Niemcewicz Estate in Skoki, Brest District

The Niemcewicz (aka Nemtsevich) family was an ancient noble clan in Belarus. According to archives, the ancestors of the Ursyn Niemcewicz family ennobled with the Rawicz coat of arms lived in the Vilna, Novogrudok and Brest lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as early as at the end of the 15th - early 16th centuries. The clan rose to prominence due to one of its scions - Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz (born on 16 February 1758).

Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz was a poet, writer, playwright, author of many literary works, a politician, deputy to the Great Sejm of 1788–1792, one of the authors of the historic Constitution of 3 May 1791. During the Koыciuszko Uprising in 1794, Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz served as aide to Tadeusz Koыciuszko, the leader of the uprising.

At the beginning of the 19th century Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz was an active member of the Society of Friends of Science in Warsaw and in 1826 he took the lead of the society. He was an ethnographer, collector of ancient historical and cultural items, memoirist, author of a collection of materials about ancient Polish history (6 volumes, 1822–1823), the Memoirs of My Times. Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz died in exile in Paris on 21 May 1841.

The Niemcewicz family estate in the village of Skoki, Brest District, has survived to this very day. It was built in the 1770s century by Julian’s father Marceli Stanisław Kostka Ursyn Niemcewicz who owned the Skoki and Kleiniki estates. The Niemcewicz Estate in Skoki is a typical specimen of architecture of the transitional period from the Baroque to the Classicism. The Niemcewicz family was dispossessed of the Skoki estate in September 1939 when World War II broke out.

The estate survived the war and was turned into a school, which gave the building a new lease on life and saved it from decay. During summer holidays, it was used as a holiday camp for Brest children.

At the beginning of the 1980s it was included in the State List of Historical and Cultural Values of the Republic of Belarus. The estate caught the imagination of historians, ethnographers and journalists who set out to study the history of the Niemcewicz clan and their family nest in Skoki.

The estate witnessed many landmark historical events and hosted many famous people, like Ian Fleming, the princes Czartoryski and Shuysky, Tadeusz Kosciuszko. Russian Emperor Alexander III visited the place during military drills in 1890 at the invitation of Jan Tytus Ursyn Niemcewicz, marshal of the nobility of Grodno Province. The famous composer and artist Napoleon Orda also visited the estate and even depicted it on one of his pictures at the end of the 19th century.

During World War I, for almost two years the palace was used as the headquarters of Prince Leopold of Bavaria, the Commander-in-Chief of the German Army on the Eastern Front. It was here that a military truce was signed on 15 December 1917 and two days later the first meeting was held to negotiate a peace treaty to be signed in the White Palace of Brest Fortress on 3 March 1918.

In 2002 descendants of the Ursyn Niemcewicz family came to Brest from France, Canada, Poland to attend a conference dedicated to Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz.

Professor Anatoly Gladyshchuk, Candidate of Engineering Science, head of the Department of Physics at Brest Technical University, a local history enthusiast and a resident of Skoki, began to collect materials on the Niemcewicz family. These materials provided the basis for his book Niemcewicz Family. Real History published with the support of the Brest Oblast Executive Committee in 2009.

In 2002 by a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus, the Skoki complex was included in the priority list for restoration. In 2006 Brestproyektrestavratsiya got down to drafting the restoration project under the supervision of Vladimir Kazakov. The restoration works are carried out by Brestrestavratsiya.

In 2010 the coordinating council for the protection of tangible and intangible heritage at the Brest Oblast Executive Committee approved the establishment of a museum and educational center at the Skoki estate. The Brest District Executive Committee gave it a new status and designation: the Niemcewicz Estate historical and memorial museum.

The restoration project was entrusted with Tamara Slesaruk, Anatoly Khvisevich from the Brest company Iskusstvo. The total area of the museum complex will be about 500 m2. Visitors will be able to learn about the genealogy of the Niemcewicz family, their daily life and traditions. One of the halls will be dedicated to Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz.

The museum will have the main hall, a music and art salon, a library holding memoirs from various periods, ‘a weaponry room’ displaying samples of weapons of the 16th -18th centuries. The museum will be closely integrated into the cultural life of the region and will be featured in educational programs and projects for adults and children.