The article first looks at Załucze, then at Borejkowszczyzna, to which Władysław Syrokomla moved in 1853 after leaving the former and after the death of his wife. The article also quotes excerpts from Syrokomla's elegies and his personal literature on living in these areas. (Source: Tygodnik Illustrowany, Warsaw 1860, T:1, p. 156., after: Digital Library of the University of Łódź).

A modernised reading of the text

Załucze and Borejkowszczyzna.

From the collection of my most precious keepsakes, I have received two pictures to share them through the "Tygodnik Ilustrowany" with all my esteemed fellow countrymen, who, I believe, will not be indifferent to the sight of these manors, where one of our most beloved poets spent most of his life. This will be quite a new thing with us; hitherto we have only been presented with portraits of famous men, but, as far as I know at least, none of the contemporary writers or artists of the country have been shown a flat; and yet who can deny that it is as dear and full of interest to us as their countenance, and that it can sometimes serve to give us a better guess and study of a man's character and habits?

Elsewhere this has long been understood; the Germans, the English, and before them the French, in their numerous illustrated diaries, have already decorated more than one page with pictures of the houses of their literary, artistic or political eminences. We have so far buried these as a posthumous tribute, and sometimes we have only looked back when not only had the house collapsed, but when no traces of it could be found: often, therefore, we have had to prove the heartfelt commemoration of merit and the sanctification of memory only by a copy of the sepulchral monument, and this even if there was a monument on a famous grave, and even if the grave had not disappeared without a trace!

God grant that this first attempt may succeed well, and that "Tygodnik Ilustrowany" may become a respectable collection of national memorials of this kind.

You have here before you Załucze and Borejkowszczyzna. Syrokomla still lives in the latter; in the former, he spent the most beautiful years of his youth and became famous as the author of "Gawęd" and translator of Polish-Latin poets.

Załucze lies in the Minsk province and district, a few miles from the towns of Mira and Stołpców, not far from the Niemen River, in a sad, monotonous, flat area, covered partly with alder and osier on vast meadows and moors, partly with pine, fir and juniper on dry sandy dunes. It consists of only a modest dwelling house, surrounded by ordinary farm buildings; the village, which belongs to this manor, is situated a few versts away from it, on the other bank of the Niemen River.

Syrokomla settled there first with his parents, who leased the manor around 1840, and then in 1844, having married, he began to farm there on his own and lived there until 1853, when he moved to Borejkowszczyzna, a dozen or so wickets away from Vilnius.

Looking at the physiognomy of these manors, who will not notice a striking similarity between them and the main feature of Syrokomla's works? Although the author of "Margier" stands high in historical poetry, idylls and aristocratic storytelling will always be the most beautiful flower of his talent, and the most apt of them, e.g. "Trzy gwiazdki" ["Three stars"], "Itywercya" ["Itywercya"], "Chody ku" ["Walking towards"], "Bywało" ["It happened"], "O moim domku" ["About my house"], were written in Załucze. In Załucze, in that impoverished manor house, in that gloomy, poor corner of his dear native land, in the bosom of family life, in his relations with the indigent, good-hearted gentry and peasants, his inspired song, which surrounded both those marshes and sands and those thickets with the charming colour of poetry, and sands, and those thickets and forests, and those grey hay-cattles of the homesteaders, and the coarse coarseness of the peasants, must necessarily have sounded in such a tone, must necessarily have been as natural and simple as the world that surrounded the bard. Syrokomla himself understood this best and said in the introduction to his tales:

"I don't feel sorry for my heart, and I don't feel sorry for my head,
For thee I sing, O borough of the grey,
About thee I sing and with thee I unite
Hope, joy, and sorrows, and sorrows!
With thy air I refresh my face.
From your birds I will borrow an expression:
Let my thought from beneath my heart wail,
With a reaper's note, to the beat of the scythes.".

First and foremost, I would like to draw the attention of my readers to Załucze, which even as a picture, despite its lack of landscape, I do not know why it seems more beautiful to me than Borejko. Perhaps this is due to the blissful, personal memories associated with it, perhaps to the fact that, together with the whole country in Załucze, I saw the beautiful east of that star on the horizon of my native poetry; suffice it to say that, remaining in such a disposition, I take the greatest pleasure in looking at these simple buildings before me. The larger of the two, to the side, is an old house, I no longer know by whom or when erected, in which Syrokomla spent the first few years of his stay here; the second was already a carpenter himself and the memory of its erection was honoured with a tender, lovely elegy entitled 'O moim starym domku'. "On the second, he himself was already a carpenter, and honoured the memory of its creation with a sombre, beautiful elegy entitled 'O moim starym domku', from which it is not out of place to quote a few lines as an explanation of the picture:

"Hey! Behind the mountain, behind the high
Old oaks on one side,
Behind the oaks the eye is amused
The riverside green bank;
On the right the swamp trails,
On the swamp the willow grows,
And on the sand, over the gloom
The thorny pine rustles.
Into the parkland street drive:
The old cottage bends into the ground,
The crooked walls, and on the stirrup
Moss has already blossomed the draperies;
You can see the sky from the other side
With the gaps from between the draperies:
This is my cottage bent,
But I would not give it up for anything!
Were the heart beats,
With elation, sadness, fear,
I am best when I hide
Under my blooming roof.
Were joy enters.
The walls echo:
Is this sorrow, bear it sweeter!
Here and to weep was butchery.".

Looking at this poor cottage, which Syrokomla, having erected for himself in 1847, sent me an image of. 1847, sent me an image of it to let me get to know his new orchard and boast about it to me, with a strange feeling of oppression and bliss, I recall the magic palace which, if my memory serves me correctly, the author of 'Monte-Christ' was building for himself at the same time, imitating the fantastic whims of the hero of his romance, and bringing craftsmen from Africa to decorate its walls. One French newspaper, giving an image of this palace and describing this marvellous thing, put the story of the building of Versailles by Louis XIV in very witty contrast to the story of its construction.

It is a pity that I have neither this image nor this description at hand; for it would be very interesting to know how the hut of our village Homer would appear next to the palace of Monte-Christ? It would seem as if there were two figures of these builders, one of them pouring gold to the excellent craftsmen and Mauritanian sculptors, for making his exuberant imagination come true; the other, with a heartfelt word and a cup given from the heart, thanking the village carpenter for erecting the pine logs, in the good old custom.

But enough of that!...

I shall conclude with Syrokomla's words which, ten years ago, half-jokingly slipped from his pen in a letter he wrote to me:

"Although today the people of this region are not interested in it,
But if it is true, what the muse tells us,
These sands, these forests, this river,
will revive, and a curious visitor will come from afar,
To see Załucze.".