Michaà  Kleofas Ogià Âski (25 September 1765 â 15 October 1833) was a Polish diplomat and politician, Grand Treasurer of Lithuania, and a senator of Tsar Alexander I. He was also a composer of late Classical and early Romantic music.
It is claimed by some sources that Ogià Âski was born in Guzów in Mazovia (west of Warsaw) in the Kingdom of Poland. Nevertheless, in 2025 Lithuanian researchers found records in metrics of the Salantai Church of the Assumption where it is stated that Ogià Âski was born in the surroundings of Salantai (present-day Kretinga District Municipality of Lithuania) and was baptized in the Salantai Church of the Assumption. His father, Andrzej, was a Polish-Lithuanian nobleman from the Ogià Âski family and Trakai governor of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Hence, some sources indicate that Michaà  Ogià Âski was Lithuanian. His mother, Paulina Szembek (1740âÂÂ1797), was the daughter of Polish magnate, Marek Szembek, whose ancestors were Austrian, and Jadwiga Rudnicka, who was of Lithuanian descent. His first introduction to music arose during a visit to relatives at Sà Âonim where Michaà  Kazimierz Ogià Âski had a contemporary European theatre that hosted opera and ballet productions.
Michaà  Kleofas received an Enlightenment gentleman's education. He studied music with Józef Kozà Âowski and took violin lessons from Giovanni Battista Viotti, Pierre Baillot, and Ivan Mane JarnoviÃÂ. Since his father's diplomatic mission to Vienna in 1772, the prince's tutor was Jean Rolay, later tutor to Emperor Leopold II. Michaà  Kleofas learned French, German and Latin. Years later, Ogià Âski erected a monument to his tutor at the palace in Zaliessie as a token of his gratitude.
Michaà  Kleofas had an older sister, Józefa, and half-brothers, his mother's sons from previous marriages: Feliks à Âubieà Âski and Antoni Protazy Potocki.
Aged only 20, Ogià Âski was chosen as an envoy of the PolishâÂÂLithuanian Commonwealth. He served as an adviser to King Stanisà Âaw August Poniatowski and supported him during the Great Sejm of 1788âÂÂ1792.
In 1788 he received the Order of Saint Stanislaus and in 1789 - the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest order. In 1790 he was dispatched as a diplomatic representative to the United Kingdom, where he met with Lord Mansfield who warned him about the danger posed by the tri-partite powers about to dismember the Kingdom of Poland. After 1790, he was sent to The Hague as a diplomatic representative of Poland to the Netherlands and was Polish agent in Constantinople and Paris. In 1793, he was nominated to the office of Vice-Treasurer of Lithuania.
During the Koà Âciuszko Uprising in 1794, Ogià Âski commanded his own unit. After the insurrection was suppressed, he emigrated to Constantinople and later to France, where he sought support for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
At that time he saw the creation of the Duchy of Warsaw by the Emperor as a stepping stone to the eventual full independence of the Commonwealth. He dedicated his only opera, Zelis et Valcour, to Napoleon. In 1810, Ogià Âski withdrew from political activity in exile and, disappointed with Napoleon, returned to Vilnius. Adam Jerzy Czartoryski introduced him to Tsar Alexander I, who made Ogià Âski a Russian Senator. Ogià Âski tried in vain to convince the Tsar to reconstitute the former Commonwealth. Disillusioned, he moved abroad in 1815. He died in Florence in 1833.
As a composer, he is best known for his polonaise Farewell to My Homeland (Poà ¼egnanie Ojczyzny), written in 1794 in the Zalesie region (then part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, today in Belarus), on the occasion of his emigration after the suppression of the Koà Âciuszko Uprising. This piece, with its unreservedly melancholic melodies and fantasia-like passages, can be considered among the earliest examples of Polish romantic music before Chopin.
Ogià Âski admired French and Italian opera as well as the works of Haydn and Mozart. He was a violinist, and played the clavichord and the balalaika. He began composing marches and military songs in the 1790s that gained popularity among the rebels of 1794. He composed some 20 polonaises, piano pieces, mazurkas, marches, romances and waltzes.
Some of his other popular works and compositions include: