Location: “Following the Stefan Batory Way. Pastavy at the crossroads of cultures” – this is how the local historian Iosif Zyamchonak called his book about the history of the city. Indeed, the decision to establish a city in this location was because the land route from Vilnius to Polatsk was strategically important during the military campaigns of King Stefan Batory. The description of military operations also gives us some idea of the routes of movement of people and goods in the 16th century. In 1581, the Hungarian infantry moved from Vilnius to Pastavy, and then by boat, with guns, it crossed the rivers Myadzelka and Dzisenka to Dzisna. Gunpowder and provisions were delivered using an alternative route from Kaunas along the Viliya river to Mikhalishki, then along the land route to Pastavy, and finally to Dzisna.
Pastavy in Skaryna’s times
The first mention of Pastavy dates back to 1516, when a wooden parish church was founded here by Yuryy Ivanavich Zyanovich, who held an important government post (since 1515 he served as a court marshal) and took an active part in political life during the reign of Grand Duke Alexander, including participation in a delegation sent to Moscow to arrange a match with the princess Elena. Pastavy was then a private town in the Ashmyany County (Pol. „powiat”) of the Vilnius voivodeship. In 1522, the lands of Pastavy were divided between four sons of Yury Zyanovich: Mikalay, Mikhail, Yuryy and Yan, each of whom built a private homestead in Pastavy. All of the sons also confirmed the foundation of the church.
Pastavy from the 17th century to this day
The trading town acquired special significance when it became the property of the influential German Tyzenhauz family in the second half of the 18th century.
The nobleman Antoni Tyzenhauz acquired Pastavy as his wife’s dower. He was one of the most prominent figures in the history of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania during the last period of its existence. As a court treasurer, he initiated many economic reforms and technological innovations to increase royal revenues. Hrodna became the main estate of the treasurer, where many manufactories and factories, schools, scientific and cultural institutions were founded. Antoni Tyzenhauz carried out similar reforms, just on a smaller scale, in Pastavy, where he built himself a palace as a private residence. On his initiative, manufactories and craft workshops were opened in Pastavy. In 1780, a secondary school was opened under the Vilnius Main School. Two years later, a theatre school was relocated here from Hrodna. During the times of Antoni Tyzenhauz, who “transformed a poor wooden town into a beautiful stone town”, the Italian architect Giuseppe de Sacco was invited to build a city center around the market: brick houses with craft workshops, cloth hall and court buildings were built here. This ensemble survived almost entirely, although, in 1940, the cloth hall in the centre of the square was demolished.
The heyday of Pastavy continued during the reign of Kanstantsin Tyzenhauz (1785–1853), who lived in the Pastavy Palace, which was largely rebuilt by him (the outlook of the Palace has survived to this day). Kanstantsin Tyzenhauz was a famous scientist, an ornithologist of a European scale, and a significant part of the Palace was allocated to the ornithological museum (after his death, the ornithological collection was transferred to the Vilnius Archaeological Commission, and the largest part of it is still kept at the Vilnius University). The famous art gallery was also created here, where, according to the description of 1840, there were works by Leonardo da Vinci, Paolo Veronese, Peter Paul Rubens, Pieter Brueghel, Albrecht Dürer. Later, the collection of the gallery dispersed, partly the paintings were transported to the Rokiškis Palace (some works were included in the collection of the Kaunas Picture Gallery), partly to the Przeździecki palace in Warsaw (which was burned down during World War II), and partly to Kiev during the evacuation of 1915 (most of these works have also disappeared).
Currently, the administration of the city hospital is located in the Palace. In the basement, however, there is an exposition of the Regional Museum of Local History, telling about the cultural prosperity of Pastavy during the times of Antoni and Kanstantsin Tyzenhauz. There are monuments to both prominent figures erected near the Palace.