Pławowice
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Pławowice is a hamlet lying within the Voivodeship of Malopolska and the County of Proszowice. The river Szreniawa runs alongside Pławowice and its municipal capital of Nowe Brzesko is found 5 km away in the direction of Krakow. At present its population stands at 270 persons. While relatively small and numbering few houses the hamlet boasts a 19th century palace. The Palace of Pławowice or ‘Palac Pławowice’ dates back to 1805 and contains within its boundaries a 15ha landscaped park and lake complex as well as its own chapel where mass is held to this day.
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[edit] History
The hamlet was first referred to as "Pławowicze" according to the earliest documentation found in the 13th century. As one of the few settlements in the scarcely populated Nowe Brzesko region is was naturally the feudal estate of noble families. By the 16th century it was transferred to the Lanckoroński family after which it changed hands again to the Guteterów family. It is recorded in chronicles of the time that Marcin Wadowita (also known as Wadovius or Campius) a Polish priest, theologian and professor drew from his Pławowice estate in 1641 3000 zlotys to present as a bursary towards the Jagiellonian University of which he was Chancellor, until his death in that same year. He lies buried in the Church of St Florian in Krakow. The Pławowice estate continued to change patronage when it came into the ownership of the immensely rich Szembeków family. It was in fact Helena Szembekowa who in 1740 brought the estate, through marriage to Stefan Benedykt Morstin, into the hands of the Morstin family, a family originating from Germany who had immigrated to Poland in previous years. Gradually and after numerous name changes from Monderstern, Morstyn, Morsztyn and finally Morstin did the family become fully polonised and settle down in their new homeland. When the Morstins first received the estate in dowry its nucleus was a wooden manor house or ‘dwor’. Successive generations of Morstins took great interest in the estate despite their inclination towards the arts and humanities. The neoclassical palace found there today was initiated by Ignacy Morstin who commissioned Jakub Kubicki to undertake the building project. It was built to have two floors as well as a deep cellar on a rectangular plan. The western and eastern fronts of the palace feature eight Doric colonnades with straight entablatures overlooking both entrances and topped with triangular pediments. The whole palace is covered with a four pitched roof with tall chimneys. The ground floor windows are conspicuously small and square compared with the tall and rectangular windows on the first floor. The reason for this was that while the ground floor housed the servants and working rooms the first floor catered for social functions. Between the late 19th century early 20th century additional extensions were planned to enlarge the palace. While the southern side of the palace was built upon a similar extension for the northern side was abandoned owing to the financial burdens caused by the First World War.
[edit] Ludwik Hieronim Morstin
Ludwik Hieronim Morstin, born in Pławowice on the 12th December 1886 was a soldier, diplomat, editor and poet. He was educated at the Jan III Sobieski High School in Kraków and between 1906 and 1910 continued his studies in Munich, Berlin and Paris. After finishing his education Ludwik was, between 1911 and 1913, the co-editor of monthly ‘Museion’ paper. During the First World War he served in the 2nd Infantry Regiment of the Polish Legions and ended the war with the rank of major. As a result of his services to the Austro-Hungarian Empire he received the title of Count from Franz Joseph II on the 29th July 1915. Immediately after the war Ludwik Hieronim served in the Regency Council as well as on diplomatic missions to Paris (1919-1922) and Rome (1922-1924). Between 1930 and 1931 he was the editor of the monthly ‘Pamiętnik Warszawski’. Following the outbreak of the Second World War there were however doubts in both German and Polish camps as to where the Morstin’s loyalty lay due to their German origins. In 1943 Morstin replied to German government letter questioning his German background that he was ‘a Pole and had no German roots’. Ludwik Hieronim used his outhouses and estate to hid Jews fleeing from Nazi death squads, an action for which he would have surely been executed by the Nazi Regime. Furthermore Ludwik Hieronim used the Plawowice Palace to hold meeting with the Polish Underground Army (Armia Krajowa). Stories have been told of Germans being billeted in the servant’s quarters on the ground floor while leaders of the Polish Resistance held secret meetings on the floor above. When the Second World War ended in 1945 Ludwik Hieronim Morstin donated the Palace of Pławowice, park and his personal library to the Circle of Polish Writers. After a period of poor management and lack of financial acumen the government took over the estate, exported the library to Warsaw and housing peasant families within the palace itself. Two stone lions were removed from the estate in 1966 and can now be seen in front of the Krakow Ratusz Tower.[1] The new tenants began to rip out the wooden flooring and furniture for fire wood as well as moving their livestock into the palace. After 53 years of ‘management’ by the Polish People’s Republic the palace and the park was devastated and left in ruins. Ludwik had moved to Zakopane where he founded the Society of Amateur Theatre named after Helena Modrzejewska. He took an active part in theatre and literature in Krakow and Katowice. In 1960 he moved to Warsaw where he lived till his death on the 12th May 1966. In his lifetime Ludwik Hieronim was awarded the Orderu Polonia Restituta (1923) and the Złotym Wawrzynem Polskiej Akademii Literatury (1936) by the government of the Second Polish Republic, the ‘Ordre de la Légion d'honneur’ V Class by the French Republic as well as the Krzyżem Komandorski OOP (1953) and the Order of the Banner of Labor I Class (1963) by the Communist People's Republic of Poland. [1]
[edit] Marian Bronislaw Tomaszewski
Marian Bronislaw Tomaszewski, born on the 13th August 1922 in Przemysl, was a scout leader, officer of the 2nd Polish Corps and a tank commander in the 6th Armoured Regiment ‘Children of Lwow’. After the Second World War he spent nearly 45 years in exile in Italy and Great Britain where he lives to this day. In Great Britain he is one of the leaders of the Polish Community in Manchester and has dedicated most of his life to the Polonia community. Marian Bronislaw is head of the Tomaszewski family which acquired the Palace of Pławowice at the turn of the millennium.
