The article describes the castle in Nesvizh, which originally belonged to the Radziwill family. It is mentioned that it is the only such well-preserved castle of this Polish family. The history of the castle from Mikolaj Krzysztof Sierotka to Dominik Radziwill is outlined. The town of Niasvizh itself is also described. (Source: Tygodnik Illustrowany, Warsaw 1862, T:5, pp.246-249., after: Digital Library of the University of Łódź).

A modernised reading of the text

Nesvizh Castle.

Nesvizh Castle (of which we present a drawing here) is the only castle in Lithuania, and the only one after Radziwiłł Castle, which can be called completely intact over the long centuries; as only one pavilion in it is uninhabitable today, restoring it to a habitable state would be impossible. Not a single brick of rubble betrays three almost centuries of life in this butchered stone old man.

The castles of the mighty Radziwills: in Birzha, Kojdanovo and Slutsk have barely a trace or a tradition of their existence; the castles in Mir, Biala and Olitsa are completely or half in ruins; only the castle in Nesvizh is holding strong, looking young, as if built today, tomorrow it would be ready to welcome its former heirs. The eagles of arms of the Radziwiłłs, with three trumpets on their chests, still fly from their turrets towards the sky and, twisting with every breeze, seem to creak on their iron spindles a four-paragraph poem written in their honour by Father Samuel Bodkiewicz, canon of Vilnius (in 1756) in the good old days:

"The wings of eagles have been a source of refreshment for many,
, when the sun was too hot for people;
Everyone will admit that the Radziwiłłs' wings were a source of refreshment for their homeland
.".

The castle of Nesvizh began its splendour with Mikolaj Kryštof, called Orphan, and ended it with Dominik Radziwill. In the number of his lords he could name (speaking in the panegyric style of the Jesuit school): "Achilles, great Lithuanian militia chieftains, full Lithuanian Temida sealers (chancellors), Roman purpurates (cardinals), men of unterminal beneinerence, over whose rigorous calculation the old Polish annals and excellent panegyrists dried their heads and feathers" (the same Fr Rodkiewicz).

But the castle is most vividly remembered in the local folklore for its rubbishy and poetical and famous Karol Radziwiłł's "Lord Lover". The town of Niasvizh, poor today but still possessing traces of its former glory, dates back to very ancient times. In 1224, Nesvizh Prince George is mentioned, who was killed in a battle with the Polovtsians. In the last days of Lithuanian political existence, the Nesvizh princes were among the first dignitaries of the state, and in 1387, when Lithuania was being reunited with Poland, Hrehory and Jan, the Nesvizh princes, ruling on behalf of Dmitry Korybut, the ruler of Severian Novgorod, put their seals to the deeds, ensuring for Korybut and for themselves loyalty to Jagiello and his wife.

The next ruler of Nesvizh, Teodor (Fedko), son of Daniel, was not too eager to concede allegiance to Jogaila; on the contrary, according to Dlugosz, belonging to Svidrigaila's party, he took the city of Lutsk with two defensive castles from the Poles on behalf of the latter as Grand Duke of Lithuania in 1433. He failed miserably in Brest. For this or any other fault, he was brought before Svidrigaila, who put him in prison, sentenced to the throat, deprivation of honour and the taking of his wife and children. Polish lords Wacław of Szamotuły, castellan of Międzyrzecz, and Michał Buczacki, a count from Halicz, freed him.

Grateful Fedko then (in 1431) gave a deed of his submission and obedience to Jagiello and the Polish Crown, and renewed the deed that same year. (Ob. Collection of diplomats it. d. published by Kom. Archiv. in Vilnius.) Fedko died in Kyiv. His son was Dashko, grandson Basil. From them went the families of the Dukes of Zbarasky, Voronets, Wisniowiecki and Porycki; but Nesvizh we see already in the hand of the Crown. At the end of the 15th century, Alexander, King of Poland, granted it to the Kishkas, a powerful house in Lithuania. Ołyka and Lachwa had already belonged to this house. Piotr, son of Jan Kiszka, received royal confirmation for these estates in 1493. Anna Kiszczanka, sister or daughter of the aforementioned Jan (Niesiecki hesitates), marrying Jan Radziwiłł Brodaty in 1533, contributed these estates to the Radziwiłł family, which remained in their hands until our times.

