Plater family

The Plater family is a German and Polish noble family originating from Westphalia, whose members first settled in Livonia and later in Lithuania and Poland.

Plater coat of arms

Plater-Zyberk coat of arms

History

The family was first documented in 1274 with knight Hinricus de Broyle and later in 1392 with Rötger von dem Broel genannt Plater. Their original seat was Broel in County of Mark, hence the family's name was von dem Broel. The part of the family that moved in 15th century to Livonia used the name Plater or the combined Broel-Plater. The Plater-Zyberk branch line was founded by Michał Plater-Zyberk, who married Izabela Helena Syberg zu Wischling (1785-1849), daughter of Jan Tadeusz Syberg zu Wischling, the last male representative of the Syberg family. In order to save his wife's family name, he adopted her surname and the coat of arms.

The Platers returned to Catholicism in the 17th century and held high offices in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and achieved magnate status in the 18th century, with six representatives of the family achieveing a seat in the Senate. The basis of the family's importance in Polish Livonia was the uninterrupted holding of the post of starosta in Dyneburg since 1670.

Notable members of the family

• Gotard Jan Plater (d. 1664) – militaryman
• Jan Andrzej Plater (1626-1696) – voivode of Livonia
• Ferdinand Fabian Plater (1678-1739) – Court Marshal of Lithuania
• Jan Ludwik Plater (d. 1736) – voivode of Inflanty
• Konstanty Ludwik Plater (1722-1778) – voivode of Mstislavl
• August Hiacynt Plater (1745-1803) – marshal of the Targowica Confederation
• Józef Wincenty Plater (1745-1806) – field notary of Lithuania
• Kazimierz Konstanty Plater (1749-1807) – starosta
• Jerzy Konstanty Plater (1810-1836) – bibliographer
• Ludwik August Plater (1775-1846) – insurgent of the Kościuszko Insurrection
• Konstanty Plater (1778-1849) – marshal of nobility
• Stanisław Plater (1784-1851) – officer, historian, geographer
• Adam Antoni Plater (1790-1862) – landowner, polymath, zoologist
• Emilia Plater (1806-1831) – officer of the November Uprising
• Lucjan Stanisław Plater (1808-1857) – November Uprising insurgent
• Michał Plater-Zyberk (1777-1862) – naturalist
• Henryk Ludwik Plater (1817-1868) – clergyman
• Leon Plater (1836-1863) – insurgent of the January Uprising, executed in Dyneburg
• Władysław Plater (1808-1889) – founder of the Polish National Museum in Rapperswil
• Ludwik Kazimierz Plater (1844-1909) – landowner, industrialist, economic activist
• Adam Alfred Plater (1836-1909) – archaeologist, marshal of the nobility
• Cecylia Plater-Zyberk (1853-1920) – social activist, educator and publicist.
• Zygmunt Plater-Zyberk (1901-1978) – architect
• Kazimierz Plater (1915-2004) – chess player
• Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk (b. 1950) – architect and urban planner

Bibliography

• ORAGES D'EUROPE - Souvenirs 1899-1950 - du Comte Alexandre de PLATER-SYBERG - Editions LACURNE.

• Wróbel, Łukasz (2018). "Hylzenowie, Platerowie i Tyzenhauzowie. Szlachta inflancka i jej rola w życiu politycznym osiemnastowiecznej Rzeczypospolitej" [The Hylzen family, the Plater family and the Tyzenhauz family. The Livonian nobility and its role in the political life of the eighteenth-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth]. Res Gestae. 6.