What do you think?
Rate this book
Moje wspomnienia 1892-1919
Jan Gawroński był znanym przedwojennym dyplomatą, pracował w ambasadach II Rzeczypospolitej w Szwajcarii, Niemczech, Holandii, Turcji i Austrii. Niepublikowane dotychczas pamiętniki obejmują lata dzieciństwa na Litwie, młodość spędzoną w szkole klasztornej w Anglii, studia i podróże.
Historia Polski i Europy widziana poprzez dzieje rodziny autora (i wielu innych polskich rodów) staje się bliska dzięki autentyczności i indywidualności opowieści. Talent narracyjny autora idzie w parze z prostotą, skromnością i mądrą refleksją o życiu, a zdjęcia z archiwum rodzinnego są znakomitym uzupełnieniem tych pogodnych wspomnień z nieistniejącego już świata.
Historia Polski i Europy widziana poprzez dzieje rodziny autora (i wielu innych polskich rodów) staje się bliska dzięki autentyczności i indywidualności opowieści. Talent narracyjny autora idzie w parze z prostotą, skromnością i mądrą refleksją o życiu, a zdjęcia z archiwum rodzinnego są znakomitym uzupełnieniem tych pogodnych wspomnień z nieistniejącego już świata.
712 pages, Hardcover
Published October 1, 2016
2 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 2, 2025
This is the story life of Tolkien and Piłsudski combined, he was studying in England and attending universities, oxford, and other, in Poland, german too(in Poland). So it seams he studied all his life, what was his one of latest studys? Agriculture, there lies pavment for everyhing. On A levels, matura exams, in Poland, He did answare for question about what tech will change wolrd, he pointed out antykoncepje, birth prevention with drugs, new thing back then, and got qualifications with merit. XD
His family has estate on Litwa, and what happend to it is, they had no money, fighted to get permision for cuting their forest, and sell it with permison, but didn't happend.
He wrote:
The books (in that estate) bore ex-libris labels with the name Horodyski, but it was impossible to definitively establish any family connection with that family or to find out how these books ended up in the attic in Szukiel. The dusty crates were moved to the empty workshop, and I was allowed to unpack them, as my parents, seeing the interest they aroused in me, gave me permission to organize them. I began by sorting the books into piles on the floor, separating the Polish and French books, then matching the volumes that belonged together, and so on. When they saw that I was working diligently and seriously, they had proper library shelves built for me, covering all the walls up to the ceiling. And so, at the age of twelve, I unintentionally became an avid librarian! There was a very complete collection of publications from the French Enlightenment and the Polish 18th century, all the more important works of our literature, mostly in first editions, as well as many Western European prints and a considerable group of incunabula, starting from the Golden Age. For several years during the summer holidays, I spent the first half of the day on horseback, but the most enjoyable afternoons were always spent among my beloved books, thanks to which I had the opportunity to become more closely acquainted – if not with the thoughts of the authors of the Renaissance and Baroque, which I was not yet mature enough to read, then at least with the entire art of printing and publishing of those eras in various European countries, not to mention our Wietors and Hallers, which I arranged separately with particular reverence in a place of honor. Since the small number of lesson hours was mainly devoted to Polish history and literature, with which my parents wanted me to be thoroughly familiar before being forced to attend a foreign-language school, the opportunity to see and touch all the most important books from our past was an excellent illustration of the lessons I was receiving. Bielski's Chronicles, The works of Miechowita, Stryjkowski, Wujek's Bible, Budny and Radziwiłł's Bible, the fascinating dissertations of Modrzewski and Orzechowski, the poetry of Kochanowski, Klonowicz, and Szymonowicz—all of these became dear to me even then.
Throughout the twenty years of my diplomatic service, I advertised my complete independence from any contemporary trends and thoughts – I observed sine ira et studio (without anger and without bias, impartially) all manifestations of revolutionary thought, looking at them "through the lens and eye of a wise man." I looked at fascists or communists, Thomists or existentialists, psychoanalysts or indeterminists, dodecaphonists or cubists – as so many chapters of human zoology, which presented interesting issues for our intellect, but did not require the involvement of conscience. The passion for studying them all gripped me to such an extent that I again began to lose myself in pure intellectualism. What a barren period of life it was. No lasting achievement remained after it.
