Antoni Tyzenhauz
politician
statesman
Treasurer
1733
(age 52)
Dzyatlava district, Hrodzyenskaya Voblasts', Belarus
After the college, Antoni Tyzenhauz worked for the powerful Czartoryski family in their court at Wołczyn, where he met the future King of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Stanisław August Poniatowski. They became friends. This meeting changed Antoni’s life.
Since 1764, Antoni was a Lithuanian equerry. Later, Lithuanian Court Treasurer Prince Massalski appointed Tyzenhauz Grodno Podstarosta (deputy senior of the city). Tyzenhauz was elected to the Sejm in Warsaw in 1761, and in 1763 he held the position of the Great Scribe of Lithuania and served as an adviser to the Grand Duke of Lithuania and his chancellor. After the election of Stanisław August Poniatowski as a King of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1764, Tyzenhauz was appointed the Grand Crown and Lithuanian Equerry and awarded the Order of Saint Stanislaus. After the death of Massalski in 1765, King Poniatowski appointed Antoni Tyzenhauz the Court Treasurer of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Minister of Finance), the Starosta of Grodno, and administrator of royal estates. He was elected to the Sejm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1766.
Tyzenhauz was in charge of all matters related to land possessions of the King and exercised considerable freedom in their management. This freedom was further strengthened when he became lessee of the estates in 1777.Tyzenhauz energetically but somewhat hastily began numerous endeavors in agriculture, industry, and culture, mostly situated around Grodno (modern territory of Belarus). In Šiauliai (Lithuania) he attempted to create royal folwarks by taking land from serfs, demanding two days of corvée, increasing rent payment in cash, and adding additional duties (such as road building). Such reforms tripled Tyzenhauz's income but caused a violent peasant revolt in 1769. The rebellion was quickly suppressed; the reforms were only slightly modified. Using the additional income, Tyzenhauz rebuilt Šiauliai according to the principles of Classicism. Similar reconstruction was planned in Joniškis (Lithuania).
Tyzenhauz made Grodno (today’s Belarus) his main residence and center of his economic initiatives. He set up at least 23 factories, that employed around 3000 workers and produced textile, paper, jewelry, tools, furniture, carriages. They used forced labor of the local peasant population. Inspired by the Age of Enlightenment, Tyzenhauz widely supported education and opened schools for midwives, accountants, engineers, even ballet dancers. He established theater, ballet, orchestra, publishing house in Grodno, invited French botanist, biologist and scientist Jean Emmanuel Gilibert, who helped him to found first botanical garden, Grodno Medical Academy, schools of obstetrics and veterinary, clinical hospital in Grodno. From 1775 to 1783, Tyzenhauz published weekly journal Gazeta Grodzieńska. In 1778, he travelled around Europe, where he met famous philosopher, writer, and composer of that time Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Tyzenhauz invited famous Italian architect of the late Baroque and Classicism styles Giuseppe de Sacco to design his palaces, and many other buildings in Grodno. Antoni built 85 structures and planned an entire borough, named Horodnica (derived from craftsmanship) in Grodno, but all his innovative enterprises required wast amounts of money, which he had to borrow. He invited very expensive but well-educated foreign industrialists to work in Grodno. His efforts to build a local class of workmen were hampered by poor education system and serfdom. Tyzenhauz's influence on the King and attempts to manipulate the lesser nobility raised political opposition among other nobles. After a few failures of his factories, in 1780, nobles brought charges that Tyzenhauz used treasury money to finance his private affairs. The case against Tyzenhauz was arranged by Otto Magnus von Stackelberg, Russian Ambassador to Warsaw. Tyzenhaus was accused of fraud and removed from public offices in 1780 by the King. His privileges were revoked and his property was confiscated.
Disgraced, Tyzenhauz died in 1785 in Warsaw. He was buried in the family crypt of the Carmelite cloister in the small town of Zhaludok (now in the Hrodna Region of Belarus). His remains are now in the crypt of the Cathedral of Ascension in Zhaludok.