It is impossible to suppose that the noble princes of Nesvizh, the powerful Kishkas and Radzivills, especially Mikolaj Czarny, died in 1565, whose proud intentions reached as far as the rule over Lithuania, did not have a castle or a defensive fortress in their capital; yet we could not find the existence of such a thing either in archival or chronicle sources. The first founder of the castle is considered to be Mikolaj Krzysztof Radziwill, son of Mikolaj the Black, called Orphan, who converted from Protestantism to Catholicism and having made his famous pilgrimage to the Holy Land, started to work on making a permanent nest for his coat of arms eagle. First of all, in May 1584, he laid the foundations of today's castle.

The Radziwill family needed a magnificent castle, as did the title of Duke of the Holy Roman State of Olitsa and Nesvizh, which Nicolas the Black received from Emperor Charles V in 1547, and the security of Lithuanian papers, which Sigismund Augustus had entrusted to Nicolas the Black in a privilege granted in 1551. In addition, the castle at Nesvizh was to become the central capital of the family, as it was the constant intention of Duke Orphan to organise family relations and succession for centuries. To this end, having gathered various estates from the nobility near Nesvizh (a dozen or so miles away), and having arranged and rounded off his estates, he concluded a treaty with his brothers, by virtue of which three ordinates were established: Nesvizh, Ołycka and Klecko-Davidgrodzka.

Their principle was that from now on the Ordynats' estates were to be inherited only by the older sons of the family, with the removal of the younger ones, whose bread was to be taken from there. After the extinction of one Ordynatic line, the estate was to be transferred to the other. This family agreement was confirmed by the states at the session of Grodno Seym in 1586. At the same seym Nicolas Christophe, constantly wishing to expand and enrich the capital of his duchy and new ordination, submitted for confirmation by the king and the states the Magdeburg law he had granted to the burgesses of Nesvizh, and in this way compared his capital with the state capitals of Cracow and Vilnius.

In 1584 he founded the Jesuits here, and in 1593 he finished a huge and splendid basilica for them, in the basement of which he established shops for the burial of himself and other Radziwills of various lines in the centuries to come. In 1590, he founded the Benedictine nuns in Nesvizh and in 1598 the Bernardines; he established and endowed hospitals, montes pietatis and other charitable institutions. He died in 1616. The castle of Nesvizh, surrounded by lakes, surrounded by a fossa, which was entered by a drawbridge, is built in an octagon and adorned with two towers.

On the main façade in the courtyard, today one can still read a Latin inscription on a stone tablet, explaining the date and details of the foundation. At the top, a beautiful plaster cast depicts the Radziwill coat of arms, and the Knight Emblem of St John of Jerusalem; for this honour, together with the title of Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, was conferred on Prince Orphan of the Holy Land. Wincenty Fol, in his excellent "Winnicki's Adventures", completely according to his own imagination, sketched the surface of the Nesvizh castle.

The bard was most mistaken, combining it with the Bernardine monastery into one circuit, when the monastery is nearly a quarter of a mile from the castle. The following ordinands, sons of Mikolaj Krzysztof: Jan Jerzy, castellan of Troki, and Albert Władysław, castellan of Vilnius, died childless. During the reign of the former, Władysław, still king of Poland, going on a war expedition to Moscow, was hosted by Radziwiłł. At that time, the castle was defensible and especially provided with artillery. When the prince entered the city, he was greeted by such a thunderous blast from the castle cannons that barely a pane of glass survived in the city.

Two of these cannons were given to the Prince by the Ordinate of Nesvizh. Aleksander Ludwik Radziwiłł, Marshal of Lithuania, having received the Nesvizh Ordynat in 1636 after the death of his brothers, strengthened the fortress even more, which soon came in handy. In 1654 the Russian army under Zmiyev and Shcherba tried in vain to conquer the fortress into which the local inhabitants had taken refuge with all their belongings. The castle resisted, but the defenceless town fell victim to flames and murder. A similar onslaught, with equal triumphs for the castle and equal disasters for the town, was repeated the following year. Truly! One has to wonder at the state of the art of warfare at that time, that a fortress located in such unfavourable strategic conditions, managed to resist a strong enemy twice.

