KOVNO KRASINSKI district. The principal places are Nagy-Som- kut, the capital, and Kapnik-Banya. KOVNO (Pol. Kowno). I. A W. government of European Russia, bordering on Prussia and on the governments of Courland, Wilna, and Suwalki, and nearly touching the Bal- tic; area, 15,687 sq. m. ; pop. in 1867, 1,131,- 248, chiefly Lithuanians, Samogitians, Poles, Germans, and Jews, with but few Russians proper. It is traversed by the Niemen and its affluents, and contains many dense forests. The principal products are flax and timber, the latter being rafted down the streams to Tilsit. It was formed in 1843 from the N. part of Wilna, to the military division of which it still belongs. Kovno is nearly iden- tical with the ancient maritime Lithuanian province of Samogitia (Lith. and Pol. Zmudz which was a separate duchy under the Po- lish crown, and which was renowned for its commerce and navigation, and for the pure Lithuanian type of the inhabitants, who were not fully converted to Christianity till the 16th century. The capital, Rossieny on the Du- bisa, the chief town of a circle of Jovno and Polangen, is now as then the principal port connecting with the Baltic. II. A city, capital of the government, at the junction of the Vilia with the Niemen, 420 m. S. S. W. of St. Pe- tersburg; pop. in 1867, 34,612, including about 18,000 Jews and many Germans. It contains numerous Catholic churches and convents, be- sides places of worship for the national reli- gion, and for Lutherans and Jews, a gymna- sium and district school for the nobility, and a pyramid commemorating the deliverance from French invasion in 1812. Commerce and navigation are exceedingly active, and new railways increase the traffic. About 3 m. from the town is the magnificent Camaldulensian convent Pozayscie or Peace Mountain, with the tomb of the Lithuanian great chancellor Pac, who built it in 1674 at an enormous cost. The French crossed the Niemen at Kovno, June 23-25, 1812; and the Poles were defeat- ed here on June 26, 1831. KOZLOV, a town of Russia, in the govern- ment and 40 m. N. N. W. of the city of Tambov, on the Lesnoi Voronezh ; pop. in 1867, 24,616. It has nine churches, and large tanneries and tallow-smelting establishments. It is a great centre of trade in grain, cattle, salted meat, tal- low, and other articles ; and there are in the dis- trict about 40 breeding stables of famous horses. For Kozlov in the Crimea, see EUPATOEIA RRAJOVA. SeeKRAYovA. KRAKEN. See OCTOPUS. KRANACH, Lucas. See CRANACH. KRASICKI, Ignacy, a Polish prelate, surnamed the Voltaire of Poland, born at Dubiecko, Ga- licia, Feb. 3, 1734, died in Berlin, March 14, 1801. His ancestors had been renowned as scholars and warriors. He completed his ec- clesiastical studies in Rome, and after having been a canon and curate he was promoted in 1767 to the see of Ermeland ; this was annexed to Prussia in 1772, and he became a favorite of Frederick the Great. The Roman Catholic Hedwigskirche was built in Berlin under his in- fluence, and he consecrated it in 1780. In 1795 he was made archbishop of Gnesen, to which town his remains were removed in 1829 from their first burial place in the Hedwigskirche. His Myszeis ("Mousiad "), a comic poem illus- trating the story in Kadlubek's chronicle of King Popiel devoured by rats and mice ("War- saw, 1775 ; Leipsic, 1790), and his "Adventures of Doswiadczynski " (1775), suggesting edu- cational reforms, have been translated into French. His Monomachia (" War of Monks," 1778) has been compared to the writings of Boileau, and was at the request of Frederick composed in the room which Voltaire had oc- cupied at Sans-Souci. His Anti- Monomachia is a vindication and not a refutation of the previous work. Among his most admired pro- ductions are his " Satires " (1778) and his " Fa- bles," which latter are unique, though not all original, and have been repeatedly translated into French. His Woyna chociinslca ("War of Khotin," 1780) is a historical epic; and his Pan Podstoli ("Mr. Sub-Chamberlain") sati- rizes the follies and vagaries of his country- men. He also made an exquisite free trans- lation into Polish of Ossian (1780). His com- plete works were edited by D6mchowski (10 vols., Warsaw, 1803-'4; new eds., Paris, 1830, and Berlin, 1845). KRASINSKI. I. Waleryan, count, a Polish au- thor, born in the Polish province of White Russia about 1780, died in Edinburgh, Dec. 22, 1855. He entered the Polish civil service at an early age, and while still a young man be- came head of the ministry of public instruc- tion. In this post he effected many useful reforms. Through his influence the Jews were aided in founding a rabbinical college at War- saw. He paid special attention to the diffusion of useful literature among the people, and in- troduced stereotype printing into Poland. On the breaking out of the revolution of 1830 he was sent as one of an embassy to England to advance the Polish cause. Driven into exile, and losing his fortune by the result of the war, he went to London, and for the remainder of his life devoted himself to literature. He pub- lished " The Rise, Progress, and Decline of the Reformation in Poland" (2 vols., London, 1839 -'40) ; " Panslavism and Germanism" (1848) ; "Lectures on the Religious History of the Slavonian Nations" (Edinburgh, 1851); and " Montenegro and the Slavonians in Turkey " (1853). II. Zygmunt Napoleon, count, a Polish author, descended from a branch of the same family with the preceding, born in Paris, Feb. 19, 1812, died there, Feb. 24, 1859. He was the son of Count Wyncenty Krasinski, who suc- ceeded Poniatowski in the command of Na- poleon's Polish cavalry, and afterward entered ' the service of Russia. Here the favor which the court extended to him would have been continued to his son, had not young Krasinski,
