Russia (bbabo.net), - 215 years ago, on February 11, 1807, in Polissya, in the Vorotsevichi estate of the Pinsk district, which is now in the Ivanovsky district of the Brest region, a boy named Napoleon. Already in his mature years, he discovered in himself the unique talent of a draftsman and left to his descendants real images of palaces, estates and other sights of the century before last, which would later be wiped off the face of the earth by wars and other outrages of a ruthless time. The indefatigable artist left behind 1197 sketches of architectural monuments, one of which has settled in the wallets and pockets of millions of Belarusians for a long time. The image of the Radziwill castle in Nesvizh, indicating the authorship of the Horde, adorned the 100,000th banknote of the National Bank of Belarus of 2000.

But why Napoleon? The name for the nobility of the 19th century is not uncommon: the loud glory of the Corsican Bonaparte, who became the emperor of the French, long after his death excited the minds of the nobles living in the Belarusian lands, and especially the nobles. The baby Napoleon from Vorotsevichi, born in the year of Bonaparte's meeting with the Russian Emperor Alexander I in Tilsit, was one of the first boys to be called a new big name. The father, who at one time headed the Kobrin gentry, owned the art of fortification, built canals and roads, died when his son was not even two years old. Napoleon was brought up by Josephine's mother, a subtle and musical nature, who taught her son the basics of playing the piano early. Music has become one of the three main passions in the life of the Horde. In his youth, he was more likely to have a fatherly technical career: after graduating from the gymnasium in Svisloch, he began to study physics and mathematics at Vilna University, but did not finish the course: the authorities remembered the young man from the gymnasium secret society. Departure from the university, which cost 15 months in the Vilna prison, did not add love to the Russian Empire, and in 1831 we see the 24-year-old Napoleon as a rebel, and so inventive that he managed to move unnoticed to the Kingdom of Poland and at the beginning of summer actively participate in the battle of Kotsky, to receive the Order of Virtuti Military and the rank of captain.

Napoleon paid dearly for the romantic rebellion. From now on, the “rebel of the second category”, deprived of noble dignity, will not see his mother for almost a quarter of a century, his estate was confiscated. But in exile, the young man, unlike many rebels who disappeared in a foreign land in inaction and lack of money, was not lost. His musical talents were noticed and appreciated by the great Chopin, among his Parisian interlocutors Adam Mickiewicz and Honore de Balzac, Franz Liszt and Stendhal, Ivan Turgenev and Hector Berlioz. In 1847, he briefly became director of the Italian Opera in Paris, Rossini and Verdi also know the Horde personally.

Chopin saw Napoleon's artistic talent, which he developed professionally, studying in the studio of Pierre Gerard, who taught the art of architectural landscape, which was in demand in the 19th century. From the beginning of the 1840s, the second and third passions of the gentry from Polissya became drawing and travel woven together. It was interesting to draw Europe from Scotland to Portugal and North Africa, but I was irresistibly drawn to my homeland, where my old mother remained. In 1856, as soon as the new Emperor Alexander II announced an amnesty for the participants in the uprising of 1830-1831, the Horde left his French wife Irene with two children and went to Polissya. His mother will die three years after his return, after that the family estate will have to be rented, and due to the “unproved rights of the nobility”, the well-born gentry Orda is now officially called the “philistine of the city of Grodno”. The authorities look askance at the former rebel, with the beginning of a new uprising in 1863, they do not find evidence of participation in it, but on the principle of "whatever happens," they keep him in prison in Kobrin for a year and a half.

It would seem easier to go to that very familiar abroad and end your days in contentment and comfort. But it is after fifty, in advanced years for those times, that the Horde tirelessly travels and finds its unique place in eternity.

He understood well what he was doing for posterity, who would have a living and adequate image of the homeland

Napoleon has his own drawing technique: on a approximately 30-cm sheet pasted on a planchette, he first drew from nature with a pencil, and subsequently watercolor, gouache and sepia were used. In field conditions, this simple technology made it possible to quickly and generally reliably depict castles and fortresses, gentry estates and peasant buildings, as well as the ruins of lost antiquities.The result of the enthusiast’s travels, which became an annual event upon reaching the age of 65, was the folders neatly sorted by the artist himself, in which there is an invaluable storehouse of Belarusian material on the provinces of Grodno, Minsk, Vitebsk, Vilna, Mogilev, in countless rural country roads and in the cities of Grodno, Vitebsk , Minsk, Mogilev, Polotsk, Pinsk, Novogrudok, Nesvizh, Turov. For its time, in the conditions of constant off-road wandering, this is truly a hell of a job. But the Horde, who died in 1883, was well aware that these drawings were not only for the sake of earning money, although they paid well, but above all for posterity, who would have a living and adequate image of the homeland that he managed to preserve.

And the Belarusian descendants appreciated the works of the observant painter. The name of the Horde is heard and seen in the 21st century, which is witnessed by the residents of Minsk, Brest, Grodno, Ivanovo - in all these cities there are streets named after him, and a monument to the famous fellow countryman has been erected in the regional center of Ivanovo. But the Polesie Napoleon erected the best monument to himself during his lifetime - these are almost 1200 masterful sketches that help today in search of the lost from the century before last.

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