Until the beginning of the 19th century the Czartoryski family felt at home on the eastern frontier of Poland. This is where their influence was originated and developed; this is where they built their dwellings, castles, Roman and Greek Catholic churches, Orthodox churches and funded schools. Finally, this is where the foundation for the family’s economic power came from. The article is a subjective take on the historical role played by the dwellings of the Czartoryski lineage – Czartorysk, Klewań, Korzec, Czernelica, Międzyboż – as well as the material remains and remnants present in the 21st century in the memory of the local residents. The story, expanded to include the turn of the 20th century, recalls the social activity of Jerzy Czartoryski in the eastern Galicia, as well as the Czartoryski Kazimirs, in the period of the Second Polish Republic in Żurawno and the alabaster manufacture also set up during this period.

The Czartoryski family, originating from the Gediminas family, is mentioned many times in the history of Poland. It has been present in its history since the beginning of the Polish-Lithuanian union. Its importance grew systematically so that in the 18th and 19th century the Czartoryski family became one of the richest and most influential families in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Political connections and friendships gave the opportunity to influence the course of events, while strengthened the position of the family; the growing fortune and income that flowed from it supported these efforts. The characters selected are only examples from among all representatives of the family. They are a testimony that the Czartoryski family has always served, and continues to serve Poland faithfully, both in times of its splendor as well as its decline, supporting with their strength and abilities the efforts for its flourishing and rightful place in Europe.

The article is based on three English-language press titles published in the early 1830s in Great Britain by Polish emigrants and British supporters of the Polish case related to the political camp of Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski. These are: “The Hull Polish Record,” “The Polish Exile,” and “Polonia or Monthly Reports of Polish Affairs”. The main aim of the article is to recreate the image of the so-called “Ziemie Zabrane” (The Taken Lands) – i.e. the former Polish provinces incorporated directly into the Russian Empire after 1795. These were the lands of today’s Lithuania, part of Latvia, all of Belarus and the right-bank of Ukraine. The authors of the several articles devoted to this issue presented – in their writings – the history of these lands from the Middle Ages, their fate during the partitions until the November Uprising, the course of which in Lithuania and Ukraine was described in more detail. There were also reports of repressions that fell upon the inhabitants of these lands after the defeat of the uprising. On the pages of the surveyed press one can also find reports on the state of the economy of these lands, trade and water routes; biographies of famous people born in these areas and many descriptions of their tourist and sightseeing values. In each of these cases, the authors of the texts tried to emphasize the ties between these lands and their inhabitants with the rest of the Polish territory and convince the potential readers that they constitute its integral part, which should be included in it in the event of the reconstruction of the independent Polish state.

The article is a contribution to the reflection on the place of the Eastern Borderlands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the political program of Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski and his followers after 1831. This program was expressed and implemented in various ways, and its addressees were both the Poles and the public opinion of Western Europe. Without trying to present the whole issue, three iconographic representations that contained elements of this program were analyzed here. What they had in common was that all of them were to honor the closest British ally of Prince Adam – Lord Dudley Coutts Stuart (1803–1854). In 1846 he received a decorative tapestry from Polish emigrants, in 1847 a golden watch, and after his death a medal made by J.F.A. Bovy was minted in his honor. The heraldic and cartographic motifs adorning theses items indicate that Prince Adam and his associates saw the future of the Eastern Borderlands in connection with the rebirth of Poland. These representations were a persuasive message addressed to Polish and foreign audiences, the purpose of which was to convince them of the importance of this issue in Czartoryski’s plan for the restitution of the Polish state.

The article aims to describe the actions of Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski and his friends of the same political group directed towards Greek Catholics. Prince Adam Jerzy, firstly religiously indifferent, came into contact with Uniates’ problems at the beginning of the 19th century, as a curator of Vilnius Scientific Society. In that period he was a protector of Uniate Bazylian Convent. As a representative of authorities of the Kingdom of Poland he aimed to engage Uniates in development of people’s education. New opening for Czartoryski’s activities started with the Great Emigration after the failure of the November Uprising. As a leader of Hotel Lambert Prince Czartoryski observed with a great worry the liquidation of the Church Union in Russian partition. Several times he intervened by Pope Gregory XVI in favour of the persecuted people of Uniate Church. Apostolic Capital was then receiving journals, letters, and other proofs for Russian repressions. In 40s and 50s of the 19th century Czartoryski’s agents were involved in issues of Uniates living in Russian and Austrian partitions. Some examples of these actions were: giving the Roman Catholic Church Madonna del Pascola to Bazylian Convent, opening of Uniate Collegium and placing Galician clerics in Apostolic Capital. Moreover, initiatives for Greek Catholics among Polish immigrants were supported and also the foundation of the Greek Catholic Church in Bulgaria was backed up.

