Collection

August Count Cieszkowski was born on September 12, 1814 in Sucha near Węgrów in Podlasie. In 1818 he lost his mother, and after her death, his father Wincenty Paweł Cieszkowski entrusted him to the care of Baroness de la Haye. After returning to the country from the Russian partition, he continued his education at high school in Warsaw and graduated in Krakow. He studied at the Jagiellonian University and in Berlin. He traveled extensively around Europe. In 1838 he received his doctorate in philosophy in Heidelberg. He was a co-founder and actively involved in the literary and scientific magazine "Biblioteka Warszawska". Arrested by the tsarist authorities for his activities, after his release he moved to the Prussian partition. On July 2, 1842, he purchased Wierzenica, which became his most important headquarters. He became a citizen of Greater Poland by choice, and over time he gained the reputation of a person of merit for the region in the 19th century. He took up social and political activities. He was a landowner, philosopher, social and political activist. Author of several dozen publications in various fields of science written in Polish, German and French. Widely known by the elites and scientific world of contemporary Europe. In 1848, he published an appeal to the parliaments of the world, calling for universal agreement. He co-founded the Polish National League and was an activist of the Polish Circle at the Prussian assembly. He actively worked to establish a university in Poznań. He was elected president of the Poznań Society of Friends of Sciences three times. In 1870, he founded the Higher Agricultural School in Żabikowo, which he named after his wife Halina, who died in 1861. In 1873, he was included in the list of members of the Krakow Academy of Learning. He died on March 12, 1894 in Poznań. He was buried in the family funerary chapel in the church of St. Nicholas in Wierzenica.