CZARTORYSKI, ADAM KAZIMIERZ, PRINCE

(Ksiaze) born Dec. 1, 1734, Gdansk, Pol. died March 19, 1823, Sieniawa a leading member of the princely family of Czartoryskis; offered the Polish crown (1763), he refused it, becoming instead a patron of the arts. The son of Aleksander August Czartoryski, governor of Ruthenia, who gathered a great estate and founded prosperous workshops, Adam Kazimierz was educated in England and prepared to take over the Polish throne. But in the period when Poland was left without an elected king, Adam Kazimierz refused the crown (1763), which was accepted by his first cousin Stanislaw August Poniatowski. The interests of Adam Kazimierz were mainly literary and pedagogical. He founded periodicals and schools and became the first minister of education in a European country. By his efforts and those of his ambitious wife, Izabella Elzbieta, ne Countess Flemming (17461835), their palace at Pulawy became an important centre of culture competing with royal patronage in the support of Neoclassical architecture and Polish literature; this provided an excellent school for their sons and those of the local gentry. The economist P.-S. du Pont de Nemours taught there. After the downfall of Poland in 1795, Pulawy, ruined in 179294 and rebuilt, became the shrine of the country's past, mainly through Princess Izabella's efforts.