Hugo Kołłątaj’s letters to bookseller and Publisher from Cracow Jan Maj from January and February 1807

Abstract

When in December 1802 Hugo Kołłątaj was leaving the prison in Ołomuniec, he had one desire: to settle in a village, most preferably in Krzesławice and take care of his personal matters. Everything indicated that these aspirations might become a reality, although in a slightly modified shape than he had originally planned. This most eminent politician, publicist and reformer of the times of king Stanislaw Poniatowski returned to his homeland Wołyń and there, apart from scientific and educational activity, he made the effort to regain his possessions confiscated by the Austrians. However, soon Europe started boiling. Napoleon with his army began his march towards the East and he reached Wielkopolska. Awakened Polish hopes revived slightly dormant politicians; Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz returned from the USA. In turn republicans and former Jacobins suddenly remembered the vice-chancellor priest. They made attempts to bring him back to Warsaw and they offered him the leadership of the uprising in Wołyń. Anticipating the realization of one of those two scenarios on 10^th January 1807 Russian officials forced their entry into Kołłątaj’s flat in Tetylkowce with the emperor’s order of immediate leaving for Moscow. The priest did not resist and in a short time he began an extremely tiresome journey. The letters that we publish here are an account of that journey. The author describes in them his observations and reflections in this remarkable correspondence directed to the bookseller and publisher from Cracow Jan Maj.