The text describes the village of Dudzicze, located in the Ihumen district. A manor house currently owned by the Uniechowski family has been preserved in Dudzicze. The text briefly presents the history of Dudzicze, as well as a description of the manor house. The text is accompanied by a relevant photograph, depicting the estate (Source: "Ziemia. Tygodnik Krajoznawczy Ilustrowany', Warsaw 1910, no. 12, p. 6, after: Wielkopolska Biblioteka Cyfrowa).

A modernised reading of the text

Manor in Dudzicze.

Dudzicze estate, one of the most interesting old-fashioned manor houses in Lithuania, is located in the Minsk region, in the Ihumen district, on the ancient route leading from Minsk to Slutsk and further to Volhynia. In Batory times, Dudzicze belonged to the powerful Odachowski family.

Sold in 1621 to Janusz Bychowc, it became the hereditary property of the Zaranek Horbowscy family in the first half of the 18th century. Aleksandra Zarankówna brought the estate into the Prozor family in 1767 by marrying the Kaunas castellan Josef Prozor, a man of great fortune, Spartan manners and exceptional intellect. Prozor took a liking to Dudzicze and was happy to stay longer at his wife's estate.

It was he who, in 1769, built here, in a beautiful location on the Ptycza River, amidst the park, a spacious wooden station, called the palace, which has survived in its original form. Of Aleksandra Prozorowa's two daughters, one brought the Sierhiejewice estate into the Bukaty house, and the other the Dudzice estate into the Jelski house. In those days Dudzicze became the focal point of life of a vast area. Stanisław Jelski's wife's half-brother, Karol Prozor, the last Lithuanian military officer, a noble historical figure and personal friend of Kościuszko, visited them at Dudzicze more than once. The reformist current of the last years of Stanisław August's reign was reflected quite strongly in Dudzicze.

Above all, a two-classroom school was established there and the relationship of the village community to the manor was reformed. In addition, craft workshops were set up, with 20 foremen brought in from Germany. The influence of this hard-working colony on the region was considerable, as many of the landowners took up handicrafts, and although after 1795 the imported foremen did not want to stay in Lithuania any longer and moved back to their homeland, some handicrafts were still practised by the landowners and have survived in Dudzicze even to this day. The Dudzicze parish school was the most memorable place of learning for the distinguished literary historian Aleksander Zdanowicz, whose parents rented a w³óka of land from the Jelskis in the Biełkievičy estate, where the scholar was born in 1808.

Later, in 1812, when Napoleon's troops entered Lithuania, the columns of Duvost's army and the entire corps of Prince Jozef Poniatowski passed through Dudzicze. The prince stayed in Dudzicze for several days and lived in a chamber, carefully preserved in its original furnishings to this day. In recent years, Dudzicze, as a bequest of Zofia Jelska, the only daughter of Michal J., a well-known composer and violinist, passed to the Uniechowski family.

The manor house, together with two adjoining outbuildings, forms a horseshoe and contains some 20 large, high chambers. The large doors and windows (the latter with numerous small panes), the cookers of enormous dimensions, made of colourfully glazed tiles, of which a factory is supposed to have once existed in Dudzicze, with cornices and lace, are a peculiarity of a kind.