Leonard Horodyski

Leonard Horodyski (?-1873) was a landowner in Podillya; in particular, he owned the village of Zhabyntsi, now Chortkiv rayon. An educated aristocrat and probably the conservator Mieczysław Potocki’s relative, he was a correspondent of the Central Commission for the Protection of Monuments in 1867-1873.

This biogram is part of a publication about the beginnings of monument conservation in Eastern Galicia and focuses on Leonard Horodyski's activity as a monument conservator, which was not central in his life. Above all, these texts consider the following questions: who were the first to join the official conservation of monuments in Lviv? How did they arrive at this decision and under what conditions? What was the ethnic and national, professional and institutional background of these persons and what impact did it have on their monument conservation activities?

Six correspondents of the Central Commission for Research and Protection of Architectural Monuments in the 1860s and 1870s — Ivan Stupnytskyi, Wincenty Pol, Józef Sermak, Leonard Horodyski, Kazimierz Stadnicki, Antoni Schneider — were appointed through Mieczysław Potocki, a conservator of monuments whom they assisted. The seventh biogram, that of Stanisław Kunasiewicz, concerns a person who, despite the efforts made for his official appointment, never received it.

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Probably, Mieczysław Potocki and Leonard Horodyski were related through Potocki's wife, Kłotylda (née Horodyska). In 1847, Potocki sold the village of Vitsyn in what is now the Zolochiv rayon, which he had inherited from his father, and purchased Kotsiubynchyki near Zhabyntsi in the Chortkiv rayon, the owner of which was Horodyski. After the discovery of the Zbruch Idol in 1848 in which Potocki was involved, they became correspondents of the Kraków Scientific Society. In 1852, both of them sent some information to the Society: Potocki shared observations from his trip to the Kingdom of Poland and prepared an extensive description of Vitsyn; Horodyski informed the Society about archaeological finds in the vicinity of Zhabyntsi (Rocznik, 1852, 167).

The two aristocrats were members of local branches of the Agricultural (Towarzystwo Gospodarskie) and Credit Land Societies (Towarzystwo Kredytowe Ziemskie) and participated in the preparation of local agricultural exhibitions. In 1863, they simultaneously received from Pope Pius IX the Order of St. Gregory the Great, which is mentioned in a Catholic magazine: "Both, although they have rather moderate estates, did not spare significant donations for the construction and decoration of houses of God in their possessions; for doing so they received the gratitude not only from the parishioners, but also from the entire Church..." (Tygodnik katolicki, 1864, No. 7, p. 70). In addition, Leonard Horodyski was engaged in breeding cattle and was particularly fond of pomology, the science of breeding fruit trees.

As early as 1860, Horodyski started sending some archaeological finds to the Ossoliński National Institute in Lviv, some of them being presented there at the first exhibition of antiquities in 1861. This fact, in particular, was noted by Adam Kirkor, one of the first professional archaeologists from Kraków, when in the mid-1870s he travelled through the Galician Podillya together with the local amateur Count Władysław Przybysławski (Kłosy, 1877, Nr. 621, p. 336).

Mieczysław Potocki appreciated Horodyski's contribution in archeology and gratefully mentioned his name in his public report on conservation activities in 1874. However, among his official conservator correspondence there are no traces of correspondence with Horodyski, except for the official notification of the latter’s appointment as a correspondent (CDIAL 616/1/5:91). So it can be assumed that their communication was mostly personal and took place live, the letters between them being more private than official in nature.

The involvement of Leonard Horodyski can be seen as a consequence of the difficulties in finding collaborators, which Pototski experienced when he became a monument conservator.