Three Sources of Michael Johann von der Borch’s Poem “The Sentimental Park of Varakļāni Palace”

Abstract

History permits us to trace so-called Polish Inflanty, in the territoryof the former Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, to the contemporaryRepublic of Latvia. In this case we are particularly interested in theestate of Warkland (Warklany, Varakļāni). The ensemble of manorand park is typical for large estates in Eastern Europe, including avillage and its infrastructure and a separate manor and park as aspatial, architectural, botanical and social entity.Originating from Baltic-German nobility, ‘Polonised’ countMichael Johann von der Borch-Lubeschitz und Borchhoff (1753–1810) was the son of a Chancellor of Poland and Lithuania. He wasa member of several academies of science, in Siena, Dijon and Lion,and penfriend of Voltaire and academicians in Russia and France.After researching the mineralogy of Italy, Sicily, France, Germany,England, the Netherlands and Switzerland M. J. von der Borch leftfor his estate in Varakļāni, the Polonised part of eastern Livonia,called Polish Inflanty. At this time he also composed literary worksand poems, among which is one remarkable piece of didactic andemblematic content “The Sentimental Park of Varakļāni Palace” (Jardinsentimental du château de Warkland dans le Comté de Borch en RussieBlanche, 1795). This poem illustrates in a passionate and classicalway an emblematic approach to contemporary political structures,and the goals of education in general. In Jardin sentimental, whichis a theoretical and didactic manual, Borsch describes, through themetaphor of the estate park of Warkland, the route of an imaginativehero, full of expectation and temptation.The main subject of the report is an analysis of the text of thepoem contextualised by history and contrasted with evidence fromcontemporary Warkland.