His first marriage ended in divorce, and both marriages were the subject of scandalous rumors. Potocki married twice and had five children. 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. Potocki's wealth enabled him to travel extensively about Europe, the Mediterranean and Asia, visiting Italy, Sicily, Malta, the Netherlands, Germany, France, England, Russia, Turkey, Dalmatia, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Spain, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, and even Mongolia. He was also highly critical of the Russian ambassador, Otto Magnus von Stackelberg. His relation with Stanislaus Augustus was thorny, as Potocki, while often supportive of the king, on occasion did not shy from his critique. 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. He spent some time in France, and upon his return to Poland, he became a known publicist, publishing newspapers and pamphlets, in which he argued for various reforms. 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-Pierre Blanchard, an exploit that earned him great public acclaim. His colorful life took him across Europe, Asia and North Africa, where he embroiled himself in political intrigues, flirted with secret societies and 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. 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 novice to the Knights of Malta. Jan Potocki was born into the Potocki aristocratic family, that owned vast estates across Poland. He committed suicide by gunshot in 1815, however, the circumstances of his death remain controversial to this day. In spite of his literary career, Potocki became burdened by mental illness, melancholy as well as severe clinical lycanthropy, which led him to believe that he was transformed into a werewolf. Simultaneously, he was a member of parliament and took part in the Great Sejm shortly before the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth ceased to exist. Fascinated by the occult, Potocki studied ancient cultures, rituals and secret societies. During his extensive voyages he actively documented prevailing customs, ongoing wars, revolutions and national awakenings, which made him a pioneer of travel literature. As a soldier, he fought in Austrian ranks in the War of the Bavarian Succession, and in 1789 was appointed a military engineer in the Polish army. He frequently visited the salons of Paris and toured Europe before temporarily returning to Poland in 1778. He is known chiefly for his picaresque novel, The Manuscript Found in Saragossa.īorn into affluent Polish nobility, Potocki lived abroad from an early age and was primarily educated in Switzerland. Count Jan Potocki ( Polish pronunciation: 8 March 1761 – 23 December 1815) was a Polish nobleman, ethnologist, linguist, traveller and author of the Enlightenment period, whose life and exploits made him a celebrated figure in Poland. "Poland's greatest cult film" The Village Voice "This is one mother of a film" David Lynch Stars: Zbigniew Cybulski, Kazimierz Opalinski, Iga Cembrzynska-Kondratiuk, Joanna Jedryka, Aleksander Fogiel, Barbara Krafftowa. Its approach to storytelling, admiringly described by comics artist Neil Gaiman as ‘a labyrinth inside a maze’, features stories within stories, alternatively frightening and comical in its mind-bending exploration of human nature.įully and recently restored version of Has' psychedelic epic. Its admirers include film-makers Luis Buñuel and David Lynch as well as musician Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead. And of course, Alfonso never did expect the Spanish Inquisition.Īdapted from explorer Jan Potocki’s magnum opus, Wojciech Has’ The Saragossa Manuscript is a major cult film of the 1960s. Tunisian princesses inform Alfonso that he is their cousin and their betrothed an occult scholar ensnares Alfonso with confounding stories about feuds between Merchants and hardships faced by gypsies. Alfonso’s passage through the dangerous Sierra Morena Mountains is repeatedly interrupted by seemingly random encounters with an assortment of larger than life figures. The book chronicles the adventures of Alfonso van Worden (Zbigniew Cybulski - Ashes and Diamonds). During Napoleon’s invasion of Spain, two soldiers discover a strange manuscript at an Inn.
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