Milkovshchina

After leaving Skidel 10 km down the road, on the right-hand side you will see a road sign to Milkovshchina. Turn off the main road and keep going for 2 km. In Milkovshchina in 1841 a well-known Belarussian-Polish authoress, Eliza Ozheshko, was born. Eliza lived on her parents’ estate until 1852 when she left to study at boarding school in Warsaw. She returned here only in 1864 fom Lyudvinovo – the estate of her husband Petr Ozheshko. He was exiled to Siberia for participation in the uprising of 1863-1864. During the next five years spent in Milkovshchina ancestral home Eliza Ozheshko wrote 10 stories and around 20 works of fiction or biography. The writer’s estate was destroyed during Worl War II; only a beautiful lime tree alley planted by Eliza and her sister has survived. Not far from the estate is the Pavlovskiys’ family cemetery where the writer’s father, sister and other relatives are buried. It is one of only a few gentry’s burial sites to survive to this day.

Skidel

It was jokingly reffered to as “the sweetest place in Grodno region” because it house a sugar refinery. The small town was established in 1525. At the end of the 19^th century Skidel was the residence of the Chetvertinskys family. These days only the wings, entrance gates and a regular scenic park with two canals, plus remnants of lime-tree alleys remain. A second half of the 19^th century chapel of Dukes Oginskys, which later became a Catholic church is situated in the park. Long ago most the local population in Skidel was Tatar

By road to Eliza Ozheshko and Adam Mitskevich

We invite you to visit places connected with the life and literary activities of the world-famous writers, scientists and public figures of the 19^th century – Eliza Ozheshko, Adam Mitskevich, Yan Chechot, Ignaty Domeiko. This route maks up 44 km in total but takes only one day. Take route A 236 to Lida when exiting Grodno. Four kilometers from the town on the right hand side there is a small village of Ponemun spread over River Neman. In this place there is a late Baroque summer palace built in 1771 by architect Y.Olekhnovich for King Stanislaw August Ponyatovsky.

At the end of the 18^th to the beginning of the 19^th centuries the palace became the property of well-known poet and friend of Tadeush Kostyushko, Yulian Ursul Nemtsevich. A chapel, several of the wings, a financed buildings and scenic park also remain. Eliza Ozheshko celebrated 25^th year of literary activity at this estate, at the end of the 19^th century.

Palace and Park

Oginsky intended to stay in Zalesye forever and started his new Belarussian life with maintenance and rebuilding of the estate. The old palace and park were massively remodeled according to a project of young architect Mikhail Shultz. A two-storey mill, greenhouse, hothouse and a chapel were added. By 1815 most of the construction works in the palace was completed in the style of Classicism. The central part of the palace was emphasized with a four column portico and finished off with a small turret, where striking clock was placed. The greenhouses and a gardener’s designed to suit the scenic courtyard which in the summer was filled with exotic plants and vases with flowers.

Oginsky attached great importance to the creation of an English style park, a popular design of parks in the 19^th century. The park in Zalesye met all the fashion requirements of the time and was a romantic place with pavilions, bridges and memorial stones tastefully placed in the most scenic corners. One of the memorial stones was dedicated to Kostyushko, another to Oginsky’s tutor, Jan Rollei. A watermill by a nearby pond finished off the ensemble.

Contemporaries called Zalesye the “Nothern Athens”. It was the place for the gathering of friends and associates: singer Paliani sang Italian songs, poet Yan Hodzka liked to come with his son Alexander. It is not known exactly how many musical compositions Oginsky composed during this period of his life. His first collection printed in 1817 in Vilno consisted mainly from polonaises, including A-minor “Farewell to Homeland”, the second of romances. It is widely accepted that “Farewell…” was composed in Zalesye.

During his last years at the estate, Oginsky frequently met with representatives of democratic student circles. In 1822 there started to be arrests of their members. The composer realized that he could become a prisoner and asked the Tsarist government for a permission to leave the country. In 1822 he left Zalesye forever.

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.

St.Mikhail’s Catholic Church

The first wooden St. Mikhail’s and St. Alexei’s Catholic Church was built in 1503 from the donation of Brest Voevode Yuriy Zenovich. His son Hristofor was a Genevan and started construction of a Genevan Cathedral instead of the old church. But his descendants Mikolai and Sofia Zavishas in 1621 accepted Catholicism and handed the Genevan church over to the Catholics. From hence it received the name of St.Trinity. In 1866 the church was rebuilt once again as the Orthodox St.Mikhail’s Church and in 1921 returned back to the Catholic parish.

The church has and unusual structure: and eight-sided base for the main building and alongside a many tiered belfry with a hipped roof and an octagonal drum on top attached to the main façade. Where the belfry connects to the building there stands a circular defensive tower. The headstones of the Dukes Zenovichs are kept in the vaults.

Smorgon

This ancient town stands 2 km away from river Viliya, surrounded by scenic landscape. The name of the town comes from a confluence of two words – “smor” (or “smur”, meaning “resin”) and “goni” (to distil). Residents of the ancient settlement extracted resin in nearby forests. The small town is mentioned in the Great Lithuanian Principality documents for the first time in the 16^th century as a settlement owned by the Dukes Zenovichs. In 1533 they founded a Genevan Church of defensive significance that remains intact to this day.

Many archeological findings prove that the territory of modern day Smorgon was inhabited much earlier than its official date of birth suggests. Just one kilometer form the town on the bank of the River Oksana there were found 50 barrows dating back to 1000 BC.

In the second half of the 17^th century the town passed to Dukes Radzivills. By that time the settlement already had a paper factory, a school and a hospital. The township was especially famous as the place of the GLP’s only “Smorgon Academy” – a comic name people gave to the business which specialized in catching and training bears. The “Academy” was founded by the Radzivills. Instructors form this “Bear Academy” along with their apprentices traveled in search of a job as far as Russia, Hungary and Germany.

It was in Smorgon that people started to bake barankas for the first time in the GLP. They were even first called smorgonki after their birth place. Baranka production flourished in the 18^th and in the 19^th centuries.

After the third division of Rzecz Pospolita in 1795 Smorgon was incorporated into the Russian Empire and became the center of Oshmyany Uezd of Vilno Guberniya. The famous Napoleon’s route – a road along wich the French troops retreated in 1812 – runs through the town. Napoleon himself made his last stop with the army before passing over command to Marshal I.Murat and escaping with just his personal guard to Paris.