A funny story comes to mind about how the Tyszkiewicz family from Isłauż came to be married. Old Tyszkiewicz, the father of five sons well-known in Lithuania, from roughly my father's generation, when the St. Petersburg Railway was being built and the plan stipulated that it would run through a significant portion of his land, offered the land for the railway free of charge, without demanding any payment. In return, the Tsar granted him the right to buy land in the Borderlands. As is known, in the "annexed provinces," Poles were not allowed to buy land, and since, due to the general crisis, Polish landowners were often forced to sell their land, this law led to a rapid decrease in Polish land ownership in the Borderlands in favor of the Russian element. Exempted from the rigors of this law, Tyszkiewicz managed to accumulate over a million hectares of land, becoming the largest Polish landowner. When the old Ogiński Canal was restored, Tyszkiewicz figured he could use this route to visit his Polish estates, bought a suitable boat, and set off from Połąga with his whole family on a journey up the Niemen River. However, he ran aground opposite Eleonorowo and had to send his eldest son, Alexander, there to ask for help and have the boat pulled into deeper water by horses. Marshal Pusłowski, the lord of Eleonorowo, rescued Tyszkiewicz from a difficult situation, but Tyszkiewicz, in turn, won over Pusłowski's only daughter, who shortly afterwards married Alexander Tyszkiewicz, bringing him not only her father's estate of Eleonorowo but also half of her mother's estate of Godlewszczyzna, with the old family seat in Isłauż. During the summer holidays, a large number of children would gather in Szałtupie and Isłauż. Our greatest joy was to go there from Kalinowo, especially on joint excursions from there to the nearby Birštonas, beautifully situated on the Nemunas River and full of ancient Lithuanian pagan memories and legends.
The Ostrogski family became, always reluctantly, subjects of Poland, where they represented the traditions of the Kyivan Rurikids and their unextinguished aspirations to Halych and Volodymyr, which were only realized by Russia six hundred years later. They were always faithful sons of Orthodoxy and implacable opponents of the Union of Brest. From them descended the princely families of Zasławski, Korecki, and Porycki. When the Ostrogski family died out at the end of the 17th century, the Ostrog region passed through marriages first to the Lubomirski family, and then to the Sanguszko family, one of whom, having no offspring, distributed hundreds of his towns and villages among relatives and friends in the infamous Kolbuszowa transaction, which for a hundred years became the cause of endless lawsuits and disputes throughout the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In our time, the principalities of Zasław and Korec were in the hands of the Potocki family from Antonin, Dubno and Rivne belonged to the Lubomirski family, and the principality of Poryck passed through the Zahorowski family to the Czacki family, and from it were carved out the estates of Ławrów, Lachów, and Kohylno, which belonged to my grandfather.
the method of teaching (in UK) seems to me more perfect than in any other school. There has been enough discussion about it here already that it is unnecessary to justify this statement once again. In any case, in an English school we can primarily learn how to learn, even if we acquire little scientific content. However, weighing the advantages and disadvantages of the English school system, it seems to me that the benefits we can gain from it outweigh its shortcomings, because a boy leaving school even with a limited amount of knowledge, but with his physical abilities fully developed and a well-honed ability to learn, will be able and willing to fill the gaps in his education throughout his life and will ultimately have more culture and character than a boy crammed in school with an indigestible excess of knowledge, from which he will then turn away with disgust for the rest of his life.
𝐈𝐭 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐝𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐱, 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐦𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐬 – 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐬𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝, 𝐢𝐟 𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐫𝐲, 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐡𝐢𝐭 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐬. Relations with the Germans at the German school were friendly, but the author doesn't remember a single German from his class. They didn't socialize, they only greeted each other cordially; he only associated with Poles at the German school in... Wrocław.
