Mieczyslaw Jalowiecki memoirs and drawings, 1964

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Summary

Creators:
JaƂowiecki, MieczysƂaw
Abstract:
Relates to historical events in Russia and Lithuania before, during, and after the Russian Revolution and Civil War; Poles in Lithuania; and agricultural developments in Lithuania, 1881-1939. Includes watercolor drawings and sketches of scenes and manor houses in Lithuania and Poland, as well as parts of Belarus, Ukraine, Latvia, and Estonia. Boxes 1-8 also available on microfilm (8 reels).
Extent:
7 manuscript boxes, 13 oversize boxes (9.0 Linear Feet)
Language:
Polish
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Mieczyslaw JaƂowiecki memoirs, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Background

Scope and content:

Mieczyslaw JaƂowiecki's manuscripts and watercolors were acquired by the Hoover Archives a few years after his death in 1962. In his later years, JaƂowiecki spent virtually all of his time writing his memoirs, drawing, and painting. Taking advantage of the private photographic and iconographic collections of the Polish Ă©migrĂ© community, the resources of the British Museum, and his own near-photographic memory, JaƂowiecki re-created the world of his youth, in his sixteen-volume memoirs and in more than a thousand detailed views of country manors, palaces, and landscapes of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, and Ukraine. Each view is accompanied by detailed information on former owners and, whenever possible, builders and architects.

Because of the massive destruction wreaked by World War II, the many decades of deliberate neglect under communism, and limited surviving documentation, JaƂowiecki's drawings have become a valuable source of information on the region's architectural heritage. In some cases, as the modest country manor of Sylgudyszki, they are the only available representations.

Biographical / historical:

Mieczyslaw JaƂowiecki was born to a prominent Polish landowning family of northern Lithuania in 1876. He studied in St. Petersburg, Riga, and several German universities, completing degrees in agriculture and agricultural economics. His career in Russian civil service, in agricultural finance, and in business, gave him the opportunity to travel and to develop an intimate knowledge of the economic and cultural landscape of Lithuania and its neighborhood. Shortly before World War I, JaƂowiecki was elected president of the assembly of the nobility of northeastern Lithuania.

The war devastated the region and disrupted the lives of most of its inhabitants. JaƂowiecki lost virtually everything. His ancestral Sylgudyszki, with thousands of acres of meticulously managed farmland and forests, was nationalized by the government of the newly independent Lithuania, and he moved to Poland. Because of his economic expertise and knowledge of German affairs, the Polish government appointed him to be its representative in the city of Gdansk (Danzig). Here, during 1919-20, he was able to open the port facilities to arriving American food and humanitarian relief for Poland, which was organized by Herbert Hoover. He spent the remaining interwar years farming on his wife's estate in western Poland.

World War II took him ever farther from the beloved lands of his ancestors and his youth. As a refugee in Allied London, he worked for the Polish government in exile, publishing pamphlets and textbooks on a variety of subjects. The war ended with East Central Europe under Soviet occupation and hundreds of thousands of Polish refugees unable to return to their homeland of whom JaƂowiecki was one. From the standpoint of his literary and artistic legacy, these postwar London years were his most productive.

Living in very modest circumstances in his later years, he spent virtually all of his time writing his memoirs, drawing, and painting. JaƂowiecki re-created the world of his youth in his sixteen-volume memoirs and more than a thousand detailed views of country manors, palaces, and landscapes of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, and Ukraine. JaƂowiecki died in London in 1962.

Acquisition information:
Materials were acquired by the Hoover Institution Library Archives.
Physical location:
Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

The collection is open for research; materials must be requested in advance via our reservation system. If there are audiovisual or digital media material in the collection, they must be reformatted before providing access.

Terms of access:

For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Mieczyslaw JaƂowiecki memoirs, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Location of this collection:
Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6003, US
Contact:
(650) 723-3563
hooverarchives@stanford.edu
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