Karp Familly from Rekijow in Samogitia in 20th century. A contribution to the history
of Polish landowners in Lithuania
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Online publication date: 2019-05-15
Publication date: 2019-05-15
KMW 2019;303(1):77-93
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ABSTRACT
The article concerns the fate of Felicjan Karp’s family, one of the richest landowners of Samogitia (Lithuania) in the first two decades of the 20th century. After his father, he inherited approximately 40,163 hectares.
The history of this family perfectly illustrates the changes that this social class has undergone in the past century.
The end of their existence was the end of the landowner’s existence. The twilight of the Samogitian Karps took
place quite quickly, for only a quarter of a century from July 28, 1914, the date of the outbreak of World War I
to the Soviet invasion of the Republic of Lithuania on June 15, 1940. Over the course of these years - on a large
scale two-fold - military operations, changes in the political and economic system, including agricultural reform
initiated in the reborn Lithuanian state in 1922 and deportations to Siberia in 1940 brutally closed the last stable
chapter in the life of Rekijów’s owners, definitively exterminating them after more than 348 years from the land of
their ancestors. Relations between the Karp family and the Rekijów estate should be dated at least from September
21, 1592. In addition to the description of the family, it is also necessary to emphasize their significant economic
and political importance in the inhabited region. These last two aspects gained momentum especially from the
first years of the 19th century and were reflected until 1922. At that time, representatives of the Karp family jointly
owned approximately 70,050 ha and provided the country with two provincial marshals (Vilnius, Kaunas) and
two county marshals (Upita, Ponevezys). The author also presents their fate during World War II in the Siberian
Gulag, during the amnesty under the Sