Coat of arms Clan Pilawa Mother Joanna Sieniavska Name Mikolaj Potocki | Noble family Potocki Died 1782 | |
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Father Stefan Aleksander Potocki Buried Lawra Poczajowska, Poland
(now Pochayiv Lavra, Ukraine) | ||
Mikolaj Bazyli Potocki (1712–1782) was a Polish nobleman, starost of Kaniv, Bohuslav, benefactor of the Buchach townhall, Pochayiv Lavra, Dominican Church in Lviv, deputy to Sejm and owner of the Buchach castle.
Mikolaj's father, Stefan Aleksander Potocki, Governor of Belz, with his second wife, Joanna Sieniawska, were the founders of Basilian monastery of the UGCC in Buchach. Mikolaj Hieronim Sieniawski was his grandfather.
Infamous for his many excesses and habits, he was immortalized in many Polish and Ukrainian stories and legends (especially those of the 19th century), notably in Ukrainian ballad Bondarivna (about a cooper´s daughter, whom he murdered when she refusing to live with him). Zygmunt Krasinski in his Nieboskia Komedia referred to him as "him, starost, who shot women on the trees and baked Jews alive" ("Ow, starosta, baby strzelal po drzewach i Zydow piekl zywcem"). Near the end of his life, after the first partition of Poland, where many of his lands have passed under Austrian rule, he was ordered to disband his private army. He then attempted to create an image of pious and almost saint person, moving to a monastery and sponsoring many religious buildings and organisations – nonetheless, even until his last years, he retained a harem.
Buried in Lawra Poczajowska (Pochayiv Lavra).