The Jašiūnai estate is a cradle of culture in southeast Lithuania. The restored mansion houses a museum, and organises excursions, educational visits, Classical music concerts, and summer festivals. The tradition of encouraging culture originated here in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when it was owned by the Balinskis family. The current owners, having resurrected the mansion in 2015 to give it a new life, are diligently continuing the tradition.
The settlement at Jašiūnai and a manor house belonging to the Radvila family were mentioned in written records in 1402. However, the glorious golden age of the mansion began in the early 19th century, when it was acquired by the Balinskis family. Mykolas Balinskis, a researcher and historian, lived here with his wife Sofija Sniadeckytė, and later her intellectual relatives came to stay here. Her father Andrius Sniadeckis was a professor of chemistry and biology at Vilnius University, and her uncle Jonas Sniadeckis was an astronomer and mathematician at the university. An ornate Late Classical mansion was built between 1824 and 1828, designed by Karolis Podčašinskis, a professor of architecture at Vilnius University, and has survived to the present day. The mansion was set in an 11-hectare park.
Over the next hundred years, with the closure of Vilnius University and the loss of its intellectual life, Jašiūnai became an important cultural centre: many famous people at that time visited it and stayed there. It was visited several times by the poet Adomas Mickevičius and Povilas Bžotovskis, the founder of the Pavlovsky Republic. The intellectuals of Jašiūnai, who took an interest in the history of Lithuania and dreamt of restoring the independence of the Republic of the Two Nations, did not remain on the sidelines during the uprisings in 1831 and 1863. Insurgents and their supporters gathered in the mansion, and the wounded were treated there. M. Balinskis was arrested in 1831 for collaborating with the rebels, but he was not convicted.
The Balinskis family also encouraged industrial development, and started wood processing at Jašiūnai in the 19th century: first a sawmill and a turpentine factory were built, and later a forge and a copper foundry. The Jašiūnai estate belonged to the Balinskis family until the Second World War, when they fled to Poland.
During the war, and later during the Soviet era, the mansion was ransacked and severely damaged. Various institutions were housed in it: a hospital, a maternity home, a house of culture, and even flats. Eventually, the mansion became the property of the collective farm at Jašiūnai.
The restoration of Jašiūnai started in 2015, and today, when we go there, we can appreciate its beauty and grandeur, just as it would have looked in the 19th century. The enlightened owners continue to cherish cultural traditions there, and invite us to learn about the cultural heritage of the Vilnius region, and of the whole of Lithuania.
This article is a part of a project implemented within the framework of the Innovation of Tourism Services and Products Program, with funding from the Agency for Science, Innovation and Technology, and from funds allocated by the Ministry of Economy and Innovation of the Republic of Lithuania.
