PAWLIKOWSKI, JÓZEF°

PAWLIKOWSKI, JÓZEF ° (c. 1768–1829), Polish nobleman, Jacobin, publicist, and lawyer. During the period of the Great Sejm (1788–92) Pawlikowski discussed Jewish problems in anonymous pamphlets. The pamphlet "About the Polish subjects" (1788) sharply critcizes Jewish innkeepers for making the peasants drink heavily; his study Myśli Politiczne o Polsce (Political Thoughts of Poland, 1789) insists on barring Jews from leasing taverns but formulates an extremely liberal reform program of the social and political laws for the benefit of the Jews. Pawlikowski was the only representative of the Polish Enlightenment who accorded equal importance to social emancipation of the peasants, townsmen, and Jews. In contradistinction to others he did not consider the Jews to be exploiters as a whole, but saw them as an oppressed and largely poor people. He felt that it was unrealistic to direct the majority of the Jews toward agriculture. Espousing the necessity of complete tolerance and the granting of all urban rights to the Jews, he stated that the introduction of these changes was subject to the Jews gaining a secular education. He therefore proposed the transfer of the Jewish schools to the National Education Commission, adding that "one cannot demolish anything belonging to their religion"; he also warned, "let us not act like the old Spaniards." In 1826 Pawlikowski was imprisoned in Warsaw and died there.

bibliography:

B. Leśnodorscy, Polscy jakobini (1958); E. Rostworowski, Legendy i fakty xviii w. (1963); Bibel, 1 (1968), 312–3.

[Jacob Goldberg]