Aleksander Franciszek Chodkiewicz

Count Aleksander Franciszek Chodkiewicz (Lithuanian: Aleksandras Pranciškus Chodkevičius; 4 June 1776, Chernobyl - 24 January 1838, Młynów) was a Polish writer, playwright, chemist, lithographer, patron of the arts, collector, military officer and politician.

He was the son of Count Jan Mikołaj Chodkiewicz, the Starost of Duchy of Samogitia, and his wife, Maria Ludwika Rzewuska (1744–1816), daughter of the poet and Hetman, Wacław Rzewuski.

When Napoleon's armies took Vilnius, he became a member of the Armed Forces Committee of the Lithuanian Provisional Governing Commission.

Appointed a Colonel, he created his own regiment and became an Adjutant to General Józef Antoni Kossakowski [pl].

After its surrender by General Herman Willem Daendels, Chodkiewicz refused to cooperate, and was taken prisoner by the Russians for a brief period.

His service was cut short by decree, after only six months, when he felt insulted by Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich and strongly opposed his policies on the Senate floor.

He devised much of the terminology himself, which brought him into a long, and often politely contentious, correspondence with Jędrzej Śniadecki, who was engaged in the same endeavor.

[3] In 1820, he published Portraits of famous Poles, drawn on stone by Walenty Śliwicki, with a description of their lives, in which he provided the biographies.

[4] He also wrote and translated novels, poems and plays; notably the five-act tragedy, The Spaniards in Peru or the death of Roila (1797), by August von Kotzebue.