Stanisław Konarski, Sch.P. | |
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 anonymous portrait | |
| Born | (1700-09-30)30 September 1700 |
| Died | 3 August 1773(1773-08-03) (aged 72) Warsaw, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth |
| Occupation(s) | Poet, dramatist |
Stanisław Konarski, Sch.P. (actual name:Hieronim Konarski; 30 September 1700 – 3 August 1773) was a Polishpedagogue,educational reformer, political writer,poet,dramatist,Piarist priest and precursor of theEnlightenment in thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Konarski was born inŻarczyce Duże,Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. He studied from 1725 to 1727 at theCollegium Nazarenum inRome, where he became a teacher ofrhetoric. After that he travelled throughFrance,Germany andAustria and Poland to broaden his education.
In 1730 he returned to Poland and began work on a new edition of Polish law, theVolumina legum.
From 1736 he taught at theCollegium Resoviense inRzeszów. In 1740 he founded theCollegium Nobilium, an elite Warsaw school for sons of thegentry (szlachta). He founded the first public-reference library on the European mainland in 1747 in Warsaw. Thereafter he reformed Piarist education in Poland, in accordance with his educational program, theOrdinationes Visitationis Apostolicae... (1755). His reforms became a landmark in the 18th-century struggle to modernize the Polish education system.
Early on, Konarski was associated politically with KingStanisław Leszczyński; later, with theCzartoryski "Familia" and KingStanisław August Poniatowski. He participated in the latter's famous "Thursday dinners." Stanisław August caused a medal to be struck in Konarski's honour, with his likeness and the motto, fromHorace,Sapere auso ("Dare to know!"). Konarski argued very strongly that theright of veto that had traditionally been exercised by the Polish Nobility was not law but a custom.[1]
In his most important work, the four-partO skutecznym rad sposobie albo o utrzymywaniu ordynaryinych seymów (On an effective way of councils or on the conduct of ordinary sejms, 1760-1763), he unveiled a far-reaching reform program for the Polishparliamentary system and political reorganization of the Commonwealth's central government, which included aiding the monarch with a permanent governing council.[2][3]
Konarski died, aged 72, inWarsaw,Poland. His heart is buried in an urn in the Piarist church inCracow. Hisbust can be seen at the entrance to the crypt of this church placed on ulica Świętego Jana.[4]
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