Ignacy Krasicki

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Image:Ignacy Krasicki.JPG Ignacy Krasicki (Galicia, February 3, 1735 — March 14, 1801, Berlin) was a Polish prince of the Roman Catholic Church, a social critic, a leading writer, and the outstanding poet of the Polish Enlightenment, hailed by contemporaries as "the Prince of Poets."

Count Krasicki was born into an impoverished noble family in Dubiecko in southern Poland. Educated at a Jesuit school in Lwów, then at the Warsaw Catholic Seminary (1751-1754), he continued his studies in Rome (1759-1761).

Krasicki initially opposed the political faction, the "Familia." However, after the Familia managed the "free election" of Stanisław August Poniatowski as king of Poland (1764), Krasicki became the new King's confidant and chaplain. He participated in Stanisław August's famous "Thursday dinners" and co-founded the Monitor, the preeminent periodical of the Polish Enlightenment, sponsored by the King.

Consecrated Bishop of Warmia in 1766, Krasicki thereby also became an ex-officio Senator of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

In 1772, as a result of the First Partition of Poland, instigated by Prussia's King Frederick II ("the Great"), Krasicki became a Prussian subject and — while maintaining the closest ties with Poland — also a familiar at Frederick's court. He officiated at the 1773 opening of St. Hedwig's Cathedral, which Frederick had built for Catholic immigrants to Brandenburg and Berlin. In 1786 Bishop Krasicki was called to the Berlin Akademie der Künste (Arts Academy). His residence became a center of artistic patronage.

In 1795, six years before his death, he was elevated to Archbishop of Gniezno and thus Primate of Poland.

Upon his death, Krasicki was laid to rest in St. Hedwig's Cathedral.

Krasicki wrote mock-heroic poems: Myszeidos (Mouseiad, 1775, an allegory on political anarchy), Monachomachia (War of the Monks, 1778, a witty look at monastic life), Antymonachomachia (1779); the first Polish novel, Mikołaja Doświadczyńskiego przypadki (The Adventures of Nicholas Experience, 1776, and the novels, Pan Podstoli (Lord High Steward, published in three parts, 1778, 1784 and posthumously 1803) and Historia (History, 1779); the epic Wojna chocimska (The Chocim War, 1780, about the Khotyn War); and numerous other literary, scholarly and patriotic works.

He is best known, however, for his Fables and Parables (Bajki i przypowieści, 1779), Satires (Satyry, 1779) and New Fables (Bajki nowe, published posthumously, 1802).

Krasicki was honored by the King of Poland with the Order of the White Eagle and by the King of Prussia with the Order of the Red Eagle.

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