What is Jan Potocki?

Jan Nepomucen Potocki
Jan Potocki. Portrait by Alexander G. Warneck
Noble Family	Potocki
Coat of Arms	Piława
Parents	Józef Potocki Anna Teresa Ossolińska
Consorts	Julia Lubomirska Konstancja Potocka
Children	with Julia Lubomirska Alfred Wojciech Potocki Artur Potocki with Konstancja Potocka Bernard Potocki Irena Potocka Teresa Potocka
Date of Birth	March 8, 1761
Place of Birth	Pikov in Podolia
Date of Death	November 20, 1815
Place of Death	Uladovka near Vinnitsa

Count Jan Nepomucen Potocki (March 8, 1761 - December, 1815) was a Polish nobleman, Polish Army captain of engineers, ethnologist, Egyptologist, linguist, traveler, adventurer and author whose life and exploits made him a legendary figure in his homeland, although he is chiefly known outside Poland for his novel The Manuscript Found in Saragossa.

Biography

Jan Potocki was born in 1761 into an old aristocratic family which owned vast estates in Poland. He was educated in Geneva and Lausanne, served twice in the Polish Army as a captain of engineers and spent some time on a galley as a novice Knight of Malta. He was probably a Freemason and had a strong interest in the occult.

Potocki's colorful life took him across Europe, Asia and North Africa, where he embroiled himself in political intrigues, flirted with secret societies, contributed to the birth of ethnology — he was one of the first to study the precursors of the Slavic peoples from a linguistic and historical standpoint.

In 1790 he became the first person in Poland to fly in a hot air balloon when he made an ascent over Warsaw with the aeronaut Jean Blanchard, an exploit that earned him great public acclaim. He also established in 1788 in Warsaw a publishing house named Drukarnia Wolna (Free Press) as well as the city's first free reading room.

Potocki's wealth enabled him to travel very extensively around Europe, the Mediterranean and Asia, visiting Italy, Sicily, Malta, The Netherlands, Germany, France, England, Russia, Turkey, Spain, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt and even Mongolia. He was also one of the first travel writers of the modern era, penning lively accounts of many of his journeys, during which he also undertook extensive historical, linguistic and ethnographic studies. As well as his many scholarly and travel writings, he also wrote a play, a series of sketches and a novel.

Potocki married twice and had five children, but his first marriage ended in divorce and both marriages were the subject of scandalous rumors. In 1812, disillusioned and in poor health, he retired to his estate at Uladowka in Podolia, suffering from "melancholia" (which today would probably be diagnosed as depression) and during the last few years of his life he completed his novel.

Potocki committed suicide in December 1815 at the age of 54, although the exact date is uncertain — possibly 20 November, 2 December or 11 December. There are also several different versions of the circumstances of his death, but the best known story is that he shot himself in the head with a silver bullet — fashioned from the strawberry-shaped knob of a sugar bowl given to him by his mother — which he first had blessed by his castle priest.

Works

The Manuscript Found in Saragossa

Potocki's most famous work is The Manuscript Found in Saragossa. Originally written in French under the title Manuscrit Trouvé á Saragosse, it is a frame tale which he wrote to entertain his wife. On account of its rich interlocking structure and telescoping story sequences, the novel has drawn comparisons to such celebrated works as the Decameron and the Arabian Nights.

The book's title is explained in the foreword, which is narrated by an unnamed French officer who describes his fortuitous discovery of an intriguing Spanish manuscript during the sack of the city of Saragossa in 1809, during the Napoleonic Wars. French officer is captured by the Spanish soon after and stripped of his possessions, but one of the Spanish officers recognizes the manuscript's importance and over the course of the French officer's captivity the Spaniard translates it into French for him.

The manuscript has been written by a young officer of the Walloon Guard, Alphonse van Worden. In 1739, while en route to Madrid to serve with the Spanish army, he is diverted into the rugged Sierra Morena region of Spain and there, over a period of sixty-six days, he encounters a varied group characters including Muslim princesses, Gypsies, outlaws and cabbalists, who tell him an intertwining series of bizarre, amusing and fantastic tales which he records in his diary.

The sixty-six stories cover a wide range of themes, subjects and styles including gothic horror, picaresque adventures and comic, erotic and moral tales. The stories reflect Potocki's strong interest in secret societies, the supernatural, and oriental cultures, and they are illustrated with his detailed observations of 18th century European manners and customs, particularly those of upper class Spanish society.

Many of the locations described in the tales are real places and regions which Potocki would have visited during his travels, while others are fictionalized versions of actual places.

It is now generally accepted that the book was indeed written by Potocki, although there is still some dispute over its authorship. He began writing it in the 1790s and completed it in 1814, a year before his death, although the structure is thought to have been fully mapped out by 1805.

The novel was never published in its entirety during Potocki's lifetime. A proof edition of the first ten 'days' was circulated in St Petersburg in 1805 and a second extract was published in Paris in 1813, almost certainly with Potocki's permission. A third publication, combining both earlier extracts, was issued in 1814, but it appears at the time of his death Potocki had not yet decided the final form of the book.

Potocki composed the book entirely in French, but portions of the original manuscripts were later lost, although these sections fortunately survived thanks to a Polish translation made by Edmund Chojecki in 1847 from a complete French copy (now also lost).

The first complete modern version of the book (in French) was published in France in 1989. It was compiled by Rene Radrizzani, who collated available at the time sources, including previously published books, printed unpublished proofs, some handwritten manuscripts (most of them autograph by Potocki) and, for about one ninth of the whole book, a translation back into French from Chojecki's 1847 Polish version. The first English-language edition was a translation of Radrizzani's edition by Oxford scholar Ian Maclean, which was published in 1995.

Film adaptation

Potocki's novel became more widely known in the West via the stylish black-and-white film adaptation made in Poland in 1965 under the title The Saragossa Manuscript (Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie).

It was directed by renowned film-maker Wojciech Has and starred Zbigniew Cybulski as Alphonse van Worden. Cybulski was one of the biggest stars in Polish cinema in the 1960s and because of his good looks, rebellious image (and his premature death) he is often described as "the Polish James Dean".

See also

• List of Egyptologists

References and further reading

Maclean, Ian
Introduction to The Manuscript Found in Saragossa
(Penguin Books, London, 1995)

History of Ballooning 1 - includes image of Polish stamp commemorating Potocki's flight

• The Mystical Count Potocki
• The Saragossa Manuscript - book review by Anthony Campbell