Jacob Frank - Prison and Later Days

Prison and Later Days

Frank's imprisonment lasted thirteen years, yet it only increased his influence with the sect by surrounding him with the aura of martyrdom. Many Frankists established themselves near Częstochowa, and kept up constant communication with their "holy master". Frank inspired his followers through mystical speeches and epistles, in which he stated that salvation could be gained only by first adopting the "religion of Edom" (Christianity) and later adopting a future religion which Frank called das ("knowledge"). After the first partition of Poland, Frank was released by the Russian general Bibikov, who had occupied Częstochowa, in August 1772. Frank lived in the Moravian town of Brno until 1786, surrounded by a retinue of adherents and pilgrims who came from Poland. His daughter Eve began to play an important role in the organization of the sect at this time. Frank kept a force of armed men at his "court" in Brünn. Future czar Paul I of Russia visited him.

Accompanied by his daughter, Frank repeatedly traveled to Vienna, and succeeded in gaining the favor of the court. Maria Theresa regarded him as a disseminator of Christianity among the Jews, and it is even said that Joseph II was favorably inclined to the young Eve Frank. Ultimately Frank was deemed unmanageable and he was obliged to leave Austria. He moved with his daughter and his retinue to Offenbach, in Germany, where he assumed the title of "Baron of Offenbach," and lived as a wealthy nobleman, receiving financial support from his Polish and Moravian followers, who made frequent pilgrimages to Offenbach. On the death of Frank in 1791, Eve became the "holy mistress" and leader of the sect. Her fortunes dwindled in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, and she died in Offenbach in 1816.

Some Frankists were active during the French Revolution, such as Moses Dobruška, a son of Frank's Sabbatian cousin in Offenbach Shendl Dobruska. Many of the Frankists saw Napoleon Bonaparte as a potential Messiah. The Frankists scattered in Poland and Bohemia eventually intermarried into the gentry and middle class. Maria Szymanowska, a piano virtuoso, came from a Frankist family. Wanda Grabowska, the mother of Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński, also descended from Frankists.

In 1883, a Russian magazine Русская старина (Russian Old Times) issued memoirs of an influential official of the Russian Ministry of the Interior, the privy councillor and staunch anti-Semite O. A. Phzetslavsky. He promulgated the allegations that the mothers of three of the greatest men of Poland (Frederic Chopin, Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Słowacki) were converted Jews from the Frankist sect. Similar assertions were put forth by Mieses and Balaban.