The article describes the history of the town of Ołyk, where the Radziwiłł estate is located. The town is described, including the church and the building of the town hall. The history of the town from medieval times to the author's contemporaries is sketched. (Source: Tygodnik Illustrowany, Warsaw 1860, T:2, pp. 585-587., after: Digital Library of the University of Łódź).

A modernised reading of the text

Ołyka

"To me everything is so nice, what is peculiar, what is ours,
And people dear and kind to me.".

- Teofil Lenartowicz.

The city of Ołyka, with three suburbs joining it: Turczyn, Zalesocz and Miłowica, lies at the mouth of the Miłowiczka River into the Putyłówka River, almost in the middle between three district towns: Rivne, Dubne and Lutsk, in the Dubien district. Driving from Rivne, the view of the city from afar is delightful. The magnificent church, castle and town hall, the white-washed Orthodox church; here and there, the neat, orchard-decorated houses of the townspeople; the silvery surfaces of the peacefully slumbering ponds; the hills, and the meandering rivers between them, are a lovely sight. As one approaches the town, the charm disappears too. An aged gate with the Radziwill coat of arms comes into view, as if in deputation from the town, lamenting its misery. The old, blackened castle, shooting upwards with its turret, bears on its shoulders the grim eagle of the Radziwills. Poor thing! Destroyed, it has lost one wing.

Just at the foot of the castle ramparts there flows a clear and wide river, always the same, cheerful, boisterous, as if mocking his misery; but he, hardy, hides in his trenches. And behold, already, the castle's younger brothers, the church and the town hall, too, look out; how time has changed them, though always magnificent! Strange is the predilection of these people: they have coloured the statues standing in the frames of the church frontage with the most varied colours! This mottling is not at all in keeping with the magnificent construction of the church, embellished inside and out with costly marbles. The town hall, a few years younger than the church, has aged even more superficially; the session room on the top floor without a roof, and the remnants of the underdeveloped prisons threaten the curious visitor. One part of it in ruins, and in a few years' time the whole building will surely collapse.

Apart from these reminders of the city's great state, you will find nothing here, not even a decent inn; everywhere Jewry is dirty and poor, like in small towns. Here you see a kind of silent struggle between Polesie and Volhynia. The waters, the hum of the orchards, the small scorned bungalows of the tribes of Israel, remind you of Polesie; but the struggle is uneven, the Volhynian elements prevail, and the black forest from afar appears, like a new horde, rushing to the aid of its failing fellows. Let us now turn to the town's history. Ołyka was first owned by the Kishkas.

Around 1513, Anna, daughter of Stanisław of Ciechanowiec Kiszka, marshal of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, married Jan Radziwiłł Brodaty and brought him Nieśwież, Ołyka and Lachwa as dowry. The son of Jan Bearded and Anna, Jan Radziwiłł, a countryman of Lithuania, was the first to sign (1544) on Ołyka. His brother, Mikolaj, known as Czarny, obtained the title of Duke of Nesvizh, Ołyka and Kłeck from Emperor Charles V, which was confirmed by King Zygmunt August in 1549. Being a Calvinist himself, he upheld the new doctrine in St Peter's Church, which had already existed since 1450. Mikolaj's sons, Mikolaj Krzysztof Sierotka (who established a fund in Ołyka to equip orphans, which was sacrosanctly fulfilled until the church was deprived of its landed property), Stanislaw and Albert, were approved by the 1589 Sejm resolution to establish ordinations in Nieświeże, Ołyka and Kłeck. Stanislaw Radziwill, marsh. w. l., was the first Ordynat of Ołyka.

Having renounced Protestantism, at the encouragement of the Jesuits, notably Piotr Skarga, he soon dismissed the Calvinist clergy from Ołyka for ever, and, recognising the need, multiplied the number of Catholic priests and allocated appropriate funds for their upkeep. His son, Albert Stanislaw Radziwill, chancellor of the Polish Catholic Church, having obtained permission from Pope Urban VIII, founded St. Peter's Church, collegiate church and hospital in Ołyka in 1635. The church, named Holy Trinity and completed in 1640, was consecrated by Andrzej Gębicki, bishop of Lutsk. The building was constructed under the supervision of the architect Jan Melivern, and the sculpture under the supervision of Melchior Ampeli from Lviv. In 1638, the same duke founded the so-called academy and seminary at the Olivet collegiate church. In 1838 the buildings housing these institutions collapsed; however, the seminary was rebuilt at the expense of the priests, while the academy was rebuilt at the expense of the citizens, and existed until 1846 under the name of a parish school.

Prince Stanislaus, not content with founding and beautifying the collegiate church, richly endowed it with goods; moreover, he donated many silver and gold objects for religious ceremonies; he beautified the town and surrounded it with an earth rampart, in which two brick gates with the coats of arms of the Radziwills were built, and several shooting towers in various places. The defensive castle, firmly built in a square on the inside, has three storeys on one side and two on the other three; the lower storey is tightly surrounded by a rampart; further on there is a masonry wall with a water-filled fossa at the bottom. At the corners of the castle stood two-storey bastions (of which two are in ruins) with circular loopholes. Two gates lead to the spacious castle courtyard, of which the gate on the Turin side had a tower with the Radziwill eagle on it. The castle always had a princely garrison and cannons. Despite the rather defensive state of the town at the time, it was looted and burnt down by Khmelnytsky's Cossacks (1648).

Again in 1651, the same Cossacks in the number of 18,000 surrounded it, demanding ransom. Lasocki, who commanded the garrison, forced them to retreat after a three-day siege. In addition, the church archives mention an attack by Tartars, who were often mixed up with Turks (hence the name Turchin), and an attack by Swedes around 1702. Prince Stanislaw died in 1651; he was buried in the Collegiate Church, where there are also graves: Maria Myszczanka, daughter of Mikolaj Myszka, castellan of Volhynia, wife of Stanislaw Radziwill, died 1600; Mikolaj Krzysztof Radziwill, son of Duke Stanislaw and Maria Myszczanka, died 1614; three minors, Mikolaj Stanislaw and Jerzy; Stanislaw Albert's first wife, Regina von Eizenreich, died 1637, and his second wife, Krystyna Anna, princess of Lubomirska, daughter of Stanislaw Prince Lubomirski.

The most precious jewel of Ołyka, which is rarely to be found in any other town, is the Magdeburg Law, granted to it by Prince Mikolaj Radziwill in 1564. This privilege, as well as the privilege for fairs, was confirmed by Sigismund Augustus, Sigismund III, and Ladislaus IV, and has lasted to this day under the laws of the Russian state. Ołyka, after the death of Prince Albert Radziwiłł, fell to Prince Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł, ordinate of Nesvizh, and to this day the two ordinates are united. The last of the dukes in a straight line to rule Ołyka and Nesvizh was Dominik Radziwiłł, d. 1803. After him, the Ołyka and Nesvizh ordinates fell to Prince Antoni, son of Michał Radziwiłł, Voivode of Vilnius, from the Klecko line of ordinates.

This Duke Antoni, spouse of Fryderyka Ludwika, daughter of Duke August Ferdinand of Prussia, died in 1833 as Grand-Governor of the Grand Duchy of Posen. Their sons, Fryderyk Wilhelm Paweł Mikołaj (b. 1797) and Fryderyk Ludwik Wilhelm Bogusław (b. 1809), both in Prussian service, are the present entail-holders of Nesvizh and Ołyka. It is a sad thing to compare the formerly excellent condition of Olyka with today's miserable one. In the castle, which has survived almost three centuries, the ceilings are falling down and the magnificent halls are filled with debris; the poor inhabitants, most of them Radziwiłłs' grafters, share their shelters with tawny owls, whose cries fill with involuntary terror. The town hall is also falling down more each year; for several years now the town magistrate has been sitting in a separate house.

Only one church out of these dear reminders of the past, thanks to the zeal of the priests and parishioners of Olytsya, is in good condition, but it too is far from its former glory. The condition of the town itself is miserable; it was justly described by Kraszewski as a ruin of Wołyń. The attacks and fires, particularly in 1805 and 1833, completely destroyed the financial state of the town; there is almost no trade, and no monastery of the Bernardine nuns. There is hardly any trade in the town, nor in the convent of the Bernardine nuns. Otherwise, all is quiet.