Kollataj (or Kollontaj), Hugo (1750–1812)

Polish politician, writer, and educational reformer. He helped draft the liberal Polish constitution in 1791, and served in government. When Prussia and Russia seized Polish territory in 1793, Kollataj played a prominent role in the abortive nationalist uprising led by Tadeusz Kosciuszko in 1794. He fled abroad to Austria, where he was jailed.

Kollataj studied in Cracow and Italy, and, after entering the priesthood in 1774, became rector of Cracow University in 1782. He moved to Warsaw in 1786 and began to campaign for political, social, and economic reform. Renowned as one of the most outstanding intellectuals of his age, his economic and social ideas were influenced by the physiocrats and Adam Smith. After his period in exile, he later tried unsuccessfully to return to politics in the Duchy of Warsaw.