The New International Encyclopædia/Czartoryski
CZARTORYSKI, chär’-tô-rĭs’kḗ, Adam Jerzy (George). Prince (1770-1861). A Polish patriot, born at Warsaw, January 14, 1770. He was the son of Prince Adam Casimir Czartoryski, the head of an ancient Polish house. After studying in Edinburgh and London, he returned to his native country and took part against Russia in the war following the second partition of Poland, in 1793. On the defeat of the Poles, Czartoryski was taken to Saint Petersburg as a hostage, and here he exhibited so much ability and prudence as to gain the friendship of the Grand Duke Alexander, and the confidence of Emperor Paul, who made him ambassador to Sardinia. When Alexander ascended the throne (1801) he appointed Czartoryski assistant to the Minister of Foreign Affairs; and he took an active part in official life until after the peace of Tilsit (1807). As curator of the University of Vilna he exerted all his influence to keep alive a spirit of nationality among the Poles, and when some of the students were arrested on a charge of sedition and sent to Siberia, Czartoryski resigned his office. His successor reported to the Emperor that the amalgamation of Russia and Lithuania had been delayed a century by Czartoryski's activity as head of the university. When the Revolution of 1830 broke out, he threw in his lot with his countrymen. He was elected president of the provisional Government, and in this capacity summoned a national diet, which met in January, 1831, and declared the Polish throne vacant, and elected Czartoryski head of the National Government. He immediately devoted half of his large estates to the public service, and adopted energetic measures to meet the Russian invasion. The Poles were soon crushed by superior numbers, and Czartoryski—specially excluded from the general amnesty, and his estates in Poland confiscated—escaped to Paris, where he afterwards resided, the friend of his poor expatriated countrymen, and the centre of their hopes of a revived nationality. In 1848 he liberated all the serfs on his Galician estates, and during the Crimean War he ineffectually endeavored to induce the Allies to identify the cause of Poland with that of Turkey. He refused an amnesty offered to him by Alexander II., and died in Paris, July 16, 1861. Consult his Mémoires et correspondance avec l’empereur Alexandre Ier (Paris, 1887; English translation, Sielgerd (London, 1888); Morfill, Story of Poland, in "Stories of the Nations" series (London, 1893). See Poland.