Antoni Tyzenhauz was the Treasurer of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and administrator of royal estates, a pioneer of industrialization and agrarian reforms in the eighteenth century.
Background
Antoni Tyzenhauz was born in 1733 in a small town Novoyelnya, near Navahrudak (today’s Dzyatlava district in Belarus) into rich and influential noble family with German roots. He was the son of a wealthy and influential nobleman Benedict Tyzenhauz. Antoni had 5 sisters and 2 brothers.
Education
Antoni Tyzenhauz studied at the Jesuit College of Vilnius. As a young man, he served for the powerful Czartoryski family in their court at Wołczyn.
Career
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 Tyzenhauz was a Lithuanian equerry. Later, Lithuanian Court Treasurer Prince Massalski appointed Antoni Tyzenhauz Grodno Podstarosta (deputy senior of the city). He 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, Antoni 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.
Antoni 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. He 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, Antoni Tyzenhauz rebuilt Šiauliai according to the principles of Classicism. Similar reconstruction was planned in Joniškis (Lithuania).
From 1775 to 1783, Antoni Tyzenhauz published weekly journal Gazeta Grodzieńska. 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. Antoni Tyzenhauz was accused of fraud and removed from public offices in 1780 by the King. His privileges were revoked and his property was confiscated.
Disgraced, Antoni 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.
Achievements
Personality
Historians, recognizing doubtless talents of Tizenhauz and without disputing his patriotic feelings, accuse him in almost all crimes, that could be commited only by a bad minister. Antoni Tyzenhauz had no consideration for anyone. He violated the rights of personal property and limited the rights of personal property and civil liberties. He forced the courts hand down unjust sentences in his favor, forced people to slave labor and took away children. He was called a Devil.
Antoni Tyzenhauz was a patriot of his country. He spent a lot of time traveling around Europe and aimed at implementing many innovations in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. He visited and studied nearly all the foreign plants and factories, tried to find out the reasons for the success of others and his own failures. Everything made by Antoni Tyzenhauz, he dedicated to the needs of King of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Grand Duke of Lithuania - Stanisław August Poniatowski.
Connections
Antoni Tyzenhauz was not married and had no children.