Marceli Tarczewski

Marek Marceli Józef Jan Chrzciciel Tarczewski (18 June 1782 – 30 August 1843) was a Polish lawyer, official and attorney who defended Polish conspirators, as well as publisher and freemason.

He graduated in law from the Albertina University of Königsberg, and became an assessor at the Civil Tribunal, and then a sub-prosecutor at the Court of Appeal of the Duchy of Warsaw. After the establishment of the Congress Poland in 1815, he started a legal practice and participated in the trials at the cassation Supreme Court as a legal representative.

In political trials, he defended Polish conspirators who acted against Russian domination in the Congress Poland. In the first trial of the Patriotic Society, Tarczewski defended Mikołaj Dobrzycki. In the second trial, he was a representative of Stanisław Sołtyk, the president of the Patriotic Society, and made Sołtyk was given pardon. His speeches and pleadings were printed and publicized. In 1820s, he was a member of the Governmental Committee of Internal Affairs and Police of the Kingdom of Poland.

Together with his wife Aleksandra née Tańska, he ran a popular salon in Warsaw.

At the end of the November Uprising he was a candidate for the Minister of Justice in the National Government. He refused to accept the position.

Biography He was born in 1782, coming from middle nobility. His father, Maciej Tarczewski, was a burgrave of the town Wyszogród, leaseholder of the villages Kadłubowo, Żochów and Żochówka, and died around 1790, survived by his wife, Józefa née Tańska (who died only after 1830), the mother of Marceli. Marceli was the nephew of writer Ignacy Tański. He had a younger sister, Dominika Józefa Cyryla (c. 1783 – after 1821), the wife of Grzegorz Domański (a laborer and former soldier); and brothers Bruno Placyd Franciszek (born 1786) and Ferdynand (1788–1827), owner of Masłomiąca. After the death of Maciej Tarczewski, Marceli's mother Józefa married Wincenty Ferreriusz Kraszewski (c. 1752–1830), the ensign of the National Cavalry.

Marceli Tarczewski graduated in law from the Albertina University of Königsberg in 1805, and came back to Warsaw, where in 1809 he was appointed an assessor at the Civil Tribunal of the First Instance of the Warsaw Department of the Duchy of Warsaw (Trybunał Cywilny I Instancji Departamentu Warszawskiego). On 13 August 1812 he passed the judge's exam before the Supreme Examination Commission and since then served as the sub-prosecutor of the Court of Appeal. From 1811 he was a member of the masonic lodge Temple of Izis (Świątynia Izys). Aleksandra Tańska, like her sister Klementyna, has been writing a memoir, which was published as The Story of My Life. Memories of a Varsovian (Historia mego życia. Wspomnienia warszawianki) by Ossolineum in 1967, more than one hundred years after Tańska's death.

Together with his wife Tarczewski ran a popular salon in Warsaw. His sister-in-law, Klementyna Hoffmanowa, issued a high grade for his moral stance.

Marceli and Aleksandra Tarczewscy had twelve children (of whom more than half died in childhood or early youth): Ignacy Juliusz (1818–1819), Władysław Wojciech Jozafat (born 1819), Helena Katarzyna (1820–1845), the wife of Aleksander Radwan, real state councilor; Kazimierz Maciej (1822–1872), an official of the Bank of Poland; Gustaw Jan (1822 – after 1864), a staff cavalry master of the Russian army who was the organizer of the uprising in Biała Podlaska, for which he was sent to exile; Maria Stefania (born in 1823), married to Józef Konstanty Grodzicki; Marcjana Stanisław Jana de Matha (born 1825); Ignacy Onufry Antoni (1826–1829); Maria Regina (1826–1827); Maria Klementyna (1828–1828); Aleksandra Wincent (1830–1836) and Adam Jan Hieronim (1832–1833). Marceli Tarczewski also brought up his younger stepbrother, Jan Kraszewski.

Tarczewski died in Warsaw on 31 August 1843. He was buried two days later, on 2 September at the cemetery in Pęcice.

Aleksandra Tarczewska as a widow became a lifetime owner of the Komorow estate, which after her death was auctioned.

Awards Order of Saint Anna (1836, 3rd class); Order of Saint Vladimir (1838, 4th class); Order of Saint Stanislaus (1841, 2nd class).

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