A thinker and amateur enthusiast, lawyer, historian, cultural studies scholar, music lover and musicologist, ethnographer, genealogist, translator, and expert in art and architecture, he was the author of numerous publications devoted to the northern borderlands of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth – Livonia.

A particularly remarkable work, distinguished by its editorial finesse, was a colourful illustrated album on Livonia, commissioned and supervised by Gustaw Manteuffel: ‘Terra Mariana 1186–1888’ . Only one copy was produced, and it was presented in 1888 to Pope Leo XIII to mark the 50th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood. It is held in the Vatican Library. In 1903, a second edition of the album was produced in Riga, in a smaller format and with a limited colour palette. This reprint was commissioned by Maria Przezdziecka (née Tyzenhaus) and Gustaw Manteuffel.

Manteuffel collaborated with *Kwartalnik Historyczny* , the oldest Polish journal of history and the humanities, founded in Lviv in 1887 by Ksawery Liske. He was also the author of over 150 geographical and biographical entries for the *Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland and Other Slavic Countries* and the *Great Illustrated Universal Encyclopaedia*, the largest Polish encyclopaedia of the Partition era, launched in 1889 by the Warsaw publishers Franciszek Granowski and Saturnin Sikorski.

Biography

Gustaw Manteuffel was descended from the well-known Livonian Manteuffel family of the Soie (Szoege) line . His mother, Maria Franciszka , was the last of the Drycań branch of the Ryk family. In 1828, she married Jakub Baron Manteuffel of the Berzygal branch, a former captain of the hussars and heir to Auerhof. Her dowry comprised Drycany, Taunagi, Brokany, Lesno, Skuszkowo, Siliniki and Mizany.

Gustaw was the second eldest of the four sons of Maria and Jakub Manteuffel, from whom the Berzygal-Drycan branch of the family originated. He was born in Drycany on 18 November 1832. He was initially educated at home under his mother’s guidance, and when he turned fifteen, he attended a German-speaking grammar school in Mitawa (Latvian: Jelgava). In 1856, he graduated with honours from the Faculty of Law at the University of Dorpat ( Estonian: Tartu); he defended his master’s thesis in 1859. He was a member of the ‘Konwent Polonia’, the oldest Polish academic fraternity, founded in 1828 at the University of Dorpat. From 1874, he lived in Riga, conducting research, publishing and promoting knowledge about the history of the former Polish Livonia.

His family home, Drycany, formerly known as Dritzen or Dricen , is situated near the town of Rzeżyca ( Latvian: Rēzekne). According to Gustaw Manteuffel, based on documents preserved in the family archives, these estates were granted to Ernest von de Ryck in 1568 by King Sigismund II Augustus . The privilege was confirmed by John III Sobieski in 1677. From 1568 onwards, the estate remained continuously in the hands of the Ryck (Ryk) family, who, by the 18th century, had finally become fully Polonised.

Whilst compiling the entry for ‘Drycany’ for the second volume of the *Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland and Other Slavic Countries* (Warsaw 1881), Gustaw Manteuffel described the family estate as follows:

‘The Drycany manor house is situated on a lofty and very spacious hill; its white walls are visible for a mile all round, contrasting charmingly against the dark trees. The land here is for the most part suitable for wheat and barley; the farm practises crop rotation, with the cattle stock mainly comprising Żuławy and Oldenburg breeds; there is an abundance of woodland and meadows. The latter are twice as extensive as the arable land. In addition to winter wheat and rye, the following crops are grown here: barley, spring wheat, peas, clover, potatoes and fodder beet. Of particular note in Drycany is the three-shed steam mill, with a capacity of 12 steam forces, connected to a threshing mill, a rolling mill and a machine for producing Swedish shingles, as well as extensive gardens and orchards with fruit tree nurseries. The people here are purely Latvian, of the Roman Catholic faith’.

The founders of the parish church in Drycany – a brick, twin-towered church built between 1859–1860, dedicated to the Apostles Simon and Jude Thaddeus – were two sisters: Maria Manteufflowa, Gustaw’s mother, and Katarzyna Ulanowska (née Ryk) ( 1813–1878). This church replaced a small wooden church built by their grandfather, Dominik Ryka, in 1779. The design for the new church was approved by the St Petersburg building commission in 1857. The church was built in the Classical style, characteristic of the Russian Empire (the official name of Russia between 1700 and 1721).

