Franciszek Salezy Jezierski

Franciszek Salezy Jezierski (1740 – 1791) was a Polish priest, social and political activist, and writer of the Enlightenment period.

He was born in Gołąbki near Łuków to Jan Franciszek Jezierski and Izabela Skarbek-Kiełczewska; he studied at the Piarist School in Łuków, and worked as a notary before doing his military service in Ukraine.

He studied for the priesthood and in 1781, the National Education Commission appointed him as rector of Lublin. In 1783, he completed his doctorate in theology and philosophy at the Kraków Academy, and two years later became the general inspector of the Crown schools. He then joined Hugo Kołłątaj's Forge and worked as a librarian at the Jagiellonian University.

A supporter of the radical reforms, he attacked the privileges of the nobility (even through he was a petty noble himself) and supported the causes of burghers and peasants.

In 1788, he wrote the “Sermon before the States of the Republic” speech which was delivered at the beginning of the Great Sejm.

In 1962, the city of Warsaw commemorated him by naming a street in Warsaw's Powiśle after him.