Marian Bronislaw lived in the Winna Góra ‘villa district’ of Przemysl. At high school he had risen to leader or ‘Drużynowy’ of the Scouting Movement in the area. With the outbreak of the Second World War Marian was only 17 yrs old and not eligible for active military duty, however he persuaded the enlistment officer to accept his enrollment and served in an artillery battery until the capitulation of Poland on the 6th October. Due to his position as one of the leaders of the Scouting movement in Przemysl the Gestapo issued a warrant for Marian Tomaszewski's immediate arrest forcing him to cross, under cover of darkness, the river San into Soviet controlled Przemysl. Unknown to him a similar warrant had been issued by the Soviet NKWD and Marian was captured and sentenced to 15 years hard labour in Siberia for counterrevolutionary activity. Within the first two years of imprisonment Marian Bronislaw (and his known aliases) are recorded to have escaped seven times from Soviet authorities. He was, during his seventh attempt, preparing to cross Afghanistan into British controlled India when the Polish-Soviet Armistice was signed. Enlisting in the newly established Polish army he underwent military training in Persia, Iraq, Palestine and Egypt while later, in an ad-hoc multinational regiment, disarming the troops of Vichy France stationed in Syrian forts as his first assignment. In 1941 Marian Bronislaw was assigned to the 6th Armoured Regiment ‘Children of Lwow’ [2] and took part in the Siege of Tobruk. In 1944 he was engaged in the bloody Battle of Monte Cassino[3]. Following the fall of the monastery on the 18th May Polish forces mounted an assault on the Hitler Line blocking the road to Rome; Marian Bronislaw led a platoon of Sherman tanks in a flanking assault on the strong point of Piedimonte San Germano, then held by detachments of crack German paratroopers and anti-tank emplacements. Although faced with difficult terrain, the lack of expected Indian infantry support and dogged German resistance they succeeded in taking the town, the anniversary of which is celebrated by its Italian inhabitants to this day. Marian Bronislaw served as an officer in the 2nd Polish Corps up until the end of the Italy Campaign in 1945 when he was promoted to Captain. With the end of the Second World War Poland fell behind the iron curtain of the Soviet Union with a puppet Communist government. Marian received warning from sources in Poland that the Polish Secret Service (UB) had marked him for arrest as an 'enemy of the proletariat' should he ever return to his homeland. After some years in Italy Marian moved to Great Britain where he continued his studies at Trinity College Dublin and Edinburgh University. He founded the Bury Polish Circle and remains an active member of the Polonia community.
Captain Marian Bronislaw Tomaszewski was awarded the Polish distinctions of the Cross of Valour, Gold Cross of Merit, Silver Cross of Merit and the Monte Cassino Cross as well as the British awards of the Africa Star, Italy Star and the 1939-1945 Star. [4] Other distinctions include a Papal decoration.
Captain Marian Bronislaw Tomaszewski is the current owner of the Palace of Pławowice. In 2004 he and his daughter Maria organised and funded the Third Reunion of Poets[2] in order to revive the literary and scholarly traditions dating back to the Morstin era. Despite the desperate state of the palace and the heinous damage caused to the building by years of communist era neglect the Tomaszewski family have taken costly steps to secure fragile sections of the building and plan to renovate the whole palace. The Captain was quoted in the 09-06-2007 ‘Dziennik Polski' as describing the palace's role not only as the family seat but also as an important place of Polish cultural heritage for the general public.[3]
[edit] Notes
On the 26th and 27th May 2007 the Malopolski Cultural Institute was granted permission by Captain Tomaszewski to include the palace and its grounds in its IX Malopolskie Cultural Heritage program[4]. In the course of those two days the palace had over 8 thousand visitors.[5]
[edit] References
- ^ Proszowice - Zarys dziejów do 1939 roku"; pod redakcją Feliksa Kiryka; "Secesja" Kraków 2000
- ^ Waldemar Handke, Semper Fidelis. Dzieje Pułku 6 Pancernego „Dzieci Lwowskich”, Leszno 2006
- ^ Melchior Wańkowicz (1989). Bitwa o Monte Cassino. Warsaw: Wydawnictwa MON. ISBN 83-11-07651-0.
- ^ Sikorski Institute Archives (London)