The Drycany estate was placed under sequestration because Gustaw Manteuffel’s brother, Ryszard, had taken part in the January Uprising, and Gustaw himself had refused to sign a declaration of allegiance to the Tsar. Ryszard Manteuffel, who in his youth had been a captain in the Grodno Hussars, was arrested whilst transporting weapons for the insurgents. Imprisoned alongside Count Leon Plater, he was sent to prison in Daugavpils, and was later sentenced to exile in Omsk. It was only thanks to his wife’s family connections that he avoided the death penalty. After a few years, his stay in Siberia was replaced by compulsory settlement in Riga, with no right to return to his family estates. It took nine years before the seizure of his estates was lifted ; they were returned in a deplorable state and, to make matters worse, were subject to a contribution levy. The youngest of the brothers, Jan, was also not spared the repression, which resulted in the family’s worsening financial difficulties. In 1883, Jan Manteuffel was forced to sell Drycany.

In 1912 , the elderly Gustaw Manteuffel, following a stroke, suffered partial paralysis ; this marked the end of his career as a journalist. He died on 24 April 1916 at the Bonifaców estate (Latvian: Bonifacova) in the Łucyn County, which belonged to his nephew, Józef Manteuffel. He was buried beside his parents’ graves in Drycany.

The cemetery in Drycany

The palace in Drycany no longer exists today , but at the local churchyard , apart from the cast-iron gravestones of Gustaw’s parents: Maria ( 1811–1874) and Jakub ( 1795–1857) Manteuffl, the graves of their daughters have also been preserved : Maria ( d. 1838), Ludwika ( d. 1843) and Katarzyna ( d. 1844), as well as Augusta Ryckowa ( d. 1849) and Maria ( d. 1851) and Michel ( d. 1848) Ange .

Between the gravestones of Maria and Jakub Manteuffel , a monument commemorating Gustaw Manteuffel, bearing an inscription in Latin, has stood since 1982 . The churchyard also contains the graves of local priests and the remains of an unidentified gravestone. In the cemetery in nearby Taunagi ( Latvian: Taunaga), the following have been preserved, amongst others: the tombstone of Ryszard and Jadwiga Manteuffel and the gravestone of Katarzyna Ulanowska.

One of the oldest trees in the Drycany cemetery is a lime tree, growing in the immediate vicinity of the burial plot of Gustaw Manteuffel’s parents. According to oral and written accounts, an earthen grave containing the researcher’s ashes was said to have been located beneath it . Based on a surviving photograph from 1937, it can be concluded that the plaque dedicated to Gustaw Manteuffel, commissioned by the Łatgale Teachers’ Association, was originally erected at this very spot. According to another account, the grave was said to have been situated between his parents’ gravestones .

Conservation work

In 2005 , on behalf of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland, the conservator, Dr Janusz Smaza from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, following an on-site inspection in Drycany, drew up a report on the condition of the burial site of Gustaw Manteuffel and his family. At the request of the “Wspólnota Polska” Association, the Ministry allocated funds for the renovation and reconstruction of the grave site , the creation of a new plaque commemorating Gustaw Manteuffel, and the restoration of the entire family burial plot.

A team of Polish conservators, comprising Dr Janusz Smaza, Krzysztof Jurków and Bartosz Markowski, carried out the work in the summer of 2006. Permission for this was granted by the Latvian State Inspection for the Protection of Cultural Monuments (Valsts kultūras pieminekļu aizsardzības inspekcija). All the historic gravestones in the cemetery, the plot’s fencing, the plaque with an inscription in Latvian and the monument commemorating Gustaw Manteuffel were conserved . Conservationists also carried out restoration work on three gravestones preserved at the cemetery in Taunagi: those of Jadwiga and Ryszard Manteuffel, Katarzyna Ulanowska and Julia Biernacka.

Beneath the lime tree growing in the churchyard in Drycany, a burial plot has been marked out, within which a restored plaque funded by teachers from Latgale has been installed, along with a new made of white Italian marble, bearing an inscription in Polish: PLACE OF ETERNAL REST / GUSTAW MANTEUFFEL / Born 1832, Died 1916 / OUTSTANDING HISTORIAN, LAWYER, ETHNOGRAPHER. Unfortunately, this new slab was damaged in 2015 by a tree branch that fell during a gale. Thanks to the efforts of the Polonika Institute , a new gravestone plaque was commissioned in 2019.