It would be difficult for us to determine, with chronological accuracy, the changes, reinforcements, additions and decorations which, over the centuries, were added to the Nieświeski castle; but the constant stay there of one of the Ordinats or his family, and, most importantly, the disturbances in the country which constantly reminded us of the need for defence, did not let the masons, architects and engineers restrain them. After the death of the entail-holder, Aleksander Ludwik Radziwiłł, in 1654, and the simultaneous defeat of the town of which we spoke above, his son and successor, Michał Kazimierz, later sub-chancellor and Grand Hetman of Lithuania, fortified the castle in the full meaning of the word at the time; he strengthened it with cannons, and, actively working on fortifying the town and surrounding it with a wall, won the Sejm of 1661 and 1669 to free the burghers of Nesvizh. He strengthened it with cannons, and, actively working to fortify the city and surround it with a wall, at the Sejm of 1661 and 1669, won the freeing of the Nieświeski burghers, who were busy fortifying their town, from taxes and soldier posts.

These fortifications, probably hastily erected, have now disappeared without trace. After the first defeat, there was no immediate prospect of a calming of the storms battering the country. Fearing for the valuables he had already inherited from his ancestors and collected himself, the Ordinate Michał Kazimierz moved them from Nieświeże to a safer place. "One's head spins when reading the inventory of these riches, jewels, robes, weapons and armour, horse fittings, goblets, table silver, etc. Some of these things, apart from their unheard-of material value, were also of commemorative value.

Some of these items began to appear in inventories again a dozen years later; the rest disappeared without trace. However, after the death of Michał Kazimierz (who, as a learned statesman, was more preoccupied with public affairs than with domestic matters and died in Bonn in 1681, while serving the Emperor Leopold and the Pope), his wife Catherine, King John III's sister, having the right to part of the Sobieski estate, enriched the Nieświęc treasury with some of the outstanding mementoes of the hero of Vienna. The inventories list 21 of these respectable and rich objects, in addition to those which, having no direct connection with John III, came from the Vienna spoils, such as, for example, rows of 12 horses, rugs and other ornaments made of gold, studded with diamonds, pearls, rubies, emeralds and the like.

Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł and his wife Katarzyna, née Sobieska, both educated people, enriched the Nesvizh library brilliantly, and having relations with Italy, brilliantly multiplied the collection of portraits both of the family and of the houses related to the Radziwiłłs. All what paintings there are in Nesvizh from their time are of high artistic value and bear the mark of the Auzon land; earlier and later ones betray the house brush. Upon his mother's death in 1692, Karol Stanisław Radziwiłł, Chancellor of Lithuania, found the town of Niasvizh poor, depopulated of Christians, overcrowded with Jews and lacking in trade and industry. He remedied this as much as he could, but a new disaster was already hanging over the walls of Sierotka Castle.

Bloody quarrels ensued, between Peter W. and Augustus II on the one hand, and Charles XII and Leszczyński on the other. The Ordinate of Nesvizh was an ardent supporter of the Tsar and Saxon; thus, by admitting a Cossack garrison to the city (not to the castle), he outraged Charles XII. The Swedish colonel Trautfetter, sent by him in 1706, although he pretended to be pursuing the Cossacks, who were in fact smitten within the Jesuit walls and under the castle, burnt down a large part of the town and left threatening the fortress. But the fortress was sturdy, consisting of a quadrangle, with four towers, 21 cannons, counter-barrages, ramparts flanked by water and a 200 man crew. The commander was a certain Boliman, who chose neutrality as the most appropriate way and closed the fortress without opening its gates or lowering the bridges, neither for the Cossacks nor for the Swedes. This neutrality could not please Charles XII.

The enraged lion of the north, on 10 May 1706, having rushed into Nesvizh in person, ordered the fortress to surrender within one hour. The neutral Boliman saw fit to obey the order. The victor entered the fortress without firing a shot, but nobly abused his good fortune. For all the caneBunal of Lithuania, he came to power and the use of vast estates, in an era fuelled by the frenzy of youth by the nobility, whose idol he was. While his father was still alive, his intention to strike at the tribunal in Minsk, and the subsequent revelry, sometimes bloody, at the assemblies in Vilnius, Minsk and Lida, can be explained by the spirit of the political party, if disregard for the law, supported by weapons, can be explained by anything.

