beauharnais’s novel l’Héroïsme du sentiment (Heroizm tkliwości) (1792); he also wrote poems (which he published, among others, in Zabawy Przyjemne i Pożyteczne [“Pleasant and Useful Games”]).

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