Honorific-Prefix: | Hochgeboren |
Alfred Józef Potocki | |
Office: | Minister-President of Austria |
Term Start: | 12 April 1870 |
Term End: | 6 February 1871 |
Predecessor: | Leopold Hasner von Artha |
Successor: | Karl Sigmund von Hohenwart |
Birth Date: | 29 July 1817 or 29 July 1822 |
Birth Place: | Łańcut, Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austrian Empire |
Death Date: | or |
Death Place: | Paris, French Third Republic |
Spouse: | Princess Maria Klemetyna Sanguszko |
Father: | Count Alfred Wojciech Potocki |
Mother: | Princess Józefina Maria Czartoryska |
Children: |
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Count Alfred Józef Potocki (pronounced as /pl/, 29 July 1817 or 1822, Łańcut – 18 May 1889, Paris) was a Polish aristocrat (szlachcic), landowner, and a liberal-conservative monarchist Austrian politician and Prime Minister.
Count Potocki was born on 29 July 1817 (or 1822) in Łańcut into a prominent noble family of Polish origin, although a subject of the Empire of Austria, and inherited the Łańcut ordynat estates from his father. The son of Count Alfred Wojciech Potocki and Princess Józefina Maria Czartoryska. His grandfather was the writer Jan Potocki, best known for his famous novel "The Manuscript Found in Saragossa".
Alfred Józef Potocki is known for building the magnificent Potocki Palace, a grand residence in Lviv. In 1873 he co-founded the Akademia Umiejetnosci (Polish Academy of Skills) in Kraków. He ran a family distillery, which is today known as Polmos Łańcut.
He was a member of the National Sejm of Galicia from 1863 to 1889 and Sejm Marshal from 1875 until 1877. From 1875 to 1883 he was governor of Galicia.
In 1848 he became a member of the lower house of the Imperial Parliament (Reichsrat), the House of Deputies (Abgeordnetenhaus), and in 1861 the upper house, the House of Lords (Herrenhaus). He served in the Diplomatic Corps and was Minister of Agriculture of Austria from 30 December 1867 until 15 January 1870, but stepped down over his minority federalist views in the cabinet.
He served as Austria's prime minister from 1870 to 1871,[1] and was one of the only two non-Germans who held this office in Austria-Hungary.[2] On 12 April 1870, he became the 5th Minister-President of Cisleithania and simultaneously Minister of Defence. His tenure included the repeal of the 1855 concordat. He was unsuccessful in promoting federalism and failing to obtain the cooperation of the Czechs in the Reichsrat he stepped down on 6 February 1871, ushering in a brief interregnum of conservative rule under Count Karl Sigmund von Hohenwart (February 1871 – October 1871) which was equally ineffective in implementing federalism, so that power quickly reverted to liberalism again.
On 18 March 1851 in Sławuta, he married Princess Maria Klementyna Sanguszko, heiress of the prominent Sanguszko princely family. Together, they had two sons and two daughters:[3]
Count Potocki died on 18 May 1889 in Paris.[3]
Predecessor Agenor Romuald Gołuchowski | Governor-General of Galicia 1875 - 1883 | Successor Filip Zaleski |
Predecessor Leon Sapieha | Sejm Marshal of the Diet of Galicia 1875 - 1875 | Successor Włodzimierz Dzieduszycki |
Predecessor Leopold Hasner von Artha | Minister-President of Cisleithania 1870 - 1871 | Successor Karl Sigmund von Hohenwart |