Immediately after the death of Duke Michał Casimir, from the benevolent August III, Karol, appointed Voivode of Vilnius in his father's place in 1762, as the first senator in Lithuania and, what is more, Speaker of the Tribunal, severely annoyed the hostile houses of the Czartoryski, Poniatowski, Massalski, Przeździecki and others; but after the King's death in 1763, he resolutely threw down the gauntlet to a deadly fight. By refusing to recognise the election of Stanisław August, and with the Potockis and Klemens Branicki leading Prince Karol to the throne, he considered himself in the right to deal unfriendly with the supporters of the opposite camp.

During the interregnum, he rode into Vilnius on two hundred horses, went around Bishop Massalski's palace, scolded him for entering into politics, threatened him with death and rode away, having spread his camps in the suburbs. The bishop, perceiving that the danger was over, ordered the bells in the churches to be rung, barricaded himself in the cathedral and formed the so-called Lithuanian Confederation, to which the future king signed up as a Lithuanian stolenman, Wodziński, Bishop of Smoleńsk, the Czartoryskis, the Massals, the Ogińskis, the Sapiehs, one of the Pacs, one of the Radziwiłłs, and 96 other officials and noblemen.

Radziwiłł joked about this, trusting in the love of the Lithuanian nobility; but when an unfriendly party seized power in the country, when it sued him at his court, when in June 1764 near Brześć it defeated an army sent against itself, things took a sad turn for him. The confederate court, sentencing him in absentia, stripped him of his dignity as voivode of Vilnius, removed him from the guardianship of his under-age brother, ordered him to take his property, weapons and cannons from the castles of Nesvizh, Slutsk and Biala, and not only Lithuanian papers from the archives, but also the Radziwill family statute, threatening that Prince Karol would be imprisoned in the Slutsk fortress after the sentence was approved by the newly elected King and the Estates. The revenge was inhuman, and threats could turn into action any moment.

He wanted to fortify himself in Nesvizh or Olitsa, but the former castle was already in the hands of the enemies, the latter in ruins, unable to defend itself. Having reached the Turkish border with a small handful of loyal nobles and having waded across the Dniester river, he sought hospitality in the Sultan's land. He then travelled to Saxony and settled in Dresden. The Radom Confederation, formed in 1767, which the King joined, and which needed to put a loud and friendly name at the head of its countrymen, produced miracles which could not easily have been expected. Radziwill in Dresden received a plea to his homeland. He hastened to do so, as the voice of civic duty always spoke more strongly to his heart than the whispers of personal reluctance.

Vilnius rushed to meet him; cannons and bells tolled; in Radom he was hailed as Marshal of the Confederation, in Warsaw as Marshal of the Sejm; the dignity of Voivode was returned to him, seven million in restitution was promised, and the King embraced him. Soon the confederation was dissolved, the weak monarch surrendered it, and the Nieświeska, then Barska, confederations which arose in its place further irritated minds hostile to Radziwiłł. Nesvizh was captured by the Russians, and Radziwiłł wandered from one place to another: Vienna, Paris and Bavaria.

Radziwiłł's riches still accompany him on his journey; but he is urgent to return home, as it is hosted by strangers and unfaithful servants. From 1773 to 1776 Nesvizh was again in the hands of the Russians, under the leadership of first Tottleben, then Fabulov; the treasury, sometimes sealed, sometimes opened, lost half of what it possessed. A dozen or so cannons lay idle on the outpost, the soldiers oppressed, the domain ravaged. Having been amnestied, he returned to Nesvizh, and here, having given the public life a rest, he turned his attention to domestic matters. He set up a cadet school; renewed the printing works and set up a theatre in Nesvizh; set up excellent glass factories in Užupis and Naliboki, and a Persian girdle factory in Slutsk; in his free time, he hunted, frolicked with the nobility and told them amusing anecdotes.

