Adam Gurowski

Count Adam Gurowski (September 10, 1805, in Russocice near Kalisz, Poland – May 4, 1866, in Washington, D.C.) was a Polish-born writer who emigrated to the United States in 1849.

Life and career Gurowski was a son of Count Władysław Gurowski, an ardent admirer of Tadeusz Kościuszko. Having been expelled in 1818 and again in 1819 from the gymnasia of Warsaw and Kalisz for revolutionary demonstrations, young Gurowski continued his studies at various German universities. He studied under Hegel at Berlin University and obtained a degree from Heidelberg University.

Returning to Warsaw in 1825, he became identified with those opposed to Russian influence, and was in consequence several times imprisoned. He was active in organizing the November uprising of 1830, in which he afterward took part. On its suppression, Gurowski lost the greater part of his estates and escaped to France, where he lived for several years. and adopted many of the views of Charles Fourier. He helped found the Polish Democratic Society (TDP) in Paris. The remainder of his estates had in the meantime been confiscated and he had been condemned to death.

From 1861 to 1863, he was translator in the State Department in Washington D.C., being acquainted with eight languages.

Count Gurowski died in May 1866 and was buried in Congressional Cemetery. Whitman considered the tempestuous count a friend and attended his funeral. "His funeral was simple but very impressive—all the big radicals were there," Whitman wrote.

Works La civilisation et la Russie (St. Petersburg, 1840) Russland und die Civilisation (Übersetzer: Alvensleben) (Leipzig, 1841) Pensées sur l'avenir des Polonais (Berlin, 1841) Aus meinem Gedankenbuche (Breslau, 1843) Eine Tour durch Belgien (Heidelberg, 1845) Impressions et souvenirs (Lausanne, 1846) Die letzten Ereignisse in den drei Theilen des alten Polen (The latest events in the three parts of old Poland; Munich, 1846) Le Panslavisme (Florence, 1848) Russia as it Is (New York, 1854) The Turkish Question (1854) A Year of the War (1855) America and Europe (1857) Slavery in History (1860) My Diary, notes on the Civil War (3 vols., 1862–66)