ABSTRACT
A document discovered in the Wróblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in Vilnius was originally sent by the dean of Olwita (Alvitas) to the parishes of the southern part of his deanery. It contains a proclamation of the Lithuanian insurrectionary authorities during the 1794 rising against Russia, regarding military provisioning. Once the proclamation had been delivered, the priest in charge of each parish was to copy it, and send it on, together with printed copies of two further proclamations, to the next parish, noting the times of arrival and departure, and signing for the completed task. When applied to detailed maps of the area made by the Prussian authorities a few years later, following the final partition of the Commonwealth in 1795, this information allows us to reconstruct the (slow) speed of communication between parishes—the peripheral region of the Suwalszczyzna/Suvalkija was quite thickly wooded with many post-glacial lakes. A comparison is made for a similar circuit of the deanery of Worniany (Varniany) further to the east, undertaken at about the same time. The document also casts light on the problem of residence and plural benefices among the diocesan clergy—about half the parish priests were present on this occasion; in other parishes their deputies copied and despatched the proclamation. Finally, it is a window into the rhetoric and effectiveness of military provisioning in a peripheral locality bordering the Kingdom of Prussia.
