Zoffia Potocka (1760-1822)

DOSSIER:
Zofia Clavone, daughter of Constantine and Maria Clovone, was born 12 Jan 1760 in Bursa, Anatolia, Ottoman Empire. She died on 24 Nov 1822 in Berlin, Prussia.

She was a Greek prostitute, slave and spy who became a Polish noblewoman as the wife of Stanislaw Szczesny Potocki. She was famous in the Europe of her day for her dramatic life and her love affairs and was known as the lover of Grigory Potemkin, among others.

ALSO KNOWN AS:
Sophia de Tchelitche
La Belle Phanariote

In 1772, when she was twelve, her mother, who supported herself by selling vegetables, sold Zofia to the Polish ambassador in Constantinople, who provided the Polish monarch with prostitutes: her sister was sold to a Turkish pasha. Zofia was the mistress of the ambassador until 1778, when she became a prostitute and called herself Sophie de Tchelitche. 

In 1779, she was bought by a Polish Commander, Józef Witt, who married her. They had two sons, Jan and Kornel. Witt sent her to Paris with the princess of Nassau-Siegen to be cultivated in polite society. She made a great success in Paris, where she was called La Belle Phanariote and became famous for her remark "My eyes hurt". She was called the most beautiful woman in Europe. During her stay in Paris, she had affairs with the two younger brothers of the French monarch, the count of Provence and the count of Artois.

In 1787, the Witts traveled to Istanbul, where they were at the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War. A year later, she was present in the camp of the favorite of Catherine the Great, Grigory Potemkin, and became his lover, a relationship which lasted until his death. During the siege of Chotin, her husband, then governor of Kamenets, managed Potemkin's spy net in southern Poland and upheld spy contacts in Chotin, although this task was probably managed by Zofia, as her sister was married to the pasha of Chotin. Potemkin made her husband governor of Cherson and probably used her as an agent among the Poles and Turks. She was introduced as the official lover of Grigory Potemkin at a ball during his visit to Saint Petersburg 1791. She was sent away by Aleksandra von Engelhardton the death of Potemkin.

In 1798 Zofia married secondly the Polish nobleman Stanisław Szczęsny Potocki, with whom she had had an affair in Jassy, after he managed to help her acquire a legal Catholic divorce with great difficulty. The wedding was a double rite, Catholic and Orthodox, because of the religion of the bride, and in addition was an expression of loyalty to the Empress Catherine. They had eight children. She also had many lovers and illegitimate children. During her marriage, she had a love affair with her step son, Szczęsny Jerzy Potocki, who was probably the father of her son Boleslaw. Her husband founded the Park Sofijówka ("Sofia's Park") for her at a cost of 15 million złoty.

After the death of her husband in 1805, Zofia Potocka ended her affair with her stepson and devoted her time to her children. According to Polish civil law, a widow received back her dowry and also shared in her husband's property. Due to her lack of dowry, she received little inheritance from Potocki, whose only lawful heirs were the sons of his first marriage. However, with the support of her former stepson Felix Potocki, who was her lover, and the Tsar's governor Nikolai Novosiltsov, another of her lovers, she managed to keep almost the whole of his property.