Stanisław Plater

Stanisław Plater was born in 1784 in Daugėliškis, Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.[2] He came from the noble Plater family.[2] His father was Kazimierz Konstanty Plater, the last Lithuanian Vice-Chancellor, and his mother was Izabela z Borchów, the first editor of a children's magazine in Poland, who published the weekly magazine Przyjaciel Dzieci in Warsaw in 1789–1792.[2] Plater had ten siblings: 4 sisters and 6 brothers.[2] One of his brothers was Ludwik Plater (1775–1846), who was the senator-castellan of the Congress Poland who participated in the Kościuszko Uprising and November Uprising as well as a forestry activist.[2]

He was a graduate of the Vilnius Main School.[5] In 1806–1815, he served as an officer in the army of the Duchy of Warsaw in the Russian campaign, rising to the rank of lieutenant. In 1815, he became a captain in the army of Congress Poland, but was soon dismissed. He moved to Greater Poland, where he married Antoniną z Gajewskich (1790-1866). He settled in Wroniawy, which was brought by his wife as a dowry. Later, he also lived for a long time in Poznań and in Paris.[2][3]

He published a number of works on geography, military and history in Polish and French.[6] In 1827, he published a pioneering statistical work, Statistical Atlas of Poland and surrounding countries.[6] Moreover, he was an encyclopedist and author of the two-volume Mała Encyclopedia Polska.[6]

He was awarded the title of Knight of the Military Order of the Duchy of Warsaw (Virtuti Militari) and the Order of the Red Eagle of the Kingdom of Prussia.[1]

In 1851, he died in Wolsztyn and was buried in the parish church.[7]