For three centuries, they shook the Republic of Poland. They were chancellors, hetmans, voivodes and cardinals. They built their power, increased their fortune, even thought about the royal crown. However, among the many truly outstanding representatives of the Radziwiłł family, there were also weirdos, debaucheers and lunatics.
"Probably none of the aristocratic Polish families has produced as many individualists, controversial figures and people deserving to be called the originals as the Radziwiłłs" - says Iwona Kienzler in the book "Arystokracja. Romances and love in the 20th century ”. Here is a brief overview of the most interesting "cases".
Religious fanatic and venereal disease ...
The powerful magnate Mikołaj Krzysztof Radziwiłł, called the "Orphan" (1549–1616), was brought up in Calvinism and was to be a protector of Protestantism in Lithuania. However, during his stay in Rome, converted to Catholicism and became its zealous promoter .
He strongly opposed religious tolerance in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He liquidated Protestant churches in his estates and restored Catholic churches. He bought copies of the Brest Bible - issued thanks to the patronage of his father Mikołaj Radziwiłł "Czarny" - and then ordered to publicly burn them on the market square in Vilnius. This "sanctimoniousness" could have had a disadvantage ...
In 1575, his life was seriously threatened by venereal disease which he contracted during his youthful journeys. He then made a vow to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He kept his word and in 1582 visited Syria and Egypt. He even climbed to the top of the Cheops pyramid. He didn't like the sphinx, which he called for some reason "the harlot".
Mikołaj Krzysztof "Sierotka" traveled a lot in his youth. During one of his trips he contracted syphilis.
In the land of the pharaohs, Radziwiłł also bought two mummies - a woman and a man, which he wrote about in a later report that they did not emit an unpleasant odor. Returning to Europe, he packed them (and other souvenirs) onto the ship. However, when a powerful storm hit during the voyage, under the influence of sailing superstitions, he decided to throw them into the sea ...
The venereal disease did not prevent him from getting married. In 1584 he married Elżbieta Eufemia Wiśniowiecka, who was then 15 years old. He forced her to convert from Calvinism to Catholicism and then fathered nine children with her. Eventually, however, fate caught him. When he was dying of syphilis, he became deaf, lost his mind, and contemporaries said that he had become almost half-human …
The worst hetman of the Republic of Poland
Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł, known as "Rybeńko" (1702–1762), was in turn the richest of the Radziwiłłs and one of the richest people in Poland. He inherited a huge fortune, and due to his descent from a distinguished family, he held important positions. All this, however, did not go hand in hand with the qualities of character .
He was said to be:a tasteless debauchee, a sloth, a court sucker, an uneducated ignoramus. His passions were feasts, revelry and adultery. He referred to his interlocutors, regardless of their status, as "Rybeńko" (hence the nickname).
For his vigorous support of Augustus III of Saxony in his efforts to gain the Polish throne, he was awarded the title of the field hetman of Lithuania. However, he turned out to be one of the worst hetmans in the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. As historians write, his greatest achievement was ... the review of Lithuanian troops in 1744.
He was just as bad at politics. The "Rybeńka" party was constantly losing to the Czartoryski family, so the prince broke one parliament after another without scruples. He was also not lucky in love. He started an affair with Maria Karolina Sobieska (the granddaughter of King Jan), but her father opposed the formalization of the relationship. Maria became depressed and wanted to enter a convent . The prince himself, despite strenuous efforts, did not manage to squander his great fortune and, dying in 1762, left one of the greatest fortunes in Europe at that time.
The loser and the beggar
It was inherited by his son, Prince Karol Stanisław Radziwiłł "Lord Lover" (1734–1790), the original as great as his father. and also out of rashness and wild antics. He was described as an uneducated person, not speaking French, coarse, and resembling representatives of the lower classes in his manner. He became known as a great drunk because of his love of alcohol.
He was passionate about feasting in his residences in Nesvizh and Warsaw, and he did it on a grand scale. Almost four thousand people appeared at one of the feasts organized on the birthday of Tsarina Catherine II! Gold and silver tableware, platters of oysters from Hamburg, game, fish and ham awaited the arrivals. Almost a thousand bottles of expensive champagne were drunk, and many other drinks. The prince also showed his fantasy on another occasion. Once in the summer he wanted to go sleigh riding. And because there was no snow, he ordered that the courtyard of the Nesvizh castle was poured with sugar and a sleigh ride was organized on it ...
