The article takes a closer look at the history of Brzeżany from the time of its uncertain history, i.e. the destruction of the town in the 15th century by Bali-Beja, to its re-founding - already with the rights of a city - by Mikołaj Sieniawski, Grand Hetman of the Crown. The article contains, among other things, a detailed description of the castle erected during Sieniawski's reign, as well as a chapel and two parishes - a Roman Catholic and a Greek Catholic one. Source: Tygodnik Illustrowany, 1860, vol. 2, no. 43, pp. 395-396 (public domain, reprinted from: Digital Library of the University of Łódź).

A modernised reading of the text

Brzeżany and Paradise

Khodja Saad-ed-din, the Turkish chronicler describing Bali-Bej's incursion into Poland in 1498 (during the reign of Jan Olbracht), mentions one city without a name among those which Bali-Bej destroyed in his march, but the description of this city points to Brzeżany, according to its location and surroundings. The town was wooden, and the castle was surrounded by water, with access only via a bridge in the forest. It was situated on a large lake. The Brzeżany pond was indeed one of the largest in the entire chain of ponds, linked by a ribbon of the Zlota Lipa River (the river flowing under the Brzeżany castle). The entire area between the Bug River's sources and the Dniester River is lined as if by a network of small rivers, linked by a multitude of ponds.

Some say that in this area must have lain the lake mentioned by Herodotus and other ancient historians and geographers, the Amadockie Lake in the Amadok country, and the city of Amadok (so says the vivid imagination of these scholars), lying on the shores of the lake - "who knows if it is not today's Brzeżany". Perhaps, but all we know for sure is that Brzeżany shared the fate of the whole of our land, and, lying on the Turkish-Volga route, was often the victim of Turkish, Tatar and Wallachian attacks.

Baly-Bej, after a long and valiant resistance of the garrison, turned the whole town to rubble in 1498, probably not for the first and not the last time. In 1531, after an obertianianian necessity, Sigismund I granted Mikołaj Sieniawski permission to transform the hereditary village of Brzeżany into a city and granted it the Magdeburg Law. The Sieniawski family spent a great deal on fortifications, as well as on the splendid decoration of their castle in Brzeżany and a small one in Paradise, a quarter of a mile from the town.

The importance of the fortress is evidenced by the constitution of 1676, which instructs hetmans to "curam border fortresses, having in peculiar memory the fortress Brzeżany propriis impensis w. chorążego kor." (Mikołaj Hieronim Sieniawski) "issued and praesidio honoured from his own coffers, which has so far kept the Pokuttyan countries from the last destruction".

The heirs of Brzeżany led an extraordinarily sumptuous life, and the splendour with which the castle was furnished has left its traces in the memory of the local people to this day.

A faithful picture of the royal life of Adam Sieniawski (the last of the male descendants of this family) is given to us by Zygmunt Kaczkowski in his novel "Sodalis Marianus", and a rivalry with the royal castle in Kraków is picturesquely portrayed by Juliusz Słowacki in "Jan Bielecki":

Mr Brzeżan lives in wonderful surroundings:
The castle was embraced by the river in two arms,
Above the gate there is a monastery, in the walls there are nuns,
In the chambers you will see no difference
From the golden chambers where Bona lived.
Mr Brzeżan likes to live in the royal court,
What the Polish king has, and a nobleman can have.

The Hetman's dreams of the crown took on a marble body and golden robes, and the nobleman's castle became similar to the royal one in Kraków:

...golden Cracow chambers
Similar in shape, with gilded walls,
Dressed in satins and expensive blush.

The porches, like those in the Cracow castle, resting on pilasters, were located on the right hand side from the main gate (where they still are today); above the gate are the coats of arms of Leliwa and Szreniawa, and others less distinct, arranged symmetrically around the eagle and the Pahonia. Apart from this gate (the eastern one), situated in the very body of the castle, there are two other gates, situated in the wall near the towers.

In the courtyard there is an Italian-style chapel. A decayed door leads into the interior, which is still unfinished but already crumbling.

There are three naves, or rather, there are two chapels next to the central nave. The chapel on the east right is completely finished. In it are tombstones made of black marble, similar to the royal tombstones in Krakow, also made by the same chisel. They depict recumbent knights (Sieniawski), leaning on their arms. In addition to these extremely ornate and colossal tombstones, which occupy all three walls of the chapel from floor to ceiling, there are very beautiful stuccowork on the walls and frescoes on the ceiling.

In the nave itself, paved (as it seems) with trembling tiles, you will find several marble tombstones; next to the great altar (which no longer exists) are tombstones of the Sieniawski family, formerly Arians, not as elaborate as in the side chapel, but magnificent; and closest to the altar, one, the most beautiful of all, depicts a woman in monastic garb, with an image of a child above her (Kostka Sieniawska, governor of the province, who died in 1560). On the side altar, opposite the pulpit, lies a panel of Florentine mosaic, depicting a large bunch of flowers. In the choir, the walls and ceiling are covered with frescoes; the chapel to the left (east) is completely empty, with an opening in the floor through which one enters the tombs.

