Alfred Józef Potocki

Biography

The son of count Alfred Wojciech Potocki and princess Józefina Maria Czartoryska. He was born into a prominent noble family of Polish origin, although a subject of the Empire of Austria, and inherited the Łańcut ordynat estates from his father. His grandfather was the writer Jan Potocki, best known for his famous novel "The Manuscript Found in Saragossa". On 18 March 1851 in Sławuta, he married princess Maria Klementyna Sanguszko, heiress of the prominent Sanguszko princely family.

Alfred Józef Potocki is known for building the magnificent Potocki Palace, a grand residence in Lviv. In 1873 he co-founded the Akademia Umiejetnosci (Polish Academy of Skills) in Kraków. He ran a family distillery, which is today known as Polmos Łańcut.

Political career

He was member of the National Sejm of Galicia from 1863 to 1889 and Sejm Marshal from 1875 until 1877. From 1875 to 1883 he was governor of Galicia.

In 1848 he became a member of the lower house of the Imperial Parliament (Reichsrat), the House of Deputies (Abgeordnetenhaus), and in 1861 the upper house, the House of Lords (Herrenhaus). He served in the Diplomatic Corps and was Minister of Agriculture of Austria from 30 December 1867 until 15 January 1870, but stepped down over his minority federalist views in the cabinet. On 12 April he became the 5th Minister-President of Cisleithania and simultaneously Minister of Defence. His tenure included the repeal of the 1855 concordat. He was unsuccessful with promoting federalism and failing to obtain the cooperation of the Czechs in the Reichsrat he stepped down on 6 February 1871, ushering in a brief interregnum of conservative rule under Count Karl Sigmund von Hohenwart (1871-1871) which was equally ineffective in implementing federalism, so that power quickly reverted to liberalism again.

Awards

• Order of the Golden Fleece
• Order of the Steel Crown
• Order of St. Stefan
• Order of Carol III