The article describes the history, including the long episode of Polish rule, in Kamieniec Podolski, which ended in 1672 when Kamieniec fell under Turkish influence, but was returned to the territory of the Republic in 1699. Also described is the Trinitarian church, already built after Kamieniec was taken from Turkish hands. (Source: Tygodnik Illustrowany, Warsaw 1861, T:4, pp. 91-92., after: Digital Library of the University of Łódź).

A modernised reading of the text.

Kamieniec Podolski

"Dear land here, my thought knows it.
"There my happiness first,
"There first my anxieties,
"There Iza first."

So sang a long-dead poet about Podolia, on the rocky deck of the streets of Kamenets sprung up. It was not worth mentioning, for as a consolation both to the dead poet and to his forgotten song, we may say to ourselves that this town lies between 26° and 48°41′ lat. p., and so place a radius of knowledge at the head of the description of Kamenets. But that on this singer, under the minaret trampled by the feet of the Virgin-Mother-King, the first rays of inspiration flowed down and consecrated him to a life overtaken, overtaken, over-travelled and extinguished in unrelieved grief and despair: he already belongs to Kamenets. Every Podolean, when he sees his city, or in the distance, when longing with thought, like a swallow, attaches a nest of memories to its chipped walls, will involuntarily recall the dead singer and the song of his swans, which flew from afar to his homeland; and only later, as a sensible reader who cares for the opinion of decent people, will he turn back in spirit and be happy to find in the description the heartwarming news that quite a considerable fur trade is carried out in Kamieniec. Admittedly, the furs are not particularly good; but it is always trade, and trade saves societies.

Having thus paid homage before the altars of economic faith, we must still bow before the also invigorating power of knowledge and historical-geographical conjecture, and shed a tear of sorrow that distinguished men who, from the location of Kamenets, assume it to be an ancient Dacian settlement, could not, to the greater happiness of their country, reveal to us what the life and living conditions of this settlement were like during the invasions of the Slavs, Goths and Huns.

We can now proceed to recall some dates from the history of Kamenets. As late as 1411, Lithuanian Duke Vytautas resisted the annexation of Podolia and Kamieniec to Poland. This did not happen until after his death in 1430, and by 1434 the Podolia Voivodship already existed. Kamieniec was an outpost of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from the Muslim power, but in 1672 it fell into the hands of the Turks, who built there the famous minaret by the cathedral church and for 27 years proclaimed from its top the preeminence of their prophet. In 1699, with the Treaty of Carlowitz, August II broke the fruit of Sobieski's victories and regained this pearl of the Commonwealth, after the loss of which so many misfortunes afflicted Poland and Lithuania. Finally, Kamenets, annexed to the Empire, became a gubernial city of Podolia.

Kamenets was founded on the ruins of a former town of some sort, in 1331, by the Koriatowicz princes. It immediately became a stronghold against Tartar incursions and held the Republic's guards at almost every corner. However, two major incidents mark the history of Kamieniec. In 1651, Chmielnicki, or rather his son Tymofiej, at his father's behest, went round Kamieniec. Besieged from all sides, the town defended itself bravely, and Khmelnitsky, perhaps fearing to destroy the barrier against the Tatars, finally pulled his son away from the siege. In 1672, on 15 August, the Turks overran Kamieniec, and from 18 August this year began, according to Kochowski's expression, "summa dies et ineluctabile tempus". On 26 August, the outer trenches of the town were blown up with mines, and the besieged noblemen and townsmen, who, relying on their liberties, did not wish to receive the former army within their walls, hoisted the white flag. The Turks entered Kamieniec with the power of capitulation relatively favourable to the town, but they did not keep it at all. On hearing the news of the loss of Kamieniec, Jan Kazimierz, already in France, died of grief on 1 January 1673. It was not until 1699, as mentioned earlier, that the Treaty of Carlowitz returned this stronghold to the Republic of Poland.

Of the magnificent local churches, each would deserve a separate description. However, we will limit ourselves here to a description of the Trinitarian Church, based on the drawing sent to us.

The Trinitarian church is one of the newest, as it was built only after the liberation of Kamieniec from the Turks. A certain Chocimirski bequeathed a hall for the Trinitarian Fathers in 1707, and it was not until later that this beautiful church was built on its site. The Trinitarians were brought to Warsaw by Cardinal Denhoff and moved to Kamenz in 1700 under the name "Trinitatis de Redemptor": "Trinitatis de Redemptione Captivorum". They had first been assigned a monastery at the Lacka Gate, out of a converted Turkish mosque, which soon turned out to be inconvenient.

Kamieniec would deserve a detailed description. It could be the subject of an extensive work; the confines of the present reference only allow me to make a few cursory remarks. Kamenets, together with Mogilev of Podolia, used to be the markets where the East gathered its goods led to Poland. Both Kamenets' commercial and military fame are long gone; only echoes and ruins remain of both. The location of the town is one of the most beautiful in Podolia, which can be called a wonderful garden. On the steep rock, surrounded by the silver ribbon of the Smotrich River, stand the buildings and houses of Kamenets, old and blackened, standing in the care of the Lord's shrines, proud of what was. Beyond the ravine that separates this stone bouquet, which is called the town, rises a circular hill, on which Polish and Ruthenian manors are scattered with semi-urban houses, and the countryside looks at its sister-city with a smile of greenery, gardens and the freshness of its houses, manors and cottages.

The city itself, as pavement and street, immensely busy, passionate, sensitive. All this together makes it very alert to any news or rumour. There is even a local proverb that paints this disposition perfectly: "When someone sneezes in the Windy Gate, in the Zanikowa they say cheers to him." This character of the town is also manifested by its infatuation with music. Liszt maintained that he knew no more musical city than Kamenets.

All this is of no concern to those busy with political economy, industry, commerce, material development, seemingly salutary; for them we give a reasonable description in these words: the town of Kamenets is a gubernial town, with a population of about 17,000, it has grammar schools, all administrative offices and a judiciary, as befits a gubernial capital; it has shops, markets, a public walk on the ramparts, and on the Smotrycz River a garden with a dwelling for the insane, which is called Witt's garden. You will read the rest in the first better geography for the second grade, kind reader.

We end with the fact that the city, so decently and reasonably in the study of geography, should not allow itself to be so beautiful. It would be more decent for it to stand whitewashed, stretched out, waiting to be seen, than to scratch itself on a rock, boast its ruins of fame and shoot up to the sky like a stone prayer with the domes of the houses of God.

And again we think of that poet, that deceased, who nevertheless felt poetically how poetically Kamieniec piles up towards the clouds, and sang in that song itself, something we put at the beginning:

"In vain these days
"Memory in the heart dreams:
Weep, my love, with bitter weeping..."

By the way, grain prices are usually good in Kamenets, and sugar factories are being set up with great fervour in the Podolia Governorate.