Who was he, really? A Pole? A Belarusian? An admirer of the simple Belarusian peasantry and rural way of life—or a naïve “peasant enthusiast” Wincenty “Wincuk” Dunin-Marcinkiewicz was, if truth be told, probably a little of all these things – not unlike many representatives of the borderland intelligentsia of the mid-19th century. Little known today is that it was he who produced the first Belarusian translation of Pan Tadeusz. He also wrote librettos for four operas by Stanisław Moniuszko, including parts of one—Sielanka (idyll)—in Belarusian. His task he faced was particularly daunting, as a standard Belarusian literary language did not exist at that time, so to reflect the richness of Mickiewicz’s verse —or to conjure vivid descriptions for Moniuszko’s musical compositions—it was necessary for many new words to be coined. Although the majority of his oeuvre is in Polish, he is regarded as one of the fathers of the Belarusian literary language.

Dunin-Marcinkiewicz was born in the Paniuszkiewicze estate on a tributary of the Berezina in 1808, four years before Napoleon’s Great Army made its retreat from Moscow through those very lands. Only fifteen years earlier (starting from the Second Partition), the region had been incorporated into the Russian Empire. The family adhered to the Catholic faith; his father, Jakub, oversaw a modest estate. Wincenty attended the district school in Bobrujsk (established during the Commission of National Education), and went on to study in Vilnius, where he enrolled in medicine (though some claim it was in fact St Petersburg) but quickly dropped out. He was also married there, in 1831 moving to Minsk (Lithuania). He found employment there as, among other positions, a translator in the bishop’s curia. In 1840 he purchased a small estate in Łucynka near Minsk, settling there, although he did frequently stay in Minsk as he served as a deputy to local assemblies. From the early 1850s he wrote and published in both Belarusian and Polish. He was also blessed with musical talents, a gift shared by his children. He was an author of poems, novels, and theatrical plays.

His work was deemed to be subversive by Russian officials: he addressed the common people in their own—non-Russian—language and, even worse, he used the Latin alphabet instead of Cyrillic. As a result, following the publication of his Belarusian Pan Tadeusz in 1859, the tsarist censors ordered the confiscation and destruction of virtually the entire print run.

It should be added, that conclusions regarding his national self-identification tend to complicate somewhat, given that his daughter Kamila, a talented pianist, was a fervent Polish patriot who was exiled to Siberia for her activities (we will save her story for a later time). Wincenty himself came face to face with repression in October 1864: after being imprisoned for nine months, Tsarist investigators failed to provide any concrete evidence of anti-Russian activity, and he was set free.

He died 20 years later, on 17 December 1884, and was laid to rest in Tupalszczyzna (Vileyka district). His Belarusian edition of Pan Tadeusz was published posthumously in 1907. Memory of “Wincuk” remains alive and well in Belarus; in Poland however, he is practically unknown.