Zagadka Walentyna Potockiego

ENNumerous encyclopaedias of Jewish history, religion and culture include an entry on Walentyn Potocki, with the additional information that this was the name of a Polish magnate who converted to Judaism in eighteenth-century The Netherlands. After his return to Vilno, he was tried by an Inquisition [sic!] court which sentenced him to the stake. This legend, which originated at the turn of the eighteenth century, was published in a Jewish periodical issued in London as “The Jewish Expositor and Friend of Israel” (vol. 8, 1822). A literary form of the legend was created by Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, the renowned author of numerous historical novels, who included the story about Potocki in the third volume of the history of Vilno (1841). The tragic fate of Potocki remains unconfirmed by eighteenth-century Polish or Jewish sources. On the other hand, it would be difficult to believe that the death at the stake of a Polish aristocrat charged with apostasy was not echoed in any of the diaries or polemical writings concerning religion and tolerance, topics in which the Enlightenment was particularly interested. In this situation, the court trial and death of Walentyn Potocki should be recognised as an historical legend deprived of all source-material foundations.