Count Karol Jan Alexander Hutten-Czapski[1][a] (15 August 1860 – 30 January 1904) was a Polish philanthropist.

He was the eldest son of Count Emeryk Hutten-Czapski,[2] a well-known collector and numismatist, and Baroness Elizabeth Meyendorff.

[3] He was the great-grandson of Franciszek Stanisław Hutten-Czapski, the last governor of Chełmno during the First Republic, who inherited parts of the Radziwiłł property in Belarus and in Volhynia and moved there from the former Royal Prussia.

Karol's mother was the daughter of Baron Georges Conrad Walter von Meyendorff (1795-1863)[4] and Countess Sophie Stackelberg (1806-1891).

[5] Her father, at the service of Tsar Alexander I, participated in the Napoleonic war as a Colonel, and as a diplomat and explorer, travelling extensively to Central Asia, publishing a book: "Voyage d’Orenbourg à Boukhara fait en 1820".

[6][7] Karol was taught at the Stankava family estate near Minsk (now in the Dzyarzhynsk District of Belarus), and then was enrolled in the German grammar school Annenschule in Saint Petersburg, where he graduated in 1878.

[8] His father Emeric worked in the Russian civil service and also was organizing and cataloging his large numismatic collection, so Karol at age twenty two began administrating the family properties, one of the largest in the Province of Minsk.

[10] In 1886 he started working in the Ministry of Finance as a collegiate secretary, rising to the rank of court counsellor in 1900.

He continued managing the family properties, establishing a hospital for infectious diseases for the employees of the estate.

Because of the great effort in both managing his family properties and serving as President of Minsk, he weakened and fell ill.

He participated in the fair, showing thoroughbred cattle, pedigree horses and dogs, as well as bricks and ceramics, all coming from his Stankow estate.

During his eleven years as president, Minsk underwent the period of its greatest economic and cultural growth.