With the construction of the railway line , Rudziszki entered a period of rapid development. According to the 1866 census, barely 30 people lived here, including seven Jews. At the turn of the century, the village became the centre of the parish – there was a sawmill in operation, fairs were held, trade flourished, and a school was opened in 1896. A wooden railway station was built, along with a number of buildings within its complex, including the historic water tower that still stands today.

Unfortunately, due to its location, Rudziszki found itself in the midst of the fighting during the November and January Uprisings, as well as both world wars, which resulted in the destruction of railway lines and infrastructure. It is worth noting that, until the outbreak of the First World War, the railway network had been adapted to serve the strategic and economic objectives of the partitioning powers. J. Eberhardt, former head of the transport department of the Warsaw–Vienna Railway, wrote in an article published in *Inżynier Kolejowy* on 1 November 1928:

“At the outbreak of the war, there were a total of 15,900 kilometres of standard-gauge railway lines (track gauges of 1,435 and 1,529 metres) in the territories now belonging to the Polish State. Of this, 4,400 km lay in the Austrian Partition, covering an area of 79,000 km², in the German Partition — 5,000 km covering 48,000 km², and in the Russian Partition — 6,400 km covering an area of 262,000 km².”

The density of the railway network was therefore uneven – highest in the Prussian Partition, lowest in the Russian Partition. Furthermore, the structures built during the Partitions, even if they had survived, no longer served their original purpose. Of the 910 station buildings that existed before the war within the territories later covered by the Warsaw, Vilnius, Stanisławów, Radom and Lviv railway directorates, as many as 574 (63 per cent) were destroyed. Feliks Lubierzyński, in his article ‘The Reconstruction of Railway Stations in the Eastern Borderlands’ published in the magazine *Naokoło Świata* in 1927, lists 41 stations within the Vilnius Directorate alone that were rebuilt or constructed from scratch between 1921 and 1927, including the station at Rudziszki.

The reconstruction of damaged structures, as well as the expansion and redevelopment of the network ( including the connection of lines situated within the various partitions) became one of the most pressing needs of the reborn Republic of Poland. Railway station buildings took on propaganda significance – they were intended to serve as a showcase for the town, the region and the country; thus, in accordance with the Ministry of Transport’s guidelines: “When drawing up the designs, care was taken to ensure that the new railway buildings were given a distinctive local character”. Their form and architectural solutions were intended to emphasise the Polish character of the towns in which they were erected, which was of paramount importance in the Eastern Borderlands, characterised by the least developed railway infrastructure and the most severe war damage. This is how Lubierzyński described this role in 1927:

“For those passing through […]—both Polish citizens and foreigners alike—the style and character of these newly rebuilt railway stations serve as both a visible sign and a symbol that a Reborn Poland, through its art as well, is re-establishing its former, interrupted by a century of enslavement, and is asserting its authority over it.”

As we read, in turn, in a publication issued in 1928 to mark the tenth anniversary of the Polish State Railways, the new stations were to have

“a familiar appearance and suitable surroundings, all the more so as these buildings were being erected in various parts of the country along 2,000 kilometres of railway line and were intended to be a visible symbol of the Polish spirit for all passing foreigners and compatriots, and for the latter, in many cases, they could serve as models to be emulated when building their own homes”.

The years 1918–1925 mark the emergence in architecture of the so-called ‘station style’, which arose from the search for a style that best captured the spirit of Polishness . Tadeusz Maria Rostworowski – an architect associated with the Vilnius Directorate – justified the rationale for drawing on the form of a manor house in railway construction in one of his lectures as follows :

“A railway station is, after all, nothing other than a spacious, hospitable bourgeois manor house. The same spacious entrance hall – waiting room, dining room, office – ticket office, guest rooms and so on. If we add to this a few cheerful manor houses with porches supported by pillars, storerooms, warehouses, tiled roofs with eaves—and if we place a water tower on guard, in the style of the guild towers of Kraków or Vilnius, then we will immediately imbue the whole town with the spirit of a returning, bygone tradition.”

