Recherches Historiques Sur L'origine Des Sarmates Des Esclavons Et Des Slaves: Et Sur Les Époques De La Conversion De Ces Peuples Au Christianisme, Volumes 2-3... (French Edition)
Stanislaw Bohusz-Siestrzencewicz was a Belarusian political and religious figure, Slavonic scholar, writer. He was also a patron of education. He founded scholarships for poor young people, devised his own house in St. Petersburg to the gymnasium, provided financial support to the Charity Society in Vilna being its member. He used his money to construct in St. Petersburgh St. Stanislaw’s Roman Catholic Church, where he was buried.
Background
Stanislaw Bohusz-Siestrzencewicz was born on September 3, 1731, in in the village of Zanki in the Vaukavysk district of the Navahrudak Province (now in the Svislach district of the Hrodna Region) into a Szlachta (gentry) family. His father was a Protestant, while his mother belonged to the Roman Catholic Church. S. Bohusz-Siestrzencewicz was the uncle of the Belarusian playwright Vincent Dunin-Martsinkevich.
Education
He attended the Calvinist school in Keydany (Kedainai), Lithuania. In 1746, he became a student of the Berlin gymnasium, later he studied philosophy at Frankfurt University. Six years in Germany broadened his intellectual horizon. He mastered several foreign languages. In 1751, according to some sources, he came back to his family estate, but according to other available information, he continued his studies at the universities of Amsterdam and London.
Stanislaw’s good education, his command of foreign languages and his charm attracted the attention of Ignacy Massalski, the Bishop of Vilna. With his recommendation, Stanislaw entered the Head Piarist School in Warsaw.
Career
Short time served in the Prussian army in the hussar regiment of Prince Leopold Anhalt-Dessau.
He decided to make a career in the army and got a rank of chorozy (junior officer) and then of a captain of the Lithuanian Guards. After retirement in 1761, he worked as a tutor for the Radziwills. He also took the first steps in literature and science.
Upon graduating from the Head Piarist School in Warsaw in 1763, he was ordained and appointed a priest in Homel, Babruisk and then canon in Vilna.
Stanislaw traveled in France. In 1772, he met the Russian ambassador Saldern who let Stanislaw into his plans to found a Catholic episcopate in the territory added to Russia after the first partition of Rzeczpospolita. In 1773, following persistent recommendations by King Stanislaw August Poniatowski, Ignacy Massalski and Saldern, S. Bohusz-Siestrzencewicz was appointed the Suffragan Bishop of Vilna.
A new period in the career and public activities of S. Bohusz-Siestrzencewicz started with his visit to St. Petersburg. The Russian Empress Catherine II, who regarded the problems of the Belarusian Catholics with sympathy, appointed S. Bohusz-Siestrzencewicz the Belarusian Bishop with the residence in Mahilyou, and in 1782 he was appointed the Archbishop, the head of the Mahilyou Catholic diocese. The intervention of the wearer of the crown into ecclesiastical affairs caused a conflict with the Papacy, which admitted S. Bohusz-Siestrzencewicz’s authority only three years later. Catherine II tried to get the rights for a cardinal’s position for him from the Pope of Rome. Leaning for support on the Empress, the Archbishop of Mahilyou opposed the Vatican’s influence in the Slavonic East and was trying to get maximum independence from the Pope.
In spring of 1783, S. Bohusz-Siestrzencewicz escorted Grigory Potemkin during his tour to the Crimea. The impressions from the journey resulted in the poetic tragedy «Hicia in Tauride» and the two-volume research work «History of Tauride». In 1793 he published in his printing- house in Mohilyou «On Western Russia», his work based on historical research and local studies, dealing with the origin of Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Russians.
After the second partition of Rzeczpospolita (1793), Bishop Stanislaw extended his jurisdiction over the new territory added to Russia. Despite his sympathy for the uprising headed by Tadeusz Kosciuszko, Catherine II was showing the preference for S. Bohusz-Siestrzencewicz rather than for the Jesuits. Paul I at the beginning of his reign was well-disposed to S. Bohusz-Siestrzencewicz. In 1798, the Emperor appointed him the Metropolitan of all Roman Catholic churches in the Russian Empire, elevated him to the rank of knight commander of Grand Cross of St. John of Jerusalem. The Pope recognized the rights of the metropolitan to a cardinal’s insignia (the right to wear the purple cardinal’s clothes, except a cap), the rights Catherine II had been trying to obtain for him.
The Metropolitan was an opponent of Jesuits. Under their influence, unbalanced Paul I exiled him from St.Petersburg in 1800. However, a year later, during the reign of Alexander I, he returned and was appointed the head of the Ecclesiastic Roman Catholic Collegium and papal primate. From 1801 until his death, he lived in St.Petersburg.
In 1813 he became the President of the Free Economic Society. The Metropolitan’s works were published both in the Russian and Polish press. He also wrote poems, dramas, sermons, and other didactic texts. He translated many works from European languages. He liked to study antiquity and to collect manuscripts. A part of his heritage was published in 1872 by A.Vyaryga-Dareusky.
S. Bohusz-Siestrzencewicz was elected member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the University of Moscow, St.Petersburg Medical Surgery Academy, Riga Scientific Society, London Agricultural Society, and Krakow Scientific Society. He was a member of many scientific and literary societies.
Personality
Intellectual and moral qualities of S. Bohusz-Siestrzencewicz ensured him a fast ecclesiastical career.
High ranks and positions in the church hierarchy did not prevent the Metropolitan from being a supporter of ideas of humanism and enlightenment and from opposing intellectual oppression and scholasticism in science. He often made use of his authority, high status and finances to extend education.
S. Bohusz-Siestrzencewicz was a widely educated person; he researched history, philology, medicine, etc. He studied many issues pertaining to humanities.
Connections
In the second half of the 1750s, he proposed to an affluent Catholic lady and even was converted into her religion, but they did not get married.