Leon Sapieha

Who was Leon Sapieha?

Leon Sapieha was a Polish noble, politician and statesman.

Leon was born and educated in Warsaw, and studied law and economics in Paris and Edinburgh from 1820 to 1824. He began to work in the administration in the Polish Kingdom. After the outbreak of the November Uprising in 1830, he left Poland and took part in diplomatic missions of the Polish "National Government" in France and Great Britain. After that, he returned and participated in the Uprising in the rank of an Artillery Captain, among others in the defence of Warsaw on September 6/7. He was awarded for that the Virtuti Militari Order. After the collapse of the Uprising he settled in the Austrian occupied part of Poland. In 1835 Russian authorities confiscated his estates in Congress Poland as punishment for his participation in the failed Uprising.

He was a member of "National movement" circles and held contacts with the "Hotel Lambert". He became a member of the National Sejm in the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia, member of the Austrian Council of the State and member of the imperial Herrenhaus in 1861.