Fryderyk Skarbek

Fryderyk (in English, "Frederick") Skarbek lived during a complex historic period: beginning in independent Poland, continuing from 1793 in Prussian Poland, later in the Duchy of Warsaw (1807–13) created by Napoleon, then from 1815 in the Kingdom of Poland, whose king was the Tsar of Russia.

• Illustration — Anna Emilia Wiesiołowska, née Skarbek (1793-1873), sister of Fryderyk Skarbek and godmother of Fryderyk Chopin, by Maria Wodzińska Fryderyk Skarbek was born in Toruń, son of Kacper Skarbek, whose aristocratic family had roots dating back to medieval times, and of Ludwika Fenger, daughter of a rich Toruń merchant of German descent. He was the first of four children. Around 1800 the family, which had lived at Izbica Kujawska, moved to Żelazowa Wola. In 1802 Nicolas Chopin (the composer's father) was hired as the children's teacher. In 1808 Fryderyk graduated from the Warsaw Lyceum (a secondary school in Warsaw). In 1809 he left for Paris, where he studied economics. He became, while absent in Paris, vicariously godfather to the composer Frédéric Chopin (1810–49), who had been born on the Skarbek estate in Żelazowa Wola. In 1812 he returned to Poland and worked as a translator in the Duchy's administration; then he devoted some years to local administration of the Sochaczew district. Skarbek married twice: • in 1818, Prakseda Gzowska (died 1836): they had one child, Józef, who would marry Chopin's fiancée, Maria Wodzińska; • in 1838, Pelagia Rutkowska: they had a daughter and two sons, who were several times imprisoned for Polish patriotic activities.

• Illustration — View of Warsaw from the Warsaw Society of Friends of Learning building, ca. 1825, by Fryderyk Skarbek Politically, Skarbek favored accommodation with the Russian authorities. In November 1830, at the outbreak of the Polish November 1830 Uprising against Russia, he was in Saint Petersburg, Russia, having been summoned by Tsar Nicholas I to inspect Russian prisons. He remained in Russia for the duration of the Uprising. In March 1831 he became a member of the Provisional Council of the Kingdom, and he returned to Poland only after Warsaw had been captured in September 1831 by Russian General Ivan Paskevich.

Despite Russian Poland's deteriorating situation under Paskevich as Namestnik of the Kingdom of Poland (1831–55) — with the changing of the Constitution in 1832, the closing of Warsaw University in 1833, the promotion of Russification — Skarbek went on to serve in the administration, as president of the Central Council of Welfare Charity Works, and later as president of the Directorate of Insurance. Tsar Nicholas I awarded him the Order of Saint Stanislaus, Second Class; and in 1846 gave him the Russian hereditary title of Count, after Skarbek had failed to obtain confirmation of a previous hereditary title of count. In 1854 Skarbek became director of the Justice Committee (Minister of Justice). He retired in 1858 and returned to scholarly and literary work, including his Memoirs which were published in 1876. He died in Warsaw in 1866, of sepsis.

• Pan Antoni (Anthony), 1824 • Pan Starosta (Starosta), 1826 • Życie i przypadki Faustyna Feliksa na Dodoszach Dodosińskiego (The Life and Adventures of Faustyn Feliks Dodosiński of Dodosze), 1838 • Pamiętniki Seglasa (The Memoirs of Seglas), 1845