Jerzy K. Czartoryski was the first member of the Czartoryski family to devote himself to Galicia; he became involved in Galician politics and in the problems of this province of the Habsburg Monarchy. He stood out among the other Polish politicians in Galicia with his attitude to the Ruthenians; he stressed the importance of the Ruthenian question in Galicia, and even believed it to be a “matter of life or death” for the Poles living there. Czartoryski was in favour of Polish-Ruthenian co-operation, recognised the Ruthenians’ national identity, which not all Polish politicians regarded as an obvious thing, and declared his willingness to enter into an agreement with them. He also supported efforts to develop the Ruthenian school system and Ruthenian social and cultural institutions. While recognising and supporting Ruthenian postulates on education, he opposed the political postulates formulated by the Ruthenians at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century. His fear of the growing radicalism of the Ruthenian politicians brought him closer to the conservatives, the so-called Podolaks, and later to the National Democrats.

This article presents the relationships of the Czartoryski family with selected representatives of the Matuszewicz family, namely: Marcin Matuszewicz, Tadeusz Matuszewicz and Zofia Matuszewiczówna. The Matuszewiczs, who were middle-class nobility, owed the Czartoryski a lot of favors. Because of the protection of Michał Fryderyk Czartoryski and his nephew Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski, Marcin and Tadeusz had the possibility to start on their paths of political careers. Contrary to Marcin, Tadeusz Matuszewicz was not only a client of the Czartoryski family; over time, he became their trusted household member and friend. His daughter Zofia Matuszewiczówna had a special close relationship with the Czartoryski family. Duchess Izabela Czartoryska treated her as her own daughter, and she wanted to see her as a daughter-in-law.

The aim of this article was to verify the image of the betrothal and wedding of Maria Cecylia Grocholska and Witold Czartoryski, as well as the repercussions associated with it, in the light of the unknown historiographical archival sources on this subject and by analyzing previously known sources in the context of new facts about the entering into this marriage established on their basis. In the sources describing the circumstances of the marriage of Maria née Grocholska and Witold Czartoryski, I find several repeated events and facts, on the basis of which the chronology of those days is reconstructed. The first is a letter that Ksawera Grocholska sent to Emperor Nicholas I indirectly regarding the arrival of her future son-in-law to Podolia in order to meet her fiancée’s immediate family and obtain the blessing of the bride’s grandfather, Karol Brzozowski. Another theme is the decision to marry off the daughter to the son of a political criminal, thus condemning her to a life away from her relatives living in the Russian Empire. Next, it is necessary to look at the course of the ceremony to be able to consider whether the controversy surrounding this marriage will be reflected in the ceremony itself and the reception that followed it. Finally, fragments of Ksawera Grocholska’s diary and family correspondence discovered in the collections of the State Archives of the Vinnytsia Oblast in Ukraine were analyzed, which allowed to achieve the main goal of the article.

The Great War 1914–1918, irretrievably destroyed the political order in Europe, which had been maintained unchanged after 1871 with the conviction of the long duration extended into the Belle Époque. It left many traces – among others – in the memoirs and contemporary reports revealing on a micro-historical scale, some of the opinions and attitudes of the aristocracy, which become invisible on the macro-historical scale and are represented by considerable numbers of sources, which allows a reconstruction of important political and military decisions. This article is a contribution presenting – on the basis of a few examples – the end of the political influence of aristocracy in Central and Eastern Europe that coincided with the departure of monarchs from its political scene.

In 1937, the Warsaw historian Marceli Handelsman published a work entitled Ukraińska polityka ks. Adama Czartoryskiego przed wojną krymską [Ukrainian politics of Prince Adam Czartoryski before the Crimean War]. So far, this book has been used by historians as the primary source of information on the Ukrainian issue in the views of the Hotel Lambert’s leader. The author of this text has decided to collect Ukrainian works referring to the topic inaugurated by Handelsman. Unfortunately, no larger study has been prepared on the Ukrainian side. However, a number of articles and encyclopaedic notes showing Prince Adam and his Eastern policy (especially during his stay at the court of Tsar Alexander I Romanov) has been published. Ukrainian authors paid much more attention to Czartoryski’s associates, who tried to put his ideas into practice. Ukrainian researchers wrote mainly about Michał Czaykowski (Sadyk Pasha) organizing the Cossack troops in the Ottoman Empire, about Hipolit Terlecki striving for the union of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches, and finally about the ethnographer and writer Franciszek Duchiński clearly separating Ukraine from Russia in his writings.