Zalesye

Let’s go to a place famous for its polonaises. Several kilometers along the Minsk road from Smorgon there lies the town of Zalesye. It was some of the finest Belarusian music was composed including the famous “Farewell to Homeland” by Mikhail Kleofas Oginsky (the outstanding political figure of the second half of the 18^th beginning of the 19^th century). It is difficult to imagine European musical culture without “Oginsky’s Polonaise”.

Mikhail oginsky was born in Guzov near Warsaw on September 25, 1765. He was brilliantly educated, knew several languages, wrote poems, played a violin and a clavier, and had a great knowledge of European and vernacular history. His generation witnessed and participated in many epoch-marking political events. Mikhail Oginsky was a patriot of the Great Lithuanian Principality and Rzecz Pospolita and in 1794 he joined the national liberation uprising headed by Tadeush Kostyushko.

After its crashing defeat Oginsky was forced to leave the country. He spent 8 years abroad but did not feel at ease either in Paris or Venice. In 1802 he got permission from Emperor Alexander I to return to Russia and he arrived back to St.Petersburg. Before Mikhail’s return his aunt handed over one of his estates – the Zalesye property in the Oshmyany district – to his nephew. Mikhail Oginsky spent his last two decades here, filled with hope and disappointment, the joys and sorrows of creative works.