Many good-natured readers, when they saw that we were beginning to tell the story of Charles, the gentleman lover, had already prepared themselves for laughter; meanwhile, instead of learning novels about riding on a sledge in the summer over finely crushed sugar, about shooting at a tower of nuns, about arriving at a fair in a carriage which, instead of horses, was driven by bears, they read a story about his patriotic, civic and economic side. We are not quite touching on the anecdotal side here. Many tales about Radziwill circulated during his lifetime, many later. The greatest merit in this respect went to the author of "Soplica" - and did we dare to take the lute after Bekwarek. The centenary jubilee after John III in 1783 and the three-day hospitality of Stanislaus Augustus in 1785 brilliantly broke the monotony of Nieświes. But Prince Charles, deeming his political profession finished, cloistered himself in his circle, devoted to hunting, loyal nobility and merry hooliganism.

Towards the end of his life, his fatherly nature manifested itself in him: he began to give lavish and grand funerals. He died in Biała in 1790. His son and successor in the entail of Duke Karol, Dominik Radziwiłł, began his profession in a boisterous, Radziwiłł-like, youthful manner; but his sporting games did not exude the scent of old chancellors and hetmans. He had a heart of gold and great courage, but the lack of elemental leadership detracted much from these fine qualities. Having gone under the mark of Napoleon's glory in 1812, he died the following year in France.

He left only a daughter, to whom, according to the law, the ordinance was not to fall, but only those estates which, under the name of allodyalne, later came into the house, as: Slutsk, Kopyl, Mir, Biala, and with huge appurtenances. To Duke Dominik Radziwill the castle of Nesvizh was a little beautified, and the town owes such rapid growth and splendour, development of trade and introduction of crafts, that this Lithuanian town was then called little Warsaw. This splendour lasted only a few years. The estate, as a result of a decree issued by Emperor Alexander I on 14 February 1811, passed to the male line of Duke Antoni Radziwiłł, at that time grand-governor of Poznań; the allodial estate, however, was inherited by her husband, Duke Ludwik Stanisław Wittgenstein, after the death of his wife, daughter of Duke Dominik. They now belong to his son, born of Radziwiłłówna, Prince Peter Wittgenstein.

The town of Nesvizh, deprived of the pulse of life from the Ordinates living in the castle, has become impoverished. It now has a population of up to 5,000, most of whom are Jews, and has five churches: the Larny (post-Jesuit)(**), the Bernardines, the Dominicans, the Benedictines and the Benedictines. The latter are set in a forest outside the town, amidst a charming village called St Cross. The castle, in its present, well-preserved condition, evokes gratitude to those who, having had the Radziwills in their custody for fifty years, knew how to keep this beautiful national monument fresh.

The superficial appearance is still an illusion of the Radziwiłłs' times, but the soul has already departed from these towers, halls, chambers and cloisters. We have said that W.Pol in "Winnicki's Adventures" drew by heart the physiognomy of the Nesvizh castle; there were and are no defensive gates behind the drawbridge, they did not exist:

"courtyards, gardens and squares,
church and monastery and lordly palaces,"

because even the castle chapel, in the left wing from the entrance, placed in an ordinary hall, with a facade and cross, did not indicate its purpose. In the courtyard, which was not very large, there was a wall, broken into five corners, with four defensive towers. After the destruction of the front wall and three towers by Charles XII, Michal Kazimierz the Hetman added three walls, a gate and a tower above it, so that the castle now consists of eight breaks in the wall and two towers which do not correspond at all. Let's take a look at what the curious traveller can still see from the old monuments in the castle today.

The archive, so honourably privileged by Sigismund Augustus and two hundred and thirteen years old stripped of its most precious ornaments - the Lithuanian register and the act of the Union of Lublin - by the Lithuanian confederation, is still full of family papers of great historical importance. Diplomats for the offices granted to the Radziwiłłs and their related houses, diaries, letters and autographs of almost all domestic and numerous foreign eminent persons, even economic records, from the beginning of the 16th century, constitute an invaluable treasure, almost untouched until now, for the researcher of the past. The present-day management of the Ordinate Dukes maintains several young people at the archives, who peruse this expensive collection of moth-eaten papers and parchments.

