The article provides information about Ostrog, located in Ukraine, which at the time of writing was under the rule of the Jablonovskis. The past of Ostrog is recapitulated in the text, starting from the Ruthenian beginnings, through the stage of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and finally to the last owners of this estate. (Source: Tygodnik Illustrowany, Warsaw 1862, T:5, pp. 124-125., after: Digital Library of the University of Łódź).

A modernised reading of the text

Ostrog

It is a real pleasure for the eye of the traveller, weary of the view of the overgrown pine forests, to greet the beautiful surroundings over which our ancient Ostróg, with its picturesque ruins of its former glory and power, sits majestically. This small town, now a shambles, was once the seat of the noble princes of Rus, and later for some time presided over the education of Volhynia. Mr Baliński and Mr Lipiński were wrong to locate this town on the banks of the Moryn River, as this river flows a couple of versts from Ostrog, which is actually on the banks of the Neris River(*).

The river separates the old town from the new one, although the latter can only be called a suburb, and then it surrounds it with its own wreath, and only on the large marshes outside Ostrog does it merge with Moryn. Ostrog, which today belongs to Prince Artur Jablonowski, used to be very busy until recently, as trade and port routes from various points of our country, namely from Warsaw, Odesa and Kyiv, used to converge here; but this traffic stopped when a beaten road was built a few miles beyond Ostrog.

Today, the only remnants of its former glory are the remains of what was once the castle, whose walls now house the district court. Many people visit it for this very reason, and these visits pay off handsomely, as the magnificent ruins adorn the area. One of the fortification towers, the remains of the castle church and the part of the residential castle where the court is located are what remains of them. A glance around the town reveals a sad picture of destruction everywhere; the ruins alone can keep a traveller occupied.

There, in the distance, you see two round, lofty towers, part of the former fortifications; here, the huge ruins of the post-Jesuit church, where the remains of Jan Karol Chodkiewicz lie buried; and at the foot of the almost castle-like hill, the remains of the Carmelite church, but these, unfortunately, were dismantled brick by brick by the hand of a speculator. By the road leading from Rivne, there is a beautiful Capuchin church, but even there one can see the destructive effect of human greed. Above the vast meadows stretches Tatarska Street, named after the Tatar prisoners of war who were imprisoned here in the early 15th century by Konstantin Ostrogski. The residents of Ostrog also show three wells that were filled with the bodies of tormented noblemen and Jews during the Khmelnytsky wars.

What more can be said about Ostrog's present? The only thing that can be said about Ostrog's present is that it is the first port of call for the Horyn River, which starts to be navigable from this point. Wheat and timber go from here to Gdansk almost every year; Ostrog would therefore be a very convenient point for the establishment of a trading house or a house of orders. But it is a vain hope. The local landlords are sleeping soundly after their tasty dinners, and hardly anyone thinks of the public matter. Enough about the present, for Ostróg is the past; posthumous hymns need to be sung to it. Baliński and Lipiński, Święcki, Paprocki and many others mention this town in their works.

Based on these, let us review its past. The readers of the "Tygodnik Frustrowany", who so conscientiously fulfil their duty of recreating the mementoes of our homeland, will probably be grateful to me for relieving them of the task of sifting through historical books. So to the point. The earliest mention of Ostrog is in 1100, when it was given to David Igorovich, the former Duke of Vladimir, as a result of a division between the Ruthenian princes in that year.

The town later gave its name to the illustrious family of Ostrog princes, who repeatedly rendered great service to their homeland in armis et toga. The first prince of Ostrog was Daniel Vasilevich, son of Daniel, King of Rus. Jagiełło, while in Łuck in 1386, granted a privilege to Fiedor Danilowicz and his descendants for the castle of Ostrog with its appendages (castrum Ostrogów cum districtu), on condition that they rendered service to the Republic and the King with their people, and Queen Jadwiga renewed this privilege to the same Fiedor in Kraków in 1393.

The most famous of this illustrious family was Konstanty, Grand Hetman of Lithuania, Castellan of Vilnius, who died in 1533. According to Niesiecki, he won 33 preliminary battles and was defeated in only two: once at Vedroža, where he was taken prisoner by Ivan III Vasilevich, and the second time at Sokal by Tartar hordes. Famous is his victory at Orsha in 1514, where, out of 80 000 enemies, 40 000 were left in the square. He also defeated the Tatars at Wisniowiec, Slutsk, Kamieniec, Pinsk and so on. His son, Constantine Basil, Voivode of Kyiv, Marshal of Volhynia, and, as some would have it, a fierce opponent of the union between the Greek and Roman Churches, lived a very lavish life, which his income, which exceeded 10 million zlotys this year, allowed him to do.

He founded a school in Ostrog under the name of the academy, which he entrusted to Erazm Smotrytsky. On the recommendation of Konstantin, in the printing house he founded in Ostrog, the deacon Ivan Fedorov, expelled from Moscow for sorcery (the art of printing), printed the first complete bible in the Slavonic language in 1581, under the direction of Smotritsky. The Ostrog Castle witnessed the tragic scene of the kidnapping of Halshka, daughter of Elijah and Beata, née Koscielecka, by Dmitry Sanguszko; this incident serves as one of the many proofs of the extent to which our magnates' pride and licentious swagger reached.

Anna of the Ostrogski dukes Chodkiewicz founded a Jesuit college here, where, as mentioned above, the remains of her illustrious husband Jan Karol Chodkiewicz, Grand Hetman of Lithuania and Voivode of Vilnius, who died in the Battle of Chocim on 24 September 1621, and was buried in Ostrog in 1622 in the parish church. He was buried in Ostrog in 1622 in the parish church, from where he was transferred to the Jesuit church in 1624.