Potocki, Andrzej

Potocki, Andrzej, b 10 June 1861 in Krzeszowice, Cracow circle, western Galicia, d 12 April 1908 in Lviv. Polish count and conservative politician. He was one of the wealthiest land, mine, and factory owners in Galicia as well as the Russian-ruled Kholm region, Podilia gubernia, and Kyiv gubernia. He was a former Austrian diplomat, and from 1890 he held various public offices in Cracow. In 1895 he was elected a member of the Austrian parliament and the Galician Diet. Potocki became an influential member of the Austrian Reichsrat (from 1901) and marshal of the Galician Diet (1901–3). In the aftermath of the 1902 peasant strikes in Galicia and Bukovyna he was appointed Austrian viceroy of Galicia (1903) with the support of other large Polish landowners. Potocki was hostile to the Ukrainian peasants and hindered their attempts at emigration. He used the police to suppress public manifestations of solidarity with the Revolution of 1905 in the Russian Empire. He was an opponent of electoral reforms, and during the 1907–8 electoral campaigns he spoke out against the Ukrainian Radical party, the Ukrainian Social Democratic party, and the Ukrainian National Democratic party and supported the conservative Russophiles. Under Potocki's authoritarian rule the Polish-controlled Galician government's corruption, electoral abuses, and police repression (especially during the 1906 peasant strikes and 1907–8 elections) were aimed at maintaining Polish superiority. He was assassinated by the student Myroslav Sichynsky.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]