2 Cannons. Out of the multitude of cannons which defended the Nieświeska stronghold with perseverance, there are 5 small, beautifully cast cannons and a couple of larger cannons which are famous as masterpieces of sculpture. Their names are: Hydra, Cerberus, Gyrce, Owl; the most beautiful of these is nameless, entwined with vine leaves and grapes (all from the time of Prince Orphan). Next to them are seven other cannons with the coats of arms of the city of Lviv (from the first half of the 16th century), and a beautiful and large cannon with the coats of arms of John III, sacked from Turkish spoils. All the cannons are nailed by a later hand.

3. the library, a collection of several centuries old, gathered by the efforts of the wise Mikolaj Czarny, the pious Orphan, the learned Michael Casimir, the sub-chancellor, and his wife Katarzyna, née Sobieska, and finally by the Princess Hetman, a passionate writer, has almost completely abandoned these walls. In its heyday, the library was one of the first in the country with over 20,000 books. It was known and mentioned by Załuski and Janocki. In 1772, this collection, with a large number of engravings transported to St Petersburg as war booty, served as one of the cornerstones of the local public library. The catalogues in the archive do not mention works from before 1600, although it is impossible to believe that the remaining books, especially the polemical and religious works, would have been lost after Nicolas the Black; yet we know from elsewhere that there were some rare books, such as "History of Lithuania" by Rotund Milecki (1500 manuscripts), "Anecdotes" by Jędrzej Krzycki (in verse and prose in Latin manuscript) and so on. Later catalogues list only a few dozen works, mostly of the French encyclopaedist school, perhaps an acquisition of Fr Dominic or his parents.

4 A gallery of family portraits and people related to the house. Each generation of the Radziwills has enriched this respectable collection both in terms of historical figures and ancient clothing. The portraits of Vytautas, Jagiello, Sigismund I and Gliński do not excel in the exquisiteness of their paintbrush, but rather in their antiquity. Works of art include the coronation of Barbara, the portraits of Mikolaj Czarny, Lew Sapieha, the chancellor Michał Kazimierz and his wife Maria Ludwika, Fleming, Janusz Radziwiłł and others. On some there is the signature of the painter Wilanowski; others in the inventory of 1658 have the inscription: "fresh Francis painting". Would this be one person? The brush style seems to be one. There are traces that Rembrandt painted for the Radziwiłłs, at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the current century; the talented Hesski also painted at the castle (more of his works at the Dominicans); Damel did a portrait of Prince Dominic and so on. In 1771 there were still 281 paintings; today there are only a few dozen, which have deteriorated due to time and bad preservation.

5. there were two chapels in the castle, one from the time of the Orphan, the other built separately to house the painting with the prophetic inscription "Vinces Joannes", which John III found near Vienna. After the death of King Sobieski, the painting, which belonged to Maria Kazimiera and Prince James, was finally given to the King's sister, Klara Radziwiłł, née Sobieska. The chapel was consecrated in 1758 by Antoni Tiškevičius, bishop of Samogitia, with an unprecedented number of people and splendour. The chapel is now deserted; where the painting has gone, we are currently unable to find out.

6 The treasury. We have been informed on paper and in the press that there were jewels, expensive sabres, maces, marshal's staffs, silver, golden armour, a collection of numismatic coins, Eastern tapestries and carpets, pearl-stitched coats of arms, clocks and so on. Where has all this gone? We could go on for a long time, and we are urgent to finish our article. However, it cannot be said of the treasury here what it was of Troy, that there is no trace of it: the place where the treasures were hidden is indicated by tradition and the relevant Latin inscription from the Holy Scriptures.

7 Armoury. In addition to a large arsenal of cannons, rifles and various small arms, there was also a so-called rüstkamera, arsenal and armoury in the Nesvizh castle. There were up to a thousand hunting and war weapons here, almost all of which were studded with gold and silver, or bearing inscriptions such as:

"Whoever walks with this rifle, God bless him everywhere" and so on.

Several carts of pieces of the old journeyman's armour for men and horses were transported to Verkiai in our times (in 1852 or 1813) by the order of Duke Wittgenstein. Some of them, cleaned of rust by the efforts of the Duke, restored in parts, decorate the Verkiai palace), others could have gone abroad. The armour of Charles, with its enormous size, still arouses admiration in the Verkiai palace. When we walk through these halls filled with the ghosts of the past, when we look at or recall its remains, our souls are drawn to the old times and customs, even though we feel that those times, in their proper conditions, cannot return.