Aleksander Chodkiewicz

Count Aleksander Franciszek Chodkiewicz (; 4 June 1776, Chernobyl - 24 January 1838, Młynów) was a Polish writer, playwright, chemist, lithographer, patron of the arts, collector, military officer and politician.

Biography He was the son of Count Jan Mikołaj Chodkiewicz, the Starost of Duchy of Samogitia, and his wife, Maria Ludwika Rzewuska (1744–1816), daughter of the poet and Hetman, Wacław Rzewuski. He originally studied at home and then, after 1790, attended a private boarding school for the nobility. He took part in the Kościuszko Uprising, becoming a Major in the National Guard. When the uprising failed, he settled in Volhynia, devoting himself to scientific and literary work, as his estates had been sequestered.

He was a member of the Sejm in 1809. During the Austro-Polish War, he organized secret patriotic activities. When Napoleon's armies took Vilnius, he became a member of the Armed Forces Committee of the Lithuanian Provisional Governing Commission. Appointed a Colonel, he created his own regiment and became an Adjutant to General . In 1812, he was sent to Warsaw, then spent eleven months in the besieged Modlin Fortress. After its surrender by General Herman Willem Daendels, Chodkiewicz refused to cooperate, and was taken prisoner by the Russians for a brief period.

In 1818, together with the educator, , he introduced the relatively new art of lithography to Poland. His first published lithographs were after drawings by Jan Paweł Lelewel. He combined this with his interest in chemistry, attempting to improve the ink and paper used in the process. In 1820, he published Portraits of famous Poles, drawn on stone by Walenty Śliwicki, with a description of their lives, in which he provided the biographies. Numerous issues of the Gazeta Warszawska were printed in his studio.

He also wrote and translated novels, poems and plays; notably the five-act tragedy, The Spaniards in Peru or the death of Roila (1797), by August von Kotzebue. His own tragedies included Classical subjects, such as Cato in Utyce (1809), and Polish history, in Jadwiga, the Polish Queen (1817). He also wrote a memoir, The History of the Great Events of My Life, Written by Me with My Own Hand, along with Some Annexes That May Be Used in Polish History from 1777 to December 28, 1819, which was not published until 2010.

In addition to his creative activities, he collected books, paintings, coins, minerals and sculptures. He maintained an archive; originally in , then Warsaw and, finally, at his palace in Młynow. His book collecting began in 1801, and by 1810 he had over 10,000 volumes. In 1816, he inherited more books from his mother. By 1823, he had 25,000 volumes. Three years later, most of the library was auctioned off and dispersed. At the time of his death, he still owned about 3,600 volumes. His heirs began enlarging the collection again. It eventually comprised over 30,000 volumes, but many were destroyed by the Bolsheviks between 1917 and 1919. The surviving ones were transferred to the National Museum of Kraków, from 1920 to 1936, in several lots. Since 1951, his books, original manuscripts, and personal papers have been divided between the and the .