Two opposing orientations were referred to as "broad-gauge" and "narrow-gauge," by analogy to the different widths of railway tracks in Russia and the West. Representatives of both these orientations reasoned "realistically," that is, they acknowledged the necessity of concessions from the maximalist concept of an independent Polish state and were ready to compromise in arranging post-war relations with any of the potential victors. The "broad-gauge" faction understood that the expected defeat of Germany would necessarily mean a victory for Russia, from whom it would then be difficult to demand the relinquishment of Polish lands. Therefore, their hopes were primarily directed towards the unification of the three partitions under the Tsar's rule, with some degree of national autonomy – greater or lesser – depending on what the victor would be gracious enough to grant. The "narrow-gauge" faction even renounced the unification of the Polish lands divided by the partitions, not even dreaming of wresting Greater Poland from the clutches of Prussia – their only hope being the annexation of the Kingdom of Poland to Austria, and not to the hated Germany, with the fewest possible territorial losses to the always greedy Prussia.
Their maximum program was "trialism," that is, the union of the Kingdom of Poland with Galicia as the third component of the hitherto dualistic Austro-Hungarian monarchy. This was a utopian program from the beginning, because it did not take into account the real possibilities. It required the consent of Hungary, always jealous of its hitherto equal influence in Vienna, and the consent of Germany, unwilling to relinquish its hard-won conquest. The passivists in Warsaw formed the Inter-Party Circle, which included representatives of all parties except the extreme left, grouped in the Democratic Circle. The activists founded the League of State Builders; they wanted to immediately form the foundations of a state based on the Central Powers and within the borders permitted by them. Between these large groups and the opposition directed against both of them, the Independence Camp began to develop and grow, starting from insignificant beginnings, founded and inspired even before the war by Piłsudski. For Piłsudski, there were only two categories of Poles: either those who were conciliatory and ready to bargain away Poland's fate with one or the other of the occupying powers, or those who believed only in their own strength and were determined to win Poland's fate through armed struggle. At the beginning of the war, this kind of romantic program only elicited a condescending smile, but after only two years, the word "independence" was on everyone's lips.
Alongside these lofty programs developed by "wise" politicians, there was also a concept that, due to its extreme naivety, was called the "village schoolteacher's orientation." It proclaimed that it would be best if Germany defeated the Tsarist regime, and if France and England defeated the Germans. It was spoken of with a smile as the only eventuality that could under no circumstances come true. Bolcewicz believed in it.
Vir doctus [...] dicendi peritus (Latin) - a learned man, skilled in speech. Contamination of phrases: doctus vir [et Graecis Litters eruditus] a well-educated/learned man [and knowledgeable in Greek literature]
Salus rei publicae suprema lex esto (Latin) the welfare of the republic is the supreme law.
Władysław Zamoyski, was an adjutant to Grand Duke Constantine until the November Uprising, and then he too became an officer in the uprising. The future General's wife was taken from Warsaw as a baby of only a few months old, just before the victorious corps of the Tsarist army entered the city. Returning to Warsaw for the first time after ninety years, she could state – perhaps as the only person in Poland – that she had never known the capital under the yoke of captivity, it was difficult to forget that her memory reached not only to the January Uprising – among whose participants I grew up in Lithuania – but to the times of Mickiewicz, Słowacki, and Chopin, whom she knew and remembered well.
His family has estate on Litwa, and what happend to it is, they had no money, fighted to get permision for cuting their forest, and sell it with permison, but didn't happend.
He wrote:
The books (in that estate) bore ex-libris labels with the name Horodyski, but it was impossible to definitively establish any family connection with that family or to find out how these books ended up in the attic in Szukiel. The dusty crates were moved to the empty workshop, and I was allowed to unpack them, as my parents, seeing the interest they aroused in me, gave me permission to organize them. I began by sorting the books into piles on the floor, separating the Polish and French books, then matching the volumes that belonged together, and so on. When they saw that I was working diligently and seriously, they had proper library shelves built for me, covering all the walls up to the ceiling. And so, at the age of twelve, I unintentionally became an avid librarian! There was a very complete collection of publications from the French Enlightenment and the Polish 18th century, all the more important works of our literature, mostly in first editions, as well as many Western European prints and a considerable group of incunabula, starting from the Golden Age. For several years during the summer holidays, I spent the first half of the day on horseback, but the most enjoyable afternoons were always spent among my beloved books, thanks to which I had the opportunity to become more closely acquainted – if not with the thoughts of the authors of the Renaissance and Baroque, which I was not yet mature enough to read, then at least with the entire art of printing and publishing of those eras in various European countries, not to mention our Wietors and Hallers, which I arranged separately with particular reverence in a place of honor. Since the small number of lesson hours was mainly devoted to Polish history and literature, with which my parents wanted me to be thoroughly familiar before being forced to attend a foreign-language school, the opportunity to see and touch all the most important books from our past was an excellent illustration of the lessons I was receiving. Bielski's Chronicles, The works of Miechowita, Stryjkowski, Wujek's Bible, Budny and Radziwiłł's Bible, the fascinating dissertations of Modrzewski and Orzechowski, the poetry of Kochanowski, Klonowicz, and Szymonowicz—all of these became dear to me even then.
