Tuskulėnai Manor

History

Tuskulėnai Manor was founded in the middle of the 16th century by the Grand Duke of Lithuania Sigismund Augustus. A large homestead of the Royal Manor with buildings, gardens and ponds was the auxiliary farm of Vilnius Castles. Over time the manor was ruled by the noblemen Valavičius (Volovich), Pacas (Pac), Tyzenhauzas (Tyzenhaus). In the middle of the 18th century, the manor was divided into separate estates, and the Lateran monks from Poland took control of the central part and gave the manor the name of Tuskulėnai. At the beginning of the 19th century, the manor belonged to the wife of the Tsar’s counsellor Elžbieta Rogovska.

The remaining manor

The Classicist style palace of the manor on the coast of Neris, designed by the architect Karolis Podčašinkis, was built around 1825, commissioned by Alexander Rimsky-Korsakov, the Governor-General of the Russian Empire in Vilnius. In the middle of the 19th century, Julijanas Titijus (Julian Titius), a physician and a public figure, was the host of the Tuskulėnai Manor, the representatives of the art and culture world gathered at the manor. In the second half of the 19th century, the manor was owned by Tsar’s General Melentjev.

Since 1940

In 1940, Tuskulėnai Manor was nationalised. Between 1941 and 1944, during the German occupation, the manor belonged to Vincentas and Jadvyga Antonavičiai, who hid and rescued the Jews in the manor. After the Second World War, the building housed repressive Soviet structures and used the site as a mass grave to bury NKGB prisoners and those who were later killed. At the moment, the Tuskulėnai Peace Park Memorial Complex is established in the territory of Tuskulėnai Manor.