The text describes Wiśniowiec, located on the Horynia River in Volyn Governorate and established as early as the 14th century, and recalls the folk etymology of the name, which is said to have originated from the Wiśniowiecki family. In fact, from the mid-16th century, every prince from Wiśniowiec "wrote himself Prince Korybut Wiśniowiecki". Wiśniowiec was supposed to pass into the hands of the Czartoryski family, but was bought back by Michał Wiśniowiecki soon afterwards. The article goes on to describe the castle in Wiśniowiec (Source: Tygodnik Illustrowany, Warsaw 1870, Series 2, T:5, pp. 169-170, after: University of Łódź Digital Library).

A modernised reading of the text.

Wiśniowiec Castle.

On the banks of the Morynia River, in the Volyn Governorate, 24 versts from Krzemieniec, between lofty rocky hills, among ravines and oak forests, lie two towns called Old and New Višniavets. There is no doubt that this is one of the most beautiful areas of the Volyn province; lovers of natural sciences will find treasures of fossils in the local limestone deposits, already partially marked in the works of Eichwald and Jakowicki; the recently discovered bones of the fossil elephant (mammoth), as well as the nearby caves which have not yet been scientifically explored, indicate that for many centuries a thread of the history of the earth and the human race has been woven here. And in the written history Wiśniowiec also appears to be a very ancient settlement. Its foundation was once attributed to the Wiśniowiecki family; however, more recent research has shown that the settlement is unequally ancient, as it is actually where they got their name from. However, the history of Wiśniowiec does not yet reveal its past history. All we know is that in the 14th century, it was owned by the princes ruling in Lithuania, from whom it was leased by Vasil, son of Theodore, a prince of Nesvizh, who later granted it to himself as a life tenancy in return for his faithful service. His son Soltan was already a hereditary owner, and his closest heirs took the surname of the Kniaziai of Višniavtsy. The first historical local duke, Michael, son of Vasil, a brave warrior against the Tatars, fought a bloody and unfortunate battle near the town in autumn 1494, as a result of which Wiśniowiec was completely destroyed. Similar attacks were to be repeated in 1500 and 1502, according to chroniclers. It was not until 28 April 1512 that these defeats were made up for by a decisive victory over the Tartars, which was won two miles from the village of Łopuszna, where accounts of this great victory still circulate. Since then, Wiśniowiec remained in complete peace for several dozen years. It was at this time that the local heirs, following in the footsteps of the neighbouring magnates, appropriated the highest lineage, and the well-meaning genealogists derived them in a straight line from Korybut, Olgierd's grandson, whose descendants, according to the sources now known, had completely and without trace died out. But at that time no one dared to deny them the right to do so, and from the mid-16th century every prince from Wiśniowiec was called Prince Korybut Wiśniowiecki, although in fact they were an old family, exclusively and in all respects local. They faithfully adhered to the tribe's legends, preserving the customs and habits of their forefathers for a long time, and only under the overwhelming influence of business did they take a different path. Namely, there was a fight between them over the matter of religion. All of them were originally of Slavic rite, but in later times these and those converted to Latin, which intensified the fight within the family. Women were particularly prominent in this respect. Even in the early years of the 17th century, when almost all the Wisniowiecki family already belonged to the Roman Catholic Church, still the parents of Prince Jeremiah, King Michael's father, stood firmly by the ancestral rite. Brought up in the principles of exclusivism and separatist feudalism, in a land where everyone was a duke, in order to escape the equalization made in the state, they tried, together with others who had the power to do so, to distinguish their origin and advance it to the highest possible level. In the veins of the Wiśniowiecki family the blood of chivalry flowed from generation to generation. There were many heroes among them, and many legendary, poetic and statuesque figures. For example, what a special personage is this Prince Dmitry, the first historical warlord of Zaporizhzhya, an almost fabulous figure, a man of unlimited courage and incomprehensible pride. Or Prince Jeremiah, a man of great heart and importance, with unrestrained pride and conceit, whose adventurous and extraordinary life is so richly and beautifully detailed in the collection of files on the history of southern and western Rus, published in St Petersburg. However, there are many other Wiśniowieckis who are very interesting characters and many of them would make an interesting drama or painting. They usually lived in Wiśniowiec, where they used to have a defensive castle in the old town, often fending off enemies; their importance was once so great that the life of the whole province was concentrated here for several centuries. In 1593, Wiśniowiec was bequeathed to the Czartoryski family; but twenty years later, it was bought by Prince Michał Wiśniowiecki, Castellan of Kyiv, an ardent founder of many monasteries, who was in love with old books and Slavic memorabilia. His son, a famous warrior in history, Prince Jeremiah, rebuilt the local castle around 1640, enlarged it and duly fortified it. At that time, he called himself Duke of Wiśniowiec and Łuby, and was probably the most wealthy man of his time. His estates, apart from those in Volhynia, started from the towns of Chehryn and Dubrova on the Dnieper, stretched over the Sule to the mouth of the Supoja (through the whole of today's Poltava district) and, having taken over much of the country on the Sule, included Chorol and Poltava and reached almost as far as Konotop (in the Chernihiv district). In this area there were 50 towns and villages with 39010 farmers. Besides, Duke Jeremi had a lot of farms and manors; he owned 423 mills on Ukrainian rivers; the large estates of Liumno, Lochvitsa, Jercmiivka and Przyluki belonged to him. He also had hereditary lands and large starosties. Being the owner of such an immense fortune, and being extremely popular, this man of great fate fell almost into poverty and left nothing of his property to his son; but it was this poverty that brought his son to the crown. When the Turks, having conquered Podolia in 1670, marched deep into the country, the castle of Wiśniowiecki was captured and, together with the town, destroyed. In order to recover from this disaster, John III freed Wiśniowiec from all public burdens for 12 years in 1677, and the owners made efforts to restore the castle to its defensive state. The last of the Wiśniowiecki family, Prince Michał, also a unique type in his own right, having reached a considerable fortune, built a completely new edifice in the new town in 1720, built on the former castle grounds, decorated it inside with great splendour, and ended his life in it in 1744. The estate, comprising 25 keys, was then divided between six granddaughters and one grandson of Prince Michał, out of his two daughters Elżbieta Zamojska and Anna Ogińska, who had died earlier. Half of the inheritance, i.e. Wiśniowiec with 13 keys, valued at approximately six million, was taken by Katarzyna Mniszchowa, née Zamojska, the only daughter of Elżbieta Zamojska, née Wiśniowiecka. The other half, also made up of 13 keys, was divided into six heads. Three keys were given to Michał Ogiński, field writer and later hetman, and the rest to his sisters, with two keys each: Augusta Broel-Platerowa, scribe, mother of the chancellor in. 1., Genowefa Brzostowska, Kaźmira Brzostowska and Elżbieta Ogińska. The Wiśniowiecki castle fell into good hands, as the Mniszechs added their own mementoes to the monuments of the former heirs, which, although not so far-reaching in their antiquity, were equally interesting and important. This was especially true when the son of Katarzyna Mniszech, née Zamojska, Michał Jerzy Mniszech, later Grand Marshal of the Crown and author of many historical writings, married Zamojska, born of Poniatowska, sister of King Stanisław August, Wiśniowiec almost regained its former splendour. It was then that the Emperor, then heir to the throne, Pavel, returning from abroad, came here with King Stanislav August, and the owner entertained them with great grandeur and splendour, putting on splendid parties and shows for them. In 1805, after the death of his parents, Wiśniowiec was inherited by Count Karol Mniszech, a man with a passion for science, namely genealogy and heraldry, and a diligent follower and critic of Niesiecki. He maintained the castle as if it were a museum. After his death in 1845, the Wiśniowiec area was again divided into two parts, between his two sons, the younger of whom, Count Andrew, kept Wiśniowiec, which was sold in 1855 to Princess Abumelik, a relative of the former Georgian tsars. In this way, Wiśniowiec, never sold since the original endowment to the Wiśniowieckis, passed into other hands; but not for long, as in 1857 it was bought from them by Count Vladimir Broel-Plater, whose family in the female line, as mentioned above, is related to the Wiśniowieckis. The Wiśniowiecki Castle stands on a high rock above the Horyn River. It is a large two-storey building, built in a horseshoe shape with broken pavilions on the corners at the end of the wings, with a two-storey convex roof, in the Rococo style, with dark sapphire tiles on the broken pavilions. A large square courtyard, a stone terrace and a garden of old trees run along the rock above the Horyn River. The view from there is magnificent over the countryside, over the hills covered with white villages and oak woods. Inside the castle there are numerous flats, apart from a long gallery, called the mirror gallery, where gilded coats of arms of the families related to the Wiśniowiecki family are set and plaster busts are placed on pedestals. In the main vestibule at the bottom, lined with white panels, there is a marble tablet bearing an engraved description of the mentioned visits of Emperor Pavel and King Stanislav. The entrances between the walls, also lined with faience, lead upstairs to the salons, which hold images of families and upholstery embroidered by the hand of former local women residents. The chateau is surrounded by a large and beautiful garden, with a magnificent view of the Horyn River, both towns and several ponds from a high terrace. The church, founded by Hieronim Wiśniowiecki, next to the castle, and the old and new Wiśniowiec with its numerous suburbs make a very picturesque whole.