The Radziwiłł Mausoleum
in Nesvizh.
Research

The Radziwiłł family mausoleum located in the Corpus Christi Church in Nesvizh is the place of eternal rest of the powerful politicians of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania of the 17th-18th centuries. However, not all of them who were buried there were equally powerful and influential, not all of them had impressive careers, not all of them were able to influence the life of the state and decide its fate. Some of them, for example, famous Michał Kazimierz’s brother, Hieronim Florian Radziwiłł (1715-1760), the grand standard-bearer of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, who was known as an eccentric personality, enjoyed life and cherished no high political ambitions. Others were prevented from rising to power by the changes in the internal politics of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, confrontation between political factions and the increasing dominance of other noble families (the Pac family and the Sapieha family, in particular). Some simply died too young to climb the career ladder. However, people responsible for the care of the memory of the Radziwiłł family tried to emphasize the merits of even those relatives. For example, the epitaph dedicated to Michał (1656-1672), the son of Michał Karol Radziwiłł (1614-1656), the Ordynat of Kleck and cześnik (the cup bearer) of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, lists the facts that show the young Radziwiłł’s achievements during his short life (he died before the age of sixteen). The inscription on the plate runs as follows: “Ordynat of Kleck, Prefect of the Student Fraternity and the Poet of Nesvizh.” The epitaph of Janusz Tadeusz Radziwiłł (1734-1750), the son of Michał Kazimierz, who died at a similar age, reads as follows: “Ordynat of Nesvizh, the bearer of the order of Saint Hubert; first, the colonel of the army of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, then a delegate of the voivodeship of Vilnius to the diet of 1748, later a deputy of the Tribunal of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from Kaunas county and eventually, in 1750, a delegate of the same Tribunal to his Majesty the King Augustus III.”

Other Radziwiłłs buried in the crypt were clearly distinguished personalities – they occupied high-ranking and influential posts. These posts, together with the origin and wealth (first and foremost, large land holdings), allowed the family to remain in the ruling elite of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. For example, Mikołaj Krzysztof Radziwiłł Sierotka (1549-1616), the founder of the church and the crypt, began his political career as the Court Marshal of Lithuania and in the course of several decades managed to reach the highest rank in the hierarchy of the posts of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and became the Voivode of Vilnius. His grandson, Dominik Mikołaj Radziwiłł (1653-1697) and his great-grandson Karol Stanisław Radziwiłł (1669-1719) became Chancellors of Lithuania and his great-great-grandson Michał Kazimierz Rybeńko (1702-1760) eventually held the posts of Voivode of Vilnius and the Grand Hetman of Lithuania. Other members of the Radziwiłł family buried in the crypt did not hold such high posts: they were Voivodes of Navahrudak, Brest and Polatsk, ir krajczys (carvers) of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. However, even these posts allowed the family to maintain their power and exert at least some influence on the affairs of the state.

Wives of the Radziwiłł family men were also buried in the crypt. The names on the epitaphs – Wiśniowiecka, Ostrogska, Sobieska, Sanguszko – reveal their noble origins. It is difficult to explain why some of them were buried in the Corpus Christi Church in Nesvizh, while others were laid to rest somewhere else. Almost all the women buried in the crypt were the wives of the Ordynats of Nesvizh who continued the family line by giving birth to male offspring. Only those females of the Radziwiłł family, who died in their childhood, were buried in the crypt. Therefore, only two exceptions are known: Konstancja Franciszka Radziwiłł (Michał Kazimierz’s sister, who died in 1756), the Chancellor of Lithuania Jan Fryderyk Sapieha’s wife whose body “was put into the grave of our Radziwiłł family with the blasts of guns echoing in the air”¹[The diary of Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł Rybeńko (1719-1761; a copy)], Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych. Archiwum Warszawskie Radziwiłłów, dz. VI, nr. II-80 a, p. 2087. in 1759, and the wife of General Alexander Chudovsky, Konstancja (1796-1824)²Sławomir Górzyński, et al., Radziwiłłowie herbu Trąby, Warszawa: DiG, 1996, tabl. III.. They are thought to have been buried in the family crypt because they died childless and, in a sense, had no kinship with their husbands’ families. Other Radziwiłł women were buried in the churches related to the families of their husbands. For example, when Katarzyna Barbara Branicka, the sister of Michał Kazimierz, died in Bialystock in 1730, he only noted that the messenger had come and gave that sad message³[The diary of Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł Rybeńko], p. 400.. Naturally, later she was not buried in the crypt of the Corpus Christi Church in Nesvizh, but was laid to rest in some other church (perhaps the church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Białystok).

