Wacław Rzewuski

A romantic, a horse breeder, a field crown chancellor. A descendant of the oldest and the most powerful noble families in Poland. A “Gold-bearded emir”.

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Roman Abraham was born on 15 December 1784 in Lvov. He was killed on14 May 1831 in a battle near Daszów.

(…) One of Wacław’s biographers, Antoni Józef Rolle, noticed:


„[…] Emir’s life, although so many times told, was not properly examined yet and this is a rewarding and instructive theme even for an explorer”.


Today, in spite of twenty literary works devoted to Rzewuski and almost the same number of elaborations that originated since the Daszów battle, the above statement remains actual. There are no exhaustive and general research of the count’s life. The most of the mentioned elaborations relate to chosen fragments of his life and many of them arose based on single or incredible sources.

For example, orientalists or pure-bred Arabians breeders were interested only in the “hippological” and “Arabian” thread of Emir’s biography, however researchers of Polish conspiratorial and patriotic activity in nineteenth century did not bestow too much attention to Rzewuski. And after all, this is extremely interesting theme. Already Lucjan Siemieński wrote about Wacław:


“I do not know a man that could deliver, in our prosaic times, such a great poetic thread like him, not only with all his life but even with his death.
Be killed in a battle would be an ordinary matter – so many others died and die in this way – but get lost mysteriously – traceless… not every man can”

Piotr Jaxa Bykowski, one of nineteenth-century biographers of Rzewuski, was awake to imperfection of elaboration written hitherto.
He emphasized a need to fill up the existing gap by conducting deep source research. In 1879, he wrote:


“Maybe, somebody will create a whole from our monographs [concerning Wacław Rzewuski – F. K.]” (…)


We invite you to get the feel of the dissertation that makes an attempt to present the whole question, i.e. Wacław “Emir” Rzewuski’s biography, to evaluate his achievements, to describe his progeny lots and Rzewuski’s family history beginning from their legendary, fairy rudiments.


Read more… (click to go to Polish Digital Equestrian Library)

Author: Filip Kucera