Antoni Protazy Potocki (11 September 1761 – 1801), aka Prot, was a Polish nobleman and an early

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

Biography

He was born to Paula née Szembek and her second husband, Count Jan Prosper Potocki, Starosta of Guzów. He was a younger half-brother of Feliks Lubienski and older half-brother of Michal Kleofas Oginski and his sister, Józefa Ogińska. In 1790 Antoni bought himself

voivode Voivode ( ), also spelled voivod, voievod or voevod and also known as vaivode ( ), voivoda, vojvoda, vaivada or wojewoda, is a title denoting a military leader or warlord in Central, Southeastern and Eastern Europe in use since the Early Mid ...

ship of Kiev, approved in 1891 by King and briefly he was starost of Guzów. He was a banker in Kherson and

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

. As proprietor of the Chudniv estate, he established several factories in the village of Makhnivka, near

Berdychiv Berdychiv (, ) is a historic city in Zhytomyr Oblast, northern Ukraine. It serves as the administrative center of Berdychiv Raion within the oblast. It is south of the administrative center of the oblast, Zhytomyr. Its population is approximat ...

. He was director the ''Polish Black Sea Trading Company'', and ran an import-export business in Russian-ruled

Kherson Kherson (Ukrainian language, Ukrainian and , , ) is a port city in southern Ukraine that serves as the administrative centre of Kherson Oblast. Located by the Black Sea and on the Dnieper, Dnieper River, Kherson is the home to a major ship-bui ...

. Potocki had inherited wealth from his father: 6 million zlotys and a number of estates.Zofia Zielińska, ''Prot Potocki'', Polski Słownik Biograficzny, no. 28/1, 1984, p. 134-135. His marriage with Marianna Lubomirska, daughter of

magnate The term magnate, from the late Latin ''magnas'', a great man, itself from Latin ''magnus'', "great", means a man from the higher nobility, a man who belongs to the high office-holders or a man in a high social position, by birth, wealth or ot ...

, contributed still more. At the peak of his wealth, in early 1790s, his fortune was estimated 60-70 million zlotys. However political turmoils brought his (and many other wealthy Polish businessmen) fortune to the end. The first strike was the

first partition of Poland The First Partition of Poland took place in 1772 as the first of three partitions that eventually ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth by 1795. The growth of power in the Russian Empire threatened the Kingdom of Prussia an ...

, during which people rushed to banks for money, and many banks, including Potocki's, crashed. He was on the way to recovery, but the second political blow followed: the Kościuszko Uprising of 1794. Eventually much of the remaining fortune and estates were lost due to unpaid taxes. The knowledge of his last days in oblivion is fragmentary.Ivan Bondarev
Antoni Protazy Potocki
''Kurier Galicyjski'', September 11, 2017 He was invested as a Knight of the Order of the White Eagle, awarded on May 8, 1781. Later he was awarded with the

Order of Saint Stanislaus The Order of Saint Stanislaus (, ), also spelled Stanislas, was a Polish order of knighthood founded in 1765 by King Stanisław August Poniatowski of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It remained under the Congress Poland, Kingdom of Pola ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Potocki, Antoni Protazy 1761 births 1801 deaths People from Żyrardów County Polish bankers Ruthenian nobility of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth 19th-century Polish businesspeople Antoni Protazy Potocki 18th-century Polish–Lithuanian businesspeople Privy Councillor (Russian Empire) Voivodes of Kiev