Basil, 1st Chevalier de Weryha-Wysoczański-PietrusiewiczGenealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Adelige Häuser XXX, Limburg a. d. Lahn 2008, vol 145, p. 420, , . (23 April 1816 – 25 October 1891) was a Polish wholesale merchant, landowner, town property ownerGothaisches Genealogisches Handbuch, Adelige Häuser IV, Marburg 2018, vol 8, p. 497, , . and philanthropist from Odessa.Chevalier Rafael de Weryha-Wysoczański, A Chevalier from Poland. The Memoirs of Chevalier Rafael de Weryha-Wysoczański, Kibworth Beauchamp 2016, p. 8, , .
He came from an old noble family of WalachianGothaisches Genealogisches Handbuch, Adelige Häuser IV, Marburg 2018, vol 8, p. 487, , . boyarChevalier Rafael de Weryha-Wysoczański, A Chevalier from Poland. The Memoirs of Chevalier Rafael de Weryha-Wysoczański, Kibworth Beauchamp 2016, p. 1, , . stock and was the 4th son of Jan, 2nd Chevalier Wysoczański de Pietrusiewicz.Chevalier Rafael de Weryha-Wysoczański, A Chevalier from Poland. The Memoirs of Chevalier Rafael de Weryha-Wysoczański, Kibworth Beauchamp 2016, p. 9, , . He had one daughter, Wilhelmine, who married a Swiss rentier and died at age 19 in Cannes,Gothaisches Genealogisches Handbuch, Adelige Häuser IV, Marburg 2018, vol 8, p. 498, , . as well a favoured place of her father and of the international nobility in general.Chevalier Rafael de Weryha-Wysoczański, A Chevalier from Poland. The Memoirs of Chevalier Rafael de Weryha-Wysoczański, Kibworth Beauchamp 2016, p. 79, , . The son of his niece Anna was composer Yaroslav Yaroslavenko, for whom de Weryha-Wysoczański stood sponsor.
Biography Born in the Austrian Empire, de Weryha-Wysoczański made his money, as his biographer informs us in 1892, with vodka supplies for the army during the Crimean War. As a result, he bought landed estates and town property and ‘became a merchant on a grand scale’. According to his biographer, he once lost a whole ship on the sea but more than made up his losses. He soon got rid of a café-pâtisserie on Odessa's famous Deribasovskaya Street and, as his biographer puts it, ‘became a fully-fledged gentleman capitalist’. His biographer estimated that de Weryha-Wysoczański's cash alone amounted to £11.700.000.Demeter Więckowski, Basil Wysoczański and the New Church in Wysocko Wyżne [in Russian], Lwów 1892, chapters 5-6. In 1861 he was awarded the Silver Medal on the Ribbon of Saint Stanislas"Wiener Zeitung", 29 June 1861. and in 1876 received a confirmation of the title of Hereditary Chevalier of Galicia with the Wukry coat of arms, extended to all direct descendants in the male line of his elder brother Gregory, some of whom still living to this day. He died in Odessa in the Russian Empire.
Philanthropy
De Weryha-Wysoczański donated £2.340.000 for scholarships, for the education of children.Semen Behei, Stefaniia Behei, Formuvannia natsionalʹnoi svidomosti ta elity, Lwów 2001, p. 9. After the death of his only daughter, he gave in Odessa, in February 1885, £900.000 for orphaned girls who would be paid dowries.Demeter Więckowski, Basil Wysoczański and the New Church in Wysocko Wyżne [in Russian], Lwów 1892, p. 18. He founded the Saint Nicholas Church in Wysocko Wyżne, Austro-Hungarian Empire, the consecration of which took place on 13 October 1891."Kuryer Lwowski", 19 October 1891. Its architect was Jan Lewiński and its polychromy was carried out by Teofil Kopystyński. It is a large church with both neoclassical and neobyzantine elements.Grzegorz Rąkowski, Ukraińskie karpaty i podkarpacie: Czȩść zachodnia, vol 1, Pruszków 2013, pp. 436-7, .
In popular culture In 1930 de Weryha-Wysoczański's life was made into a biographical novel by Ivan Fylypchak by the title Willpower (Lwów 1930; second edition Sambor 1999). De Weryha-Wysoczański features in it with his real name, although other names were changed, as well as some facts for reasons of dramatisation.
References
Bibliography
Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Adelslexikon XVI, Limburg a.d. Lahn 2005, vol. 137, p. 117, , . Sylwester Korwin-Kruczkowski, Poczet Polaków wyniesionych do godności szlacheckiej przez monarchów austryjackich w czasie od roku 1773 do 1918. Dalej tych osób, którym wymienieni władcy zatwierdzili dawne tytuły książęce względnie hrabiowskie lub nadali tytuły hrabiów i baronów jak niemniej tych, którym zatwierdzili staropolskie szlachectwo, Lwów 1935, p. 54.