All this has been there for perhaps thirty years, partly in a state of desolation and partly turned to farm purposes. Paradise and the residence in Paradise is, in a way, a complement to Brzeżany. This place, named after its extraordinarily beautiful location, had long been adorned with a hunting lodge which, with its sumptuous furnishings, corresponded to the magnificent Brzeżany castle.

When the Brzeżany chateau was abandoned, the Rajov chateau was rebuilt to make it habitable for the heirs of Brzeżany. Today, it is a refined villa with a beautiful garden, with none of the old splendour. A shady linden avenue, with a stately gate, connects Paradise with Brzeżany, to which we return for a moment more, having nothing to say about Paradise.

There are two notable parishes in Brzeżany: a Roman Catholic one and a Greek Catholic one. In the first one there was once supposed to be an ebony altar, of which no trace remains. Behind this altar once lay the corpse of Jakub Strzemięczyk, a colonel under Hetman Sieniawski, who, having been stabbed by a Tartar arrow, died and wrote a tombstone in his own blood:

Here lies Jakub, whose coat of arms was Strzemię.
The sling broke and he hubbed against the ground!

Humour in the final moments and freedom of mind amidst mortal pains is a trait often repeated in the history of Polish knighthood. This tombstone was carved in white marble behind the altar. The walls near the altar were decorated with banners and trophies captured from the Tartars. Today, there is no trace of all this.

In the Greek-Catholic parish church they still keep an expensive reliquary with the hand of St John the Baptist. The origin of this relic is attested to by documents, and Chmielowski in the "New Athens" gives an accurate account of it. According to this news, "the tibia with the hand of St. John the Baptist comes from Tsarogrod, from the very church treasury of St. Sophia, transferred from there during the reign of the righteous and God-fearing lord l. Fr. Jeremiah Dobula, hospodar of the land of the wnioskuj." The silver coffin, or reliquary, "was made by j. fr. Constantine Dobuto, son of the hospodar, in the year 1112, month of Ionia on the second day".

That such a significant relic came not to Rome, Venice, Seville, Paris, Vienna, Cracow, or Lviv, but to the particular town of Brzeżany, famous for its castle, residence, and the graves of the great Sieniawski family, is not surprising from the compendiose account (by Chmielowski) extracted from a manuscript of the local church, which, from an oral account by St. Adalbert, was found in the local church.Adam Mikołaj Sieniawski, Castellan of Krakow, Hetm. w. k., heir of Brzeżany, was written. This account shows that when, during the second great victory of the Chocim battle against the Turks, under the baton of Jan Sobieski, Marshal and Hetman of Poland, the Hospodar of Brzeźany, the Hospodar of Brzeźany, was the King of Poland, king of Poland, the Wallachian hospodar Petryczayko, on the very day of the occasion in 1673 marched with his army to our Polish side and was treated with dignity and comfort here in Poland, obliged Jan Sobieski, Marshal and Hetman of the Kingdom of Poland, and later the king, to take his wife, children and treasures out of Wallachia after ordering the army in a party. Upon this effectivity of the lord hospodar, a party of the Polish army was commanded by Hieronim Mikolaj Sieniawski, chor. v. k., who was given the command. He, in turn, having bravely fallen with his heart to Wallachia, led his wife, his family and his treasures happily away from Ażi Girej, the Sultan, in the number of 80 thousand Tartars, as far as to Sniatyn with their defeat. In recompense for such a brave heart, unable to find anything equal and worthy, the hostess gave Sieniawski the hand of St. John the Baptist.

Adam Sieniawski, "when he saw a paral omnia in his homeland, searched his treasury and found a relic there, sensibly forgotten for various revolutions in his homeland". Having Jan Skarbek, Archbishop of Lviv, as his guest shortly afterwards, he offered it to the Lviv Archcathedral. But the Archbishop, as "vir magnae perspicacitatis", did not accept, not having seen the authentic "de recitale of this holy relic". The Archbishop had good reason to doubt its authenticity, as there are three left hands of St John the Baptist in various churches (according to Chmielowski).

In addition to these peculiarities, Brzeżany has a Bernardine church and monastery, founded in 1683 by Mikołaj Hieronim Sieniawski. The Armenian-Catholic vicarage also has its seat here. Apart from ordinary offices, the regional town of Brzeżany has a gymnasium with 6 classes.

The town is 11 miles south of Lviv on the road to Stanislaviv and Chernivtsi, and is characterised by the manufacture of the thickest cloth (halina); in the past it was characterised by the manufacture of cloth. In the past it was characterised by the manufacture of smuckery products. However, the main source of income in the entire region is agriculture. The population of Brzeżany is 7356, among them 2070 Roman Catholics, 2221 Greek Catholics, 85 Armenians, 21 Acatholics, 2960 Jews. The property of the municipality is up to 160,000 zlotys, the income about 64,000 zlotys. Trade is insignificant, limited on local needs. A paper mill near the town produces tissue paper from 3 to 4,000 centners of rags for the tobacco factories in Monasterzyska, Vinnytsia and Jagielnica.