Madeleine Radziwiłł

Madeleine Radziwiłł
Born	8 July 1861  Warsaw
Died	6 January 1945  (aged 83) Fribourg
Spouse(s)	Nicolas Radziwill
Children	Maria Ludwika Krasińska

Princess Madeleine Radziwill, (born Marie-Eve-Madeleine-Josephus-Elizabeth-Apollonia-Catherine Zawisza-Kierzajalo; 1861 Warsaw-1945 Freiburg), was a Polish-Belarussian aristocrat who financed many Catholic works.

Life

She is the daughter of Count Jean-Casimir Zawiszy-Kierżgajło and the Countess, born Marie Kwilecka (former lady-in-waiting to the Russian Empress), great-granddaughter of King Stanisław August Poniatowski. The count was keen on archeology and collected ancient medals and coins. They spoke French and Polish at home, as well as Belarusian with servants. She was educated by governesses and teachers. She spent her winters in Warsaw. His older sister Marie-Eve married Prince Michel Radziwill of the Neborov branch.

In 1882, Madeleine married the wealthy Count Ludwik Krasinski (1833-1885) who was twenty-seven years her senior.They had a daughter, Marie-Louise (Maria Ludwika) (1883-1958), who married Prince Adam Czartoryski in 1901. As a widow, Countess Krasinska spent most of her time at her property near Igoumen (in Minsk Province) and also visited the properties inherited from her father.

In 1904, she fell in love with the young prince Nicolas Radziwill (1880-1914) who is nineteen years younger than her. They married in London on March 30, 1906. She is forty-five; he was almost twenty-six. The scandal isolated them. The prince was dismissed from society, their London relations turned away from them. They left to settle in Kukhtichi, owned by the princess. He was dedicated to the management of the property which included an immence forest of pines and oaks of twenty-seven thousand dessiatines (73,000 acres).

Prince Radziwill fought in the Russian Imperial Army during the First World War and died at the beginning of the war in East Prussia. She devotes herself to works of charity and becomes a Dominican tertiary.

She financed a Belarusian newspaper, Biełarus, the publishing house Загляне сонца і ў нашаеванонца, a society to fight against alcoholism, a school of the village of Kukhtichi. She received representatives of Belarussian culture such as Vaclav Iwanowski (Vatslav Ivanovski), a Minister of Education in 1918 of the Belarusian People's Republic (shot in 1943 by the NKGB); the Lutskevich brothers publishers of the Belarussian weekly Nasha Niva (1906-1915); Roman Skirmunt, member of the Third Duma (1910-1911) and Chairman of the Belarusian People's Committee (1915-1917), then member of the Assembly of the Belarusian People's Republic and finally Senator of the Republic of Poland (1930-1935), shot in 1939; or Edvard Voililovich a politician. She materially aided Maxime Bogdanovich in publishing his first books, as well as Maxime Goretski (shot during the Great Purge of 1938), Iakoub Kolas and Anton Levitsky. She helped finance the Vilnius University.

Madeleine Radziwill also helped charitable works like the convent of Drouïa with their high school which was opened by the Marianists of the Immaculate Conception in 1923; had a seminary built in Vilnius and financed the construction of the Lithuanian Catholic Church in London. She is active at the Minsk Charity Society helping victims of the war's distress. After the war, she financed the Belarussian Greek-Catholic seminary in Rome and members of the "Lithuanian Renaissance".

She donated funds to build a church in Warsaw, and orphanages and children's homes in Minsk.

She was at the head of a large fortune with eighteen estates and immense forests. She lived in Kaunas, then in Germany. Finally she was ruined and in 1932, finished  her days in Fribourg, in a convent of Dominicans.

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