Stanislaw August Poniatowski
Stanisław August Poniatowski was the last king of Poland, an intelligent reformer who presided over the destruction of his own state. Born in 1732 into a powerful noble family, he was cultivated, well travelled and fluent in several languages. As a young diplomat in St Petersburg in 1755 he became the lover of Grand Duchess Catherine, later Catherine the Great. When the Polish throne fell vacant in 1763, Catherine had him elected in 1764, with Russian troops present at the election, expecting a compliant client. He turned out to be a genuine reformer. He founded the Commission of National Education in 1773, the first ministry of education in Europe, and the Knights' School; he established a national theatre; and he tried to reform the Sejm, whose liberum veto allowed any single deputy to dissolve it and annul its work, which had paralysed Polish government for a century. Russia, Prussia and Austria took roughly a third of the Commonwealth in the First Partition of 1772. His and the reformers' response was the Constitution of 3 May 1791 — the first codified national constitution in Europe and the second in the world after the American — which abolished the liberum veto, made the monarchy hereditary, and extended protection to townspeople and peasants. Catherine would not tolerate it. Russian armies invaded in 1792, and Stanisław August, having led the defence, then acceded to the Targowica Confederation against his own constitution, an act his countrymen never forgave. The Second Partition followed in 1793, Kościuszko's rising failed in 1794, and in 1795 the state was extinguished entirely. He abdicated in November 1795 and died in St Petersburg in 1798, in debt.
- Lived: 1732 CE – 1798 CE
- Nationality: Polish
- Roles: ruler
