Discovery: one of the most famous 19th-century Lithuanian artists also knew Lithuanian

The Palace of the Grand Dukes bids farewell to an exceptional exhibition – in a week's time, the exhibition of Napoleon Orda's watercolors will come to an end, and these light-sensitive images of old Lithuania will return to storage in Poland for a long time. This priceless collection of watercolors and drawings, which introduces visitors to the heritage of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, reveals images of a former state that had already begun to be destroyed by Tsarist Russia in the 19th century. The works depict the cities, castles, palaces, and manors of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

While preparing the exhibition catalog, curator Ignas Račickas discovered some unexpected facts about N. Orda's personality – it seems that one of the most famous 19th-century artists, who called himself Lithuanian, also knew Lithuanian, which was unusual for a nobleman of that time. Although the exhibition catalog will be presented at the Vilnius Book Fair, I. Račickas shared his thoughts on this interesting discovery.

Artist, composer, pianist, and philologist Napoleon Orda is an artist to whom Lithuania, Poland, Belarus have dedicated more than one academic conference and published numerous studies, but it is interesting that no one had previously noticed the poem written by hand on the back of one of the watercolors, even though more than one researcher had handled that watercolor. While preparing the catalog for the international exhibition "Old Lithuania in the Watercolors of Napoleon Orda," we carefully reviewed all the images related to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. When I discovered a verse in Lithuanian and found no comments from researchers about this inscription in previously published studies, I became interested.

The watercolors are not in the exhibition itself – N. Orda painted two views of Palanga, and we brought one of them to Vilnius, which we thought was the nicer one. At the Palace of the Grand Dukes of, we are exhibiting 238 works by the artist from the nearly 1,000 works stored at the National Museum in Krakow. When publishing the catalog, we wanted to include all of the most relevant images, so we carefully reviewed the rest of the collection remaining in Poland. After receiving additional digital images, we found that poem.

 

 

It was a watercolor depicting Palanga, the Tiškevičiai manor park, and the gazebo – not the manor we know today. The old Tiškevičiai manor was wooden and located in a completely different place – where Basanavičiaus Street is now.

 

It may be that the Polish or Belarusian researchers who examined the collection did not fully understand what was written there, but it is clear that this is a poem written in Lithuanian by N. Orda himself. Upon closer inspection, we discovered that the author of the lines was Silvestras Valiūnas, and that it was a verse from his ballad Birutė – the first ballad in the Lithuanian language and a significant work in the history of Lithuanian literature. S. Valiūnas had written several versions of the poem, the most significant difference being in the second line of the first verse. The version written by N. Orda is the anti-Russian version, which emphasizes that it was the enemy, Russia, that took Palanga from Lithuania:

 

 

Until now, the prevailing opinion was that N. Orda, like other 19th-century nobles, spoke Polish even though he called himself Lithuanian. This is a phenomenon that is difficult to comprehend in our times – how can you call yourself Lithuanian but only speak Polish? However, for example, when analyzing the data from the 1897 general census, we can see that the majority of people identified themselves as belonging to a social class (noble or peasant) or a religious community (Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Evangelical Reformed, etc.), while not paying much attention to ethnic identity.

 

Returning to N. Orda, it is somewhat surprising that this great creator knew Lithuanian, as his native language was definitely Polish: in 1856, N. Orda's textbook "Polish Language Grammar" was published in Paris. He probably wrote this textbook for his son. His wife, Irena Buglė (Irena Bouglé, 1824–1903), was French, so N. Orda wanted to give his child, who was growing up in Paris, the opportunity to learn not only his mother's language, but also his father's native language. The name of their son, Vytautas (Witold), clearly indicates the child's Lithuanian, rather than Polish, historical identity, as he could have been named Vladislovas, Jogaila, or Žygimantas.

 

Putting all the facts together, we can conclude that N. Orda's main language was indeed Polish. We know that he traveled and made sketches in the summer, then painted watercolors and wrote descriptions in the winter. Here we see two languages: mostly Polish on the left and French on the right. Prof. Vytautas Levandauskas noted that some descriptions contain explanations of the origins of Lithuanian place names by N. Orda: what the word means in Lithuanian, for example, Vilkmergė – wolf and girl, and the watercolour depicting the Verkiai Palace has a note that Verkiai comes from the Lithuanian expression "verkti" (to cry).

 

It has been hypothesized that the artist must have understood at least some Lithuanian. The discovery of a verse from a poem is the most reliable evidence that N. Orda certainly understood Lithuanian, and understood quite a lot, if he read poetry. Today, it would be difficult to say what his nationality was – N. Orda himself claimed to be a citizen of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. For him, Lithuanian identity was a historical identity based on the traditions of a state that had already been destroyed at that time.

 

On February 27, the Vilnius Book Fair will host the presentation of a catalog dedicated to Napoleon Orda's watercolors, which will also feature a poem written by the artist himself. The Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania Museum has included in the publication not only images of the works on display, but also works that did not fit into the exhibition, which immortalize the historical heritage of the occupied Grand Duchy of Lithuania. N. Orda's watercolor exhibition at the National Museum of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania can be enjoyed until February 8.