APPENDIX A
The Branicki estate, which distinguished Stavishche from other villages and hamlets, was, prior to the revolt, a great source of pride to many of the town’s Jews, who had settled in the town long before the arrival of the first Count Branicki and remained well after the last one. The 143 years of the peaceful coexistence between the Jews of the town and the Branicki heirs were marked by an intriguing history little-known to those living beyond the gates of the city.
The charming village of gentle hills, green meadows, and bountiful rivers and lakes dates back officially in the record books four centuries to 1622, when the chief of the Bialacerkiew district, Stanislaw Lubomirski, established a new settlement there.I Originally, he named the new settlement Lubomir, after himself. It is first mentioned in a census that year stating that “the settlement of Lubomir and Pasieczna has started; the serfs have just begun building houses.”II Tartars would soon destroy the land, which years later would be renamed Stavishche (Stawiszcze). Two hundred ninety-five years later, peasants were responsible for another major destruction that befell the most beautiful corner of the Russian village.
In 1774, Poland’s last king, Stanislaus Augustus, gifted the estate, along with the vast properties of the Bialacerkiew district, to the Polish magnate Franciszek Ksawery Branicki and his descendants.III Count Branicki seemed to own every village in the area: the deed listed 134 villages, including the tiny dorf of Skibin,IV where Rebecca Caprove’s oldest daughter Channa was born, and the nearby towns of Stavishche and Belaya Tserkov, where both would later reside.
Franciszek Ksawery Branicki’s beautiful young wife, Aleksandra Engelhardt, was known to the world as a favorite niece of Prince Grigory Potemkin and a distinguished member of the Russian court. She was also instrumental in helping her husband increase his considerable fortune, much of which was spent on renovations in Stavishche. One of history’s best-kept secrets, however, might be her true identity: the first countess of Stavishche, who resided in Branicki Palace, was rumored to have been the biological daughter of the world’s most famous empress, Catherine the Great of Russia.
Aleksandra Engelhardt has been historically portrayed as a trusted friend of Catherine the Great of Russia. She remained under the monarch’s protection during her entire lifetime, and at the time of her marriage in 1781, the empress provided a large dowry.
It was during the lifetime of Aleksandra EngelhardtV when people began to question whether she was truly the daughter of Wasil Engelhardt and his wife, Marfa Elena Potemkin, who was Grigory Potemkin’s sister. French writers were the first to circulate unsubstantiated rumors that she was the biological daughter of Catherine the Great of Russia and her lover, Prince Grigory Potemkin.
It is generally accepted by historians that one of Catherine’s lovers, Sergei Saltykov (not her husband, the Grand Duke Peter of Holstein-GottorpVI), had fathered her son, Tsarevich Paul (later Tsar Paul I), who was born in 1754, the same year that Aleksandra was born. Surprisingly, the boy grew up to be ugly and did not resemble the beautiful Catherine or any of her dashing lovers. Most of Catherine the Great’s early biographers attribute his appearance to an illness that may have disfigured the child.
At least two Polish sources have suggested that neither Catherine nor her lover were the tsarevich’s true parents. Rumors, passed down through generations of the Branicki family, suggest that a switch may have been made at birth to appease Catherine’s predecessor, Empress Elizabeth, who wished to have a second male heir in line for the throne of Russia.
A bold entry in Polski Slownik Biograficzny, a large Polish biographical dictionary with many volumes, named Aleksandra as the first biological child of Grand Duchess Catherine, later Catherine the Great, and her lover Sergei Saltykov.VII It was believed that immediately following her birth, Empress Elizabeth’s aide switched her with a newborn baby boy named Pavel (Paul).
The scandalous yet intriguing entry in Polski Slownik Biograficzny continued to describe a young Aleksandra as completely enamored with Grigory Potemkin, her uncle and a favorite of the empress. Catherine bestowed upon the young woman, her close confidante, several titles in her court. The empress even insisted that Gavrila Romanovitch Derzhavin, one of the most highly esteemed Russian poets before Pushkin, write verses honoring the young Aleksandra.
In Arystokracja, a 1998 work on Polish aristocracy, Marek Miller interviewed Anna Wolska, the daughter of Count Adam Branicki. In Polish, Mrs. Wolska openly addressed rumors pertaining to her great-grandmother Aleksandra Engelhardt Branicka’s parentage. Her father had told her a similar tale reported in Polski Slownik Biograficzny. When Catherine gave birth to a daughter, a switch was made after one of her ladies-in-waiting bore a son. Catherine’s daughter was then raised by the Engelhardt family.
With this stunning revelation of a possible mother-daughter connection, historians should take a closer look at Catherine’s masterful manipulations. King Stanislaus Augustus, possibly once a lover of Catherine the Great who ascended to the Polish throne with her assistance, awarded Franciszek Ksawery Branicki a vast estate in 1774. A few years later, the recipient of the king’s generosity married Aleksandra Engelhardt, who was possibly the secret daughter of Catherine. It may be no coincidence that Aleksandra ended up the wife of a man who was awarded an estate the size of a small country.
Many now believe that the Branicki family, landowners of Stavishche for nearly 145 years, could be descendants of the most brilliant, if not the most manipulative, female sovereigns in all of history. This news, if proven true, might question the true lineage of those who sat on the throne of the Russian Empire following the death of Catherine II.
1. I. Some sources suggest a possible ownership and settlement of the land prior to 1622, but many sources recognize the census of that year to be the first written confirmation.
2. II. Source: The 19th-century gazetteer Slownik Geograficzny.
3. III. Source: Slownik Geograficzny.
4. IV. Skibin was a small dorf located six miles southwest of Stavishche; Belaya Tserkov was the largest town on the way to Kiev, located almost thirty miles north of Stavishche.
5. V. She was also known as Aleksandra Von Engelhardt and Countess Branicka (1754–1838).
6. VI. The Grand Duke Peter of Holstein-Gottorp was a grandson of Peter the Great of Russia and the son of Empress Elizabeth’s sister, Anna, who died when the child was three months old. Elizabeth had him proclaimed her heir in 1742.
7. VII. Other rumors, also unconfirmed, said that she was the daughter of Catherine and Grigory Potemkin.