Michał Jan Borch and His Residence in Varakļāni: Genesis and Ideological Programme
Michał Jan Borch and His Residence in Varakļāni: Genesis and Ideological Programme

Summary/Abstract: Close to the old Riga - Rezekne road on the outskirts of the tiny town of Varakļāni in Latvia’s eastern province of Latgale, is the former residence of the Belz Voivode Michał Jan Borch (1753-1811). Photographs and drawings record the state of the garden before the destruction of the war, showing its varied surface with such architectural features as arcaded bridges and the entrance gate decorated with vases. Borch was an individual of many-sided interests, known in cosmopolitan courts and among the academic circles of Europe of the Ancient Regime. He travelled to Italy via Saxony, France, Switzerland and stayed on for a longer period in Sicily and Malta. In 1791 he settled down for good in the Varakļāni estate granted to his ancestors. Borch’s major achievement was to create a palace and garden complex. He employed the Italian architect Vincenzo de Mazotti who drained the marsh to prepare the land for the residence, erected the palace and collaborated on landscaping the garden. In 1790 Borch travelled to England and the English residences he became acquainted with must have had some impact on the arrangement of the Varakļāni estate. This is indirectly testified to by the very title of the first version of Borch’s literary work on the Varakļāni garden, ‘Jardin moral et emblematique’ which the author read to Stanislaus Augustus in the winter of 1791. The surviving and documented elements show that the described landscaped garden was only partially implemented. Of all the planned pavilions, only the rotunda was built, not identified actually with either of the described temples, as well as a small pavilion with a square layout (later Jadwiga’s Chapel). Similarities can be detected with the English garden in Stowe (Buckinghamshire) and the Warsaw landscape gardens Lazienki - the Royal Baths and Arkadia near Lowicz. The landscaping in Varakļāni was described as a planned route for a young nobleman with didactic and moral guidelines as well as patriotic and historiosophical messages.

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