In the Novoshchyny District of the Khmelnytsky Region lies the village of Otrokov, the focal point of which is the castle. In 1795-1831 one of the capitals of the independent State of Minkovets, belonging to Count Ignacy Scibor-Marchocki, was located there. This man did not come to terms with the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and established his own state in the Russian partition.

The Mińkowiec State consisted of 1 town and 18 villages. In the first years of its existence, it was inhabited by 4 200 people. The capital of this creation was the village of Minkowce, where Ignacy Scibor-Marchocki (1755-1827) and his family lived in winter. They spent the spring and summer in the Otrokov castle. The monumentality of this building caused the count to place the main state institutions there, including the court of appeal.

Eccentric in the family
Ignacy was the son of Mikhail, the Count of Braclaw, who died when the boy was five years old. The child was brought up by his childless uncle Wojciech, who acquired the Minsk key in 1736 and who bequeathed his estate to his nephew. Ignacy was diligently educated under the guidance of teachers. He mastered Latin, German and French. He loved Roman law, assimilated Platonic ideas about the wise supreme ruler, and studied the works of the French encyclopaedists. He then began his military service in the infantry regiment of the Crown field mace in Kamieniec Podolski. He was promoted to the rank of major. However, he had to leave the service, the reason being his eccentricity (it is not known what it consisted of). Ignacy then moved to Warsaw, where he became a music teacher. In the capital, he married Ewa Ruff, the daughter of an Italian confectioner. This marriage enraged his uncle, who dreamed of a Polish noblewoman as Ignacy's chosen wife. Adalbert's displeasure was so great that he decided to deprive his nephew of his rightful inheritance. He even took some steps to do so, but did not manage to finalise his intentions. He died in 1788, and the Minsk key was inherited by Ignacy.

Progressive reformer
The Scibor-Marchockis came into possession of the Minkowiec key in 1736, thanks to Wojciech, Ignacy's uncle, who died in 1788 owning it to his nephew. After the Second Partition of Poland, the estate of the new owner became part of Austria, and after the Third Partition - of Russia. To demonstrate his opposition to the annihilation of the Republic, in 1795 Ignacy proclaimed an independent "State of Minkovets" on his estates. He erected border posts with inscriptions reading "Borders of the Minkovets State with the Russian Empire" and "Borders of the Minkovets State with the Austrian Empire". A manifestation of the independence of this entity was the issuing of its own coins.

Scibor-Marchocki established his own law, which was contained in the "Statue of Minskovec" written in Latin and issued by his own printing house. This act was solemnly proclaimed on July 1, 1795. The articles in this document had a clear philosophical basis and referred to the views of Johann Jacques Rousseau. In 1804. Scibor-Marchocki composed and proclaimed the "Covenant of the Heir with the Farmers' Serfs", abolishing the serfdom of the peasants and introducing their rents. It was a revolutionary solution, because in Austria the peasants were given freedom in 1848, and in Russia in 1861. The Count guaranteed the peasants inviolability of property, safety and protection from any violence. He believed that every life was precious regardless of the state in which a person was born, so he held funerals for the peasants and even invented epitaphs on their graves. Here is one of them: "He was of peasant origin and his name was Hortensius. He was a gardener by profession and contributed to the beautification of the village of Prytula with his work. He was very intelligent and talented. He lived almost 50 years and died on 17 March 1825." Anyone who referred to the peasants living in the Minsk State as a 'slave', 'muse' or 'peasant' had to pay a huge fine.

A self-government consisting of representatives of peasant, burgher and Jewish communities was introduced in each village of the Minkavets State. There was a 12-member jury court. In case the parties disagreed with its decision, they turned to the court of the second instance. In that case, the sentence was passed by Scibor-Marchocki himself, who was guided by the principles of Roman law in his adjudication. Physical punishments were almost completely abandoned; those guilty of any misdemeanour performed forced labour or spent a few days in jail. The inhabitants of the Minsk State enjoyed freedom of religion: Jews lived alongside Christians, and Old Believers settled in one of the villages.

The Count took care of the welfare of the inhabitants of his state: he established a hospital, where a doctor, a midwife and even a homeopath worked. Crippled and old people were taken to an asylum maintained by Ignatius. There were primary and music schools, a choir and an orchestra. When the plague struck in 1796, he financed state-of-the-art measures to combat the disease. He fed the widows and orphans of the dead. He built and furnished new houses for them, as houses and belongings of the dead were burned during the epidemic.

There were factories producing cloth, fabric, paper, saltpeter, carriages, varnishes, as well as brickyards, mills and vineyards in the Minsk State. A printing press published legal documents and literary works. Thanks to the Count's efforts, the first edition of "Hamlet" was printed in Polish.

Capital in Otrokov
The central administration of the Scibor-Marchocki estate was located in Minkowce, but the Count's most representative seat was in the castle in Otrokov, 8 km from Minkowce, on the Otrokovka river, a tributary of the Ushitsa. The owner was very fond of this place and would stay there with his family in the spring and summer.

Otroków was founded in the 17th century, although it is likely that it already existed during the time of the Duchy of Lithuania. Ignatius built the castle at the end of the 18th century or substantially rebuilt the existing one. The structure was located on a high hill. A road led to it along the rocks among the dense forest. It was entered in front of a high classicist triumphal gate. The castle itself was shaped like an irregular square, "two sides of which were formed by high twenty-sided walls, almost windowless, topped by a crenellation. Adjoining these two austere sides were tall, peaked or octagonal towers, connected by pavilions. The centre of the castellum, closed in on all sides, contained a courtyard around which ran vaulted corridors'. An iron flag flew at the top of the castle.

The estate included a magnificent park. It was founded by the count and named "Bialowieza". To get to the park, one had to climb the surrounding mountain and then descend - "this promenade was made more pleasant by grottos, arbours, small cascades, created from streams in canals "3. The park contained magnificent specimens of oaks, sycamores, birches, beeches and balsam poplars, as well as pinetrees. Walking there, one could come across displays of the host's eccentricities - for example, a skull hanging from a tree with the inscription 'Once upon a time I too was beautiful and young'. There was a chapel on the estate, which the owner referred to as the 'Hermitage'. It was a small brick building, where Scibor-Marchocki's meetings with farmers took place.

There was a huge library in the castle. There Ignacy kept a silver trunk, in which he placed the most important documents of the Minsk State, including the document freeing peasants from serfdom. In the library, he would take in feuding farmers, reconcile them or otherwise resolve the conflict. He stamped all his decisions with the heading "at the Otrokov castle". The state council held its meetings in one of the rooms of the building. The count placed a prison in the basement. Court sessions took place in the castle. The judges sat on benches covered with green cloth. On this occasion Scibor-Marchocki used to put on a purple toga. He presided over the sittings sitting on a scarlet chair, at a table covered with scarlet. The courts passed verdicts in serious and trivial matters. The following was one of the latter. A young man sneaked into the castle to peep at Scibor-Marchocki's daughter. And then he asked the count for the girl's hand. Ignacy considered this behaviour as a sign of extreme audacity and held the young man responsible. During the court session, he hit the scarlet table three times with the knob of his mace and pronounced sentence. As the accused had offended all the girls in Otrokovo with his actions, they must punish him. However, the women's revenge could not be bloody, so the maidens are to go to the prison, hit the offender with green twigs, spit on him and drive him out of the Minsk State.

Otrokov was often visited by the co-founder of the May 3rd Constitution, Tadeusz Czacki, with whom the count was connected by friendship and shared views on education. In the conversations with his distinguished guest, Scibor-Marchocki repeatedly stressed the importance of education for simple people. That is why he opened primary schools in the villages belonging to him. In 1817 he even carried out the intention of establishing a university in the Minsk State.

Ignatius was fond of ritualised performances. Together with his family and peasants, he celebrated the festival of Cerera ( Ceres), the Roman goddess of the harvest. The ceremony started with a service in the church, where Scibor-Marchocki stood dressed in an ancient Greek toga. After the service, the Count rode out on something resembling a chariot, holding a stick in his hand. He was followed by all those gathered towards the fields. The procession was opened by - as described by the Podolia chronicler Dr Antoni Rolle - "a ceremonial plough of beautiful carpentry work, on rolled wheels, drawn by eight black oxen with golden horns [...] On the plough sat an appendage belonging to the farmer's family, in the dress of an Arcadian shepherd [...] The plough was surrounded by eight ladies dressed as village girls. Immediately afterwards, the people followed, [...] and each farmer also carried a plough, if he had one; the young men carried agricultural tools, the women bundles of various crops, bouquets of field herbs, wreaths, all in festive costumes. Behind the people advanced a ceremonial chariot with a throne of three steps, drawn by six horses, dressed in gallooned capes, with feathers and ribbons, led by six mastaliers".

Count a heretic
What was the attitude of the authorities to Ignatius' eccentricities? Paradoxically, however, the Count's founding of the State of Minsk and abolition of serfdom was looked down upon. The authorities - both secular and Orthodox - were alarmed by the fact that Scibor-Marchocki preached in church and by his eccentric appearance (the well-known diarist Aleksander Yelovitsky remembered Ignacy as follows: "he had a white and long beard like Saint Onufry, he wore a huge hat, a golden lance, a rasa ( light velvet cloth) velvet; and, as pages go, he looked like the most magnificent metropolitan [...]". A demand was made to stop the celebration of the pagan festival of Cerery. When Ignatius ignored this order, a criminal case was initiated and in 1817 the count was put in prison for a short time. When Scibor-Marchocki was released, he turned to Alexander I, who ordered him to leave the Pole alone.

Scibor-Marchocki 's legacy
After the count's death, the Minkovets Estate was inherited by his son Karol, who continued his father's activity. Unfortunately, in the 1830s Ignacy's estate was nationalised when it was proved that his heir had supported the decabrists' uprising. The Scibor-Marchocky peasants became slaves again.

Ignatius and his reforms were remembered until the outbreak of the 1917 revolution. The new rulers desecrated the corpse of the Pole. Today, his burial place is unknown. The Bolsheviks not only wiped out the knowledge of the Polish reformer, but also destroyed the buildings built by the Count. Only the Otrokovo castle has survived, including the towers, a large part of the building itself, several buildings, a triumphal gate, romantic grottoes and a well.

Nowadays, the memory of the Polish reformer, who is seen as the first self-governor in the Ukrainian lands, is being revived in Ukraine. Sightseeing tours come to Otrokovo, and a folklore festival is held in the summer. Ten years ago, the scientist and journalist Volodymyr Zakhariev opened the Museum of the State of Minkovtsy in Minkovtsy, the first capital of the Scibor-Marchotsky State.