Henryk Rzewuski

Henryk Rzewuski (3 May 1791 – 28 February 1866) was a Polish nobleman, Romantic-era journalist and novelist.

Life Count Henryk Rzewuski was a scion of a Polish magnate family in Ukraine. He was the son of Adam Wawrzyniec Rzewuski, a Russian senator who resided in St. Petersburg; a great-nephew of a Targowica confederate; and great-grandson of Wacław Rzewuski, Polish Great Crown Hetman who had been exiled in 1767–73 to Kaluga by Russian ambassador to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Nikolai Repnin, who was effectively running the Commonwealth.

Henryk Rzewuski was, further, the brother of Karolina Sobańska (who became an agent of the Russian secret service and mistress of the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz), Ewelina Hańska (who married Honoré de Balzac), and Russian General Adam Rzewuski. In 1845–50, in St. Petersburg, Russia, with Michał Grabowski he headed a conservative, Russian-aligned "St. Petersburg coterie" and contributed to the Polish Tygodnik Petersburski (The St. Petersburg Weekly). Rzewuski's tales would later similarly influence Henryk Sienkiewicz's historical novels set in Poland (The Trilogy).

Czesław Miłosz characterizes Rzewuski as a literary figure:

Works (The Memoirs of Soplica; full title: Pamiątki JPana Seweryna Soplicy, cześnika parnawskiego; 1839, 4 volumes; critical edition by Zygmunt Szweykowski, 1928); revised for the censors as Pamiętniki starego szlachcica litewskiego (Memoirs of an Old Lithuanian Nobleman; 1844–45) Mieszaniny obyczajowe (Assorted Customs; 1841–43), published under the pen name "Jarosz Bejła" Listopad (November; 1845–46), 3-volume novel; critical edition by K. Wojciechowski, 1923; translated into Czech, Russian, German, English; a superb picture of Polish society, artfully styled and constructed, with masterfully crafted characters. Zamek krakowski (The Kraków Castle; 1847–48) Teofrast polski (A Polish Theophrastus; 1851) Adam Śmigielski (1851) Rycerz Lizdejko (The Knight Lizdejko; 1852) Zaporożec (The Zaporozhian; 1854) Pamiętniki Bartłomieja Michałowskiego (The Memoirs of Bartłomiej Michałowski; 1855–57) Próbki historyczne (Historic Samples; 1868) Uwagi o dawnej Polsce przez starego Szlachcica Seweryna Soplicę Cześnika Parnawskiego napisane 1832 r. (Remarks about Old Poland Written in 1832 by the Old Nobleman Seweryn Soplica...; manuscript, published in 2003)