"Mr. Lover" was also famous for his talent to tell extraordinary, allegedly true stories. According to one of them, while hunting, the prince came across a beautiful deer, but he no longer had any bullets. So he stuffed the shotgun with cherry stones and fired it to the animal . A year later, in the same forest, he encountered a deer with cherry branches growing out of his head ...
Karol Stanisław "Lord Lover" loved to tell incredible stories.
In another story, the ship in which Radziwiłł was sailing on the Adriatic crashed and the prince landed alone on a rock protruding from the sea. There he met a mermaid who fell in love with him, and their relationship resulted in… herring.
Sadist and madman
The quirks of Karol Stanisław were nothing compared to the exploits of Hieronim Florian Radziwiłł (1715–1760), the lord of Biała. He was an exception among the Radziwiłłs, because avoided public affairs, did not participate in politics and did not hold high positions . Instead, he devoted himself to his private life and numerous extravagant entertainment that he could afford due to his great fortune.
He liked military discipline, so he created a private army modeled on Prussia, in which 6,000 people served. It was draconian, and severe punishments were imposed for the slightest breach of the rules. The prince was famous for his cruelty and even sadism. The brutal treatment of his wives caused his two marriages to fall apart. For this reason, as he reports in the book "Arystokracja. Romances and loves in the 20th century ”Iwona Kienzler:
To avoid a similar end to his third marriage, Hieronymus kept his next wife locked up just in case , Aniela of Miączyńscy. The unfortunate woman was released only after the death of her tormentor-spouse .
He also committed atrocities against his peasants and nobility. He built prisons in the castles of Biała and Słuck, into which he threw anyone who opposed him. Apparently he loved listening to the moans coming from the castle casemates. His sadism found an outlet also in another passion - hunting. Radziwiłł could spend weeks in forests, and when he got tired of it, he ordered the animals to be herded to special pens, and then he massacred them by shooting from specially prepared positions.
Hieronim Florian Radziwiłł founded his own study of curiosities.
Another 'hobby' of his was waging wars with his neighbors. Well the duke appointed one of his courtiers the lord of a wooden castle in the village of Sławacinek near Biała and assigned him some of his military units. After a period of friendship, the nobleman set off with his army to become the "king of Sławacin". For several days he fought with the use of infantry and artillery, and then returned (of course as the winner) to his residence in Biała, leading the defeated prisoner with him.
Hieronymus was also a collector of curiosities. In his office he had, among other things, an alcohol-drenched basilisk, a dried-up crocodile, turtle shells, a giant toad, and two whale limbs. There were also three legless stuffed birds of paradise, because, as the prince believed, the birds never sat down. And in his monstruarium he kept prepared human and animal newborns with serious genetic defects ...
Bigamist and madman
There were also many originals among the Radziwiłłs in later centuries. Born in Berlin in 1870, Michał Radziwiłł led a life that is as colorful as it is eccentric. Although he came from a distinguished Lithuanian-Polish family, considered himself a German, he was a diplomat in the Russian service, an officer in the German and British armies and a Knight of Malta . He became famous for his many romances and his relationships ended in invariably high-profile scandals.
Among his wives and lover were Russian, Spanish, two English and Jewish. In the latter case, the prince considered the possibility of converting to Judaism in order to remarry. He entered into subsequent marriages quickly, not always bothering to annul the previous one. As a result, the Polish authorities even considered that he would be charged with bigamy.
However, love scandals are not enough. Michał brought the part of the property assigned to him to the brink of collapse. He ordered the remains of deceased relatives thrown out from the ancestral chapel in Antonin near Ostrów . And when in September 1939 the Germans entered Greater Poland, he announced that he wanted to give his palace to Adolf Hitler, and that he would apply for the status of a Volksdeutsch himself. Iwona Kienzler in the book "Arystokracja. Romances and love in the twentieth century ”reports:
The German authorities, deliberately ignoring the generosity of Prince Radziwiłł, confiscated his Antonin palace [...] while Michał himself was under preventive protective arrest in Ostrów Wielkopolski. After his release, the prince went to his relatives near Berlin, where he lived until the end of the war, and after its end, the impoverished aristocrat found shelter under the roof of his ex [...] wife Maria Henrietta Joaquina Martinez de Medinilla.
He spent the rest of his life in one of her residences in Tenerife. He died in 1955. Michael's relatives suspected that all his bizarre behavior was due to his mental illness. How was it really? We will probably never know that…