At that time, women did not play a significant role in politics, but they could show their worth in other areas. Among the women buried in the Radziwiłł family crypt, the most outstanding ones are Anna Katarzyna Sanguszko Radziwiłł (1676-1746) and Urszula Franciszka Wiśniowiecka Radziwiłł (1705-1753). Several churches and a monastery built on the Radziwiłł estate were renovated through the care of Anna Katarzyna, the mother of Michał Kazimierz. She also took care of the art gallery and supported artists. Her activities in establishing different workshops are also worth mentioning⁴For more see Wanda Karkucińska, Anna z Sanguszków Radziwiłłowa (1676-1746). Działalność gospodarcza i mecenat, Warszawa: Semper, 2000.. And Michał Kazimierz’s wife, Urszula Franciszka, was famous for her poems and plays, which were staged in the Radziwiłł estates⁵Aida Ažubalytė, “Nesvyžiaus dvaro ponios raštai artimiesiems ir teatrui”, Trys baroko saulėlydžio literatai: Pranciška Uršulė Radvilienė, Konstancija Benislavska, Juozapas Baka: chrestomatija (series Iš senosios Lietuvos literatūros), prepared by Aida Ažubalytė, Brigita Speičytė, Giedrė Šmitienė, Vilnius: Vilniaus universiteto leidykla, 2003, p. 6-16; Ilona Czamańska, Wiśniowieccy: monografia rodu, Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, 2007, p. 398-400..

Burials of the Radziwiłł children should be mentioned separately. The deaths of children, particularly those of juveniles, were extremely frequent, and neither peasant nor noble families could escape them. Notwithstanding their possibilities to have access to the services of physicians, the Radziwiłłs lost many of their children. This is testified to by the records in the family tree, as well as by the items found in the church and the crypt. One of the first to have been buried in the crypt was Mikołaj Krzysztof and Elżbieta Eufemia’s firstborn son Mikołaj, who hardly lived to be two. An embellished tombstone in the Holy Cross Chapel of the church was built in memory of the little Radziwiłł, where he is portrayed as an infant with his hands put together for prayer⁶Jeannie Łabno, Commemorating the Polish Renaissance Child: Funeral Monuments and their European Context, London, New York: Routledge, 2011, p. 264.. Mikołaj Krzysztof’s great-great-grandson Michał Kazimierz also took care of the memory of Mikołaj and other (though not all) deceased children of the family and ordered epitaphs to be made for them. The plate bearing the following inscription was fastened to the pillar adjacent to the sarcophagi of Mikołaj’s parents: “Mikołaj X, the firstborn son of prince Mikołaj VIII Radziwiłł and Elżbieta Eufemia Wiśniowiecka, born on 16 January 1587 in Nesvizh, died on 4 October 1588 in Nesvizh. He lived one year, 8 months, 17 days and 8 hours. epitaph was made in Nesvizh in 1749.” There are about twenty other memorial plates devoted to the children in the crypt. However, there are no small coffins next to them as they were taken to a separate room in the crypt (where Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł (1625-1680), the Deputy Chancellor and the Field Hetman of Lithuania, and his wife, Katarzyna (1634-1694), the sister of Jan Sobieski, the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania, were buried).

Many different people were laid to rest in the crypt of the Corpus Christi Church in Nesvizh – politicians and patronesses, military leaders and poetesses, people who died at the advanced age and those who died young. However, they all were related by their common origin and kinship – they all were members of the Radziwiłł family.

Martynas Jakulis