Stanislaus II Augustus Poniatowski

Stanislaus II Augustus Poniatowski (Stanisław August Poniatowski), b 17 January 1732 in Wołczyn, Poland, d 12 February 1798 in Saint Petersburg. Last king of Poland. He was elected in 1764 with the support of Catherine II of Russia, who later opposed his parliamentary reforms and pressed for the rights of non-Catholic religious dissenters in Polish territories. In 1768 Stanislaus faced a revolt by nobles grouped in the Confederation of Bar, which sparked the Koliivshchyna rebellion and the haidamaka uprisings in Right-Bank Ukraine. The weakened Polish state underwent partitioning by Russia, Austria, and Prussia in 1772, 1793, and 1795. Stanislaus then abdicated and lived in semicaptivity in Russia.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]