Throughout the twenty years of my diplomatic service, I advertised my complete independence from any contemporary trends and thoughts – I observed sine ira et studio (without anger and without bias, impartially) all manifestations of revolutionary thought, looking at them "through the lens and eye of a wise man." I looked at fascists or communists, Thomists or existentialists, psychoanalysts or indeterminists, dodecaphonists or cubists – as so many chapters of human zoology, which presented interesting issues for our intellect, but did not require the involvement of conscience. The passion for studying them all gripped me to such an extent that I again began to lose myself in pure intellectualism. What a barren period of life it was. No lasting achievement remained after it.
A funny story comes to mind about how the Tyszkiewicz family from Isłauż came to be married. Old Tyszkiewicz, the father of five sons well-known in Lithuania, from roughly my father's generation, when the St. Petersburg Railway was being built and the plan stipulated that it would run through a significant portion of his land, offered the land for the railway free of charge, without demanding any payment. In return, the Tsar granted him the right to buy land in the Borderlands. As is known, in the "annexed provinces," Poles were not allowed to buy land, and since, due to the general crisis, Polish landowners were often forced to sell their land, this law led to a rapid decrease in Polish land ownership in the Borderlands in favor of the Russian element. Exempted from the rigors of this law, Tyszkiewicz managed to accumulate over a million hectares of land, becoming the largest Polish landowner. When the old Ogiński Canal was restored, Tyszkiewicz figured he could use this route to visit his Polish estates, bought a suitable boat, and set off from Połąga with his whole family on a journey up the Niemen River. However, he ran aground opposite Eleonorowo and had to send his eldest son, Alexander, there to ask for help and have the boat pulled into deeper water by horses. Marshal Pusłowski, the lord of Eleonorowo, rescued Tyszkiewicz from a difficult situation, but Tyszkiewicz, in turn, won over Pusłowski's only daughter, who shortly afterwards married Alexander Tyszkiewicz, bringing him not only her father's estate of Eleonorowo but also half of her mother's estate of Godlewszczyzna, with the old family seat in Isłauż. During the summer holidays, a large number of children would gather in Szałtupie and Isłauż. Our greatest joy was to go there from Kalinowo, especially on joint excursions from there to the nearby Birštonas, beautifully situated on the Nemunas River and full of ancient Lithuanian pagan memories and legends.
The Ostrogski family became, always reluctantly, subjects of Poland, where they represented the traditions of the Kyivan Rurikids and their unextinguished aspirations to Halych and Volodymyr, which were only realized by Russia six hundred years later. They were always faithful sons of Orthodoxy and implacable opponents of the Union of Brest. From them descended the princely families of Zasławski, Korecki, and Porycki. When the Ostrogski family died out at the end of the 17th century, the Ostrog region passed through marriages first to the Lubomirski family, and then to the Sanguszko family, one of whom, having no offspring, distributed hundreds of his towns and villages among relatives and friends in the infamous Kolbuszowa transaction, which for a hundred years became the cause of endless lawsuits and disputes throughout the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In our time, the principalities of Zasław and Korec were in the hands of the Potocki family from Antonin, Dubno and Rivne belonged to the Lubomirski family, and the principality of Poryck passed through the Zahorowski family to the Czacki family, and from it were carved out the estates of Ławrów, Lachów, and Kohylno, which belonged to my grandfather.
the method of teaching (in UK) seems to me more perfect than in any other school. There has been enough discussion about it here already that it is unnecessary to justify this statement once again. In any case, in an English school we can primarily learn how to learn, even if we acquire little scientific content. However, weighing the advantages and disadvantages of the English school system, it seems to me that the benefits we can gain from it outweigh its shortcomings, because a boy leaving school even with a limited amount of knowledge, but with his physical abilities fully developed and a well-honed ability to learn, will be able and willing to fill the gaps in his education throughout his life and will ultimately have more culture and character than a boy crammed in school with an indigestible excess of knowledge, from which he will then turn away with disgust for the rest of his life.
𝐈𝐭 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐝𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐱, 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐦𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐬 – 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐬𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝, 𝐢𝐟 𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐫𝐲, 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐡𝐢𝐭 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐬. Relations with the Germans at the German school were friendly, but the author doesn't remember a single German from his class. They didn't socialize, they only greeted each other cordially; he only associated with Poles at the German school in... Wrocław.
Two opposing orientations were referred to as "broad-gauge" and "narrow-gauge," by analogy to the different widths of railway tracks in Russia and the West. Representatives of both these orientations reasoned "realistically," that is, they acknowledged the necessity of concessions from the maximalist concept of an independent Polish state and were ready to compromise in arranging post-war relations with any of the potential victors. The "broad-gauge" faction understood that the expected defeat of Germany would necessarily mean a victory for Russia, from whom it would then be difficult to demand the relinquishment of Polish lands. Therefore, their hopes were primarily directed towards the unification of the three partitions under the Tsar's rule, with some degree of national autonomy – greater or lesser – depending on what the victor would be gracious enough to grant. The "narrow-gauge" faction even renounced the unification of the Polish lands divided by the partitions, not even dreaming of wresting Greater Poland from the clutches of Prussia – their only hope being the annexation of the Kingdom of Poland to Austria, and not to the hated Germany, with the fewest possible territorial losses to the always greedy Prussia.
Their maximum program was "trialism," that is, the union of the Kingdom of Poland with Galicia as the third component of the hitherto dualistic Austro-Hungarian monarchy. This was a utopian program from the beginning, because it did not take into account the real possibilities. It required the consent of Hungary, always jealous of its hitherto equal influence in Vienna, and the consent of Germany, unwilling to relinquish its hard-won conquest. The passivists in Warsaw formed the Inter-Party Circle, which included representatives of all parties except the extreme left, grouped in the Democratic Circle. The activists founded the League of State Builders; they wanted to immediately form the foundations of a state based on the Central Powers and within the borders permitted by them. Between these large groups and the opposition directed against both of them, the Independence Camp began to develop and grow, starting from insignificant beginnings, founded and inspired even before the war by Piłsudski. For Piłsudski, there were only two categories of Poles: either those who were conciliatory and ready to bargain away Poland's fate with one or the other of the occupying powers, or those who believed only in their own strength and were determined to win Poland's fate through armed struggle. At the beginning of the war, this kind of romantic program only elicited a condescending smile, but after only two years, the word "independence" was on everyone's lips.
Alongside these lofty programs developed by "wise" politicians, there was also a concept that, due to its extreme naivety, was called the "village schoolteacher's orientation." It proclaimed that it would be best if Germany defeated the Tsarist regime, and if France and England defeated the Germans. It was spoken of with a smile as the only eventuality that could under no circumstances come true. Bolcewicz believed in it.
Vir doctus [...] dicendi peritus (Latin) - a learned man, skilled in speech. Contamination of phrases: doctus vir [et Graecis Litters eruditus] a well-educated/learned man [and knowledgeable in Greek literature]
Salus rei publicae suprema lex esto (Latin) the welfare of the republic is the supreme law.
Władysław Zamoyski, was an adjutant to Grand Duke Constantine until the November Uprising, and then he too became an officer in the uprising. The future General's wife was taken from Warsaw as a baby of only a few months old, just before the victorious corps of the Tsarist army entered the city. Returning to Warsaw for the first time after ninety years, she could state – perhaps as the only person in Poland – that she had never known the capital under the yoke of captivity, it was difficult to forget that her memory reached not only to the January Uprising – among whose participants I grew up in Lithuania – but to the times of Mickiewicz, Słowacki, and Chopin, whom she knew and remembered well.
Displaying 1 of 1 review