The Mir Castle - returned from Valhalla

 Salvete Omnes,

a quick late summer entry -  a little posting on the Mir Castle (Zamek w Mirze,  Мірскі замак, Mirski zamak) in the Grodno District.

XV-XVI century Lithuanian Duchy court marshal and starost of Brzesc (Brest) and Kowno (Kaunas) Jerzy Iwanowicz Ilinicz (?-1527) had a Gothic castle with 5 imposing towers built in his manor of Mir. His grandson Jerzy, who was a son of  Zofia nee Radziwill, was the sole heir to the fortune, and having been brought up by Mikolaj Radziwill the Black, he unfortunately died without issue, and thus Jerzy made a testamentary bequest to his cousin Mikolaj Radziwill Sierotka (the Orphan), last will passed the castle and estates  to the Radziwill family. They rebuilt the castle in the Renaissance style, adding a palazzo to the castle complex. 

Unfortunately, the wars - starting with 1655 (the Deluge) through  the Great Northern War, Polish-Russian war of 1792, and Kosciuszko Insurrection of 1794, the Napoleon invasion of Russia 1812 - caused multiple damage to the castle complex.

In 1895 the Swietopelk-Mirski family bought the castle from the descendants of the  Radziwill clan and zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg, and started some rebuilding of  the castle ruins. Bolsheviks murdered local Polish patriots in the castle ruins in 1919.

Michal Swiatopelk-Mirski started restoration of the castle in 1923, based on the plans of Teodor Bursche (Bursze). 

Unfortunately the communists, as the Soviet Union, returned in September 1939 (killing and deporting to Siberia our Polish inhabitants of Mir), and the the Nazi Germans in 1941 through 1944 (murdering the Jewish inhabitants of the town of Mir). Stalin's Soviet Union took final possession of the castle until the end of the Soviet Union, in 1991. 

Finally, the castle has returned from Valhalla -  during the early decade of the XXI century the miracle took place, the ruins were rebuilt - below the beautifully rebuilt castle of Mir, by the taxpayers of  Belarus.  They say a fine museum too.

Vivat! 

Enjoy

Valete

Mazeppa's Ride - Byron

 Salvete Omnes,

While in college I took an advance class in English late XVIII and XIX century literature - from William Blake to Kipling et al. 

Among many poems, novels, and other works of literature we studied there were poems of  George  Gordon, Lord Byron.

Byron wrote a long poem somewhat based on the life of  Ivan (John) Mazepa-Kolodynski, a nobleman of Kurcz coat of arms, and a real political leader, a hetman, of the Zaporozhian Cossacks of the so called 'Left-Bank Ukraine(semi-independent Russian territory on the left bank of the Dnieper River taken from Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the long war of 1653-1667). At first strong ally of the Russian tsar and Polish-Saxon king Augustus hetman Mazepa and his Cossacks switched sides, from Russian-Saxon to  Charles XII, King of Sweden,  during the Great Northern War. But upon the defeat of the Swedish-allied forces at Poltava (allied - Swedish-Polish-Cossack army was defeated  by tsar Piotr  I(Peter) of Russia) he withdrew his remaining Cossack forces into the Ottoman territory, where being a refugee from his land Cossack hetman Mazepa died at Bendery in the fall of 1709.
Byron took the story of the ride from some French publications, perhaps from Voltaire's History of Charles XII, King of Sweden, while Voltaire must have taken it from perhaps some French courtier who had been a courtier or soldier of our king John III Sobieski, and via Polish court had been acquainted with the Mazepa's tragic amorous story. The original story seem to have been  first described by Polish memoirist Jan Ch. Pasek in his memoir. 
The important aspect of the epic poem is the famous Mazeppa's ride -  on the back of the 'Tatar noble steed.' - as we call it a bachmat.

  the Mazepp'a Ride via Byron's own verse and artwork that came after the publication of the poem

one day soon we may read about the historic Mazepa's  ride as our XVII century Polish memoirist Jan Ch. Pasek described it.

Valete

Great Northern War Compendium arrived

Salve,
a bit of self-promotion - shamelessly I have to admit.
last month I received my copies of the Great Northern War Compendium in two volumes. It was a pleasure to open the package and start reading and enjoying the beautifully published work.

I wrote an article there - on the Polish Pancerni- illustrated exclusively with the period art and some photos of the historic equipment from the Polish Army Museum - thanks to Radek Sikora, Ph.D., for allowing me to use his photo.

and also illustrated number of Polish-Lithuanian military figures etc,eg some samples

including one larger piece that illustrated Michal 'Kadrinazi' Paradowski's, very fine historian and great blogger,  article on the Polish-Lithuanian Army of the war period.

It was Michal's recommendation that got me to work with Steven and the GNWC crew - thanks Michal!

My Net friend and great researcher and illustrator  Sergey Shamenkov, Polish-Ukrainian and proud of it, wrote and illustrated article on the Ukrainian Cossacks of this war

So, it you are interested in the period and would like to read and perused the books, do so at your own risk - just joking.
Great collection of articles and historians, books so profusely illustrated that could be a source of many future works of art, including figurines and paintings etc, for years to come, or so I hope.

Thanks Stephen L. Kling for this opportunity to work with you all.
 Enjoy

The Great Northern War Compendium

Salve,
I have already mentioned that I participated in a project on the military history of the Great Northern War.
I was asked to do some illustrations and even wrote one article devoted to the Polish pancerni cavalry of the period - article naturally geared towards the readers who do not have access to the Polish language materials.

The Historical Game Company, LLC will publish the Great Northern War Compendium  during the late summer/early fall 2015, it will be at least 2 volume compendium, full of scholarly articles, maps, illustrations et al. - shortly, a little gem to all who enjoy military history and wargaming - Kadrinazi published a list of authors on his blog, so if you interested do visit his excellent blog - :) .
The publishers maintain a Facebook page, where you can learn about the project and their authors.

I am very eager to see my 'stuff' published in this opus magnum, especially  since my name - ok, I gloating a bit - will be part of such an illustrious company of authors and artists.
Many thanks to Kadrinazi and Steve.

ps
above images copyright the publishers - THGC LLC