Press release about Vilnius magazines which are to give details about the past of the Mickiewicz manor house, where the Adam Mickiewicz museum is to be arranged. The text recalls the history of the house (Source: 'Ilustrowany Kurier Codzienny', Krakow 1936, no. 122, p. 8, after: Małopolska Biblioteka Cyfrowa).

A modernised reading of the text

Mickiewicz Manor in Novogrudok.

Vilnius magazines provide details of the past of the Mickiewicz Manor in Novogrudok, which is to house the Adam Mickiewicz Museum, where the bard spent his childhood. The manor house was built on a site acquired in 1803 by the bard's father, Nikolai Mickiewicz. At the time of the house's construction, the Mickiewicz family was in dire financial straits and had court cases to contend with. In 1838, the manor house was auctioned off in exchange for the Mickiewicz family's debts, and was then purchased by Aniela Bijołtowa, née Dąbrowska, who in 1857 also bought the square in Trojecka St., which is now Mickiewicza St.

After Bijołtowa's death, the manor house was bequeathed to Antoni Dąbrowski in 1867. In 1881, during the fire in Novogrudok, all the buildings in the manor house were destroyed, only the vaults and walls of the tenement house remained intact. Dąbrowski proceeded to rebuild the house six years later, keeping the same external shapes and internal layout from the poet's time. At the same time, an annex was built and the neighbouring square was added. At the time, the house was one of the best dwellings in Novogrudok, so it was usually occupied by marshals of the nobility.

The last of them moved out in 1918. General Scheffer's staff lived there during the German occupation, General Lasocki's staff after the Polish army occupied Novogrudok, and the manor house was occupied by the Krasno-Amazurian higher authorities during the Bolshevik invasion. In 1921, Maria Wierzbowska moved there. In 1931, Tadeusz Dąbrowski, the owner of the manor house, was approached by the Nowogródek Committee for the Commemoration of Adam Mickiewicz, who proposed the creation of a library and museum of the bard, and when he repeated this proposal in 1932, the owner agreed, but did not bequeath the manor house to him, as was erroneously reported in the press.

At present, the Committee occupies the annexe, where it has placed the collection and its office, but the residential house is still occupied by the former tenant, Maria Wierzbowska. It should be added that the bard's son, the late Władysław Mickiewicz, visited the manor in 1922.