Matheus Butrymowicz

Who is Matheus Butrymowicz?

Matheus Butrymowicz was a Polish statesman REPRESENTING PINSK and landlord and a liberal member of the Great Sejm or Diet assembled in Warsaw from 1788 to 1792.

A descendant of one of the oldest families of Lithuania and Samogitia, he took a special interest in the development of the industry and commerce of Poland and Lithuania, and to this end considered it of the utmost importance to utilize the energy and the abilities of the Jewish inhabitants. Together with Castellan Yezierski and other Liberal members of the "last" Polish Sejm, he endeavored to prove to the Polish representatives how harmful to the welfare of the country was the abnormal position of the Jews, and urged the taking of measures leading toward their emancipation. In 1789 he elaborated a plan for transforming the Jews into useful citizens, which he set forth in a pamphlet entitled Sposób Uformowania Zydów Polskich w Pozytecznych Krajowi Obywatelow, and which he submitted to King Stanislaus Poniatowsky at the session of the Diet of Dec. 4, asking the king to favor it with his support.