Today Olomouc is a destination for many Polish tourists. Probably not many of them realise that Hugo Kołłątaj (1750-1802), an Enlightenment reformer of education, Sub-Chancellor of the Crown, pillar of the patriotic party during the Great Sejm, and one of the co-authors of the 3rd May Constitution, came to Olomouc at the end of the 18th century. However, Kołłątaj arrived in the Moravian capital not of his own free will, but as an Austrian prisoner of state. After the fall of the Kościuszko Uprising in 1794, he intended to make his way through Galicia to Venice. Handed over to the Austrian authorities in Przemyśl, he was arrested and imprisoned in Olomouc and the Josefstadt fortress in the Czech town of Jaroměř. Hugo Kołłątaj was imprisoned in Olomouc twice (December 1794-February 1795; July 1798-October 1802). He regained his freedom only in the autumn of 1802. One of Kołłątaj's most important works was written during his stay in Olomouc - the three-volume Critical Study of the Principles of History on the Origins of the Human Race, in which he presented original thoughts on the origins of philosophy and an anthropogeographical concept of man and his place in the natural world.

Hugo Kołłątaj plaque in Olomouc

A plaque commemorating Hugo Kołłątaj, designed by Professor Marek Mielczarek, was placed in 2015 on the wall of the historic Jesuit college in Olomouc, which (after the dissolution of the order) housed a prison, next to an existing plaque dedicated to the Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the American War of Independence and the French Revolution. Nearby, there is also a plaque commemorating Jan III Sobieski, whose author is Dr Artur Lubos. Both commemorations were initiated - in agreement with the Olomouc authorities - by the Częstochowa-based "Silva Rerum Polonarum" Foundation. The plaques were funded by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.