Kniaża lies in Podolia, by the river Kośniczka, in the Yampol district.
It’s such Pobereże, a land stretched as a narrow bridge between the Dniester and Boh, far to the rivers Yahorlyk and Kodyma. Pobereże, a borderland, which at its edges, in the steppe, is covered with lush grass.
The village is called Kniaża because it once belonged to princes. There are many such Kniaz in all of Rus. There’s Kniażpol, Kniażsioło, Kniażperechod, Kniaziołuka.
With Kniaża, a legend must be.
It was a prince hero who built a dam at Kniażperechod to have a crossing for the Varangian rulers, or a princess who had an amber castle on Kniażgóra.
Kniaża of Yampol was surrounded by villages Miaskówka, Kośnica, Antopol, itself laid out on the banks of streams that fell into Kośniczka.
Near Kniaża was the town of Kniażopol with old, several-century-old buildings.
Kniaża and Kniażpol were owned by the Czetwertyński family in the 16th century, then Kniaża passed to the Grocholski family and from the 18th century to the present day it is owned by this family. Now the heir of Kniaża is Remigiusz Count Grocholski.
There was a house in Kniaża, at first sight a typical Polish manor.
Such with a porch covered in vine, walls covered in greenery. Upon closer inspection, you see the ruins of ramparts right by the house, you see the manor’s walls 1.5 meters thick. The entrance to the manor is not from the porch with greenery, but from the side. You enter not straight, but deep down through winding stone stairs, as if to a cellar. Right there, a huge vaulted chamber without windows. Such a fortified dungeon, once lit by torches, and forming the lion’s share of the house. Here a vision of chests with bandoleers, in corners wide spears, javelins. Doors lead in different directions to the usual living rooms, salons, dining rooms.
Such a structure was called “built in a star.”
Around Kniaża, the vast forests of Hrabeczy. In them, once hunts for wolves and boars. The hunts took place on horses, as no cart would pass through the traps. The Hrebeckie forests are so old and beautiful that in the 90s of the last century English merchants came specifically to see them.
In Kniaża, during the January Uprising, Xawera Countess Grocholska held secret meetings to organize the movement.
Good echoes of the past went through the Hrabeczy forests, near Kniaża.
Oaks whispered something to oaks, elms to elms. Are those whispers still there and will Remigiusz Grocholski, deprived of his heritage, hear them?
Antoni Urbański “Podzwonne na zgliszczach Litwy i Rusi” Published by the Author, Warsaw 1928