Dr hab. Michał Pszczółkowski, professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk and the University of Zielona Góra, author of a two-volume work on public architecture during the Second Polish Republic, described this model as the “Vilnius style”. It was, in fact, within the territory of the then Vilnius Directorate that the greatest number of railway buildings were constructed, inspired by the forms and architectural solutions of local Baroque and Classical manor houses, featuring hipped or mansard roofs, with entrance porticoes crowned by Neo-Baroque gables. It is worth referring to the description of the Type 4c station , presented by Stefan Szolcman – a Polish engineer, a railway organiser in the Second Polish Republic, who served as Chief Railway Inspector from 1924 to 1926 and was a member of the State Railway Council from 1926 onwards. In the article ‘Plans for the development of the Polish railway network’, published in *Inżynier Kolejowy* (issue 11, 1928) , he discusses the station designated as type 4c , characterised by a compact structure with a hipped roof, featuring a two-storey entrance projection with a roof overhang and a triangular gable at the front (towards the tracks) and a semi-circular gable with eaves on the town-facing side . The building in Rudziszki was of this type . Unfortunately, we do not know who designed it, but we can surmise that it may have been one of the architects of the Vilnius Directorate at the time – Hipolit Hryncewicz ( 1876–1933) or Tadeusz Maria Rostworowski ( 1860–1928). The head of the construction department at that time was the architect Henryk Genello ( 1872–1948), who may also have been the architect behind the Rudziszki station. Lubierzyński’s article states:

“the architects of the Vilnius Railway Directorate, Messrs Tadeusz Rostworowski and Hipolit Hryncewicz [...] are to be credited with a great and lasting achievement: that these buildings, some of which have already been completed and others which are still under construction, were designed in the Polish style, and that this style of the Polish manor house, which originated in timber construction, and which, shortly before the war, was still being developed rather tentatively in brick construction, has found such perfect expression through them and the widest possible application in railway architecture.”

It is worth adding that railway station architecture in the interwar period also had an impact on the revival of the construction industry in a national spirit ( particularly in the field of functional building).

“How often does one see – as we read in a later report, dating from 1934, on the development of railway construction —especially in the provinces—how many a local, when building a house, borrows designs from railway architecture, which is often the only model for them to emulate.”

This influence had already been noted by the end of the 1920s , as Lubierzyński emphasised when he wrote:

“And whilst these stations are built in the Polish style, it is – as we often have occasion to observe – the case that other newly constructed private buildings are also predominantly erected in this style, and ultimately, perhaps, the whole of Poland, through its architecture—which, in a sense, already constitutes such an outstanding external expression of the nation’s culture and tastes—will establish its own distinct type and character, which will be immediately apparent to all.”

Most of the buildings and railway stations in the former eastern provinces, built in the 1920s, still bear traces of the drive to create the architecture and culture of the reborn Republic of Poland . They were intended to serve as a showcase, a gateway to Polish towns and cities, and a testament to the Polish state rising from the ruins of war. During the interwar period, Rudziszki developed dynamically; and the town was even visited by Stanisław Wojciechowski – the second President of the Republic of Poland from 1922 to 1926 – who, whilst passing through on his way to Vilnius, praised its appearance. The town flourished thanks to the railway, the sawmill and trade, in which the Jewish community played a major role . Unfortunately, with the outbreak of war, it lost everything it had managed to build up in such a short time. The sawmill was closed down, many Jews fell victim to atrocities, the Polish inhabitants were resettled, and the railway ceased to fulfil its representative function following the loss of its affiliation with the Polish state. Today, Rudziszki – surrounded by beautiful natural scenery and picturesquely situated – is one of many towns with a Polish heritage in the Vilnius region.

Location: Rudziszki, 21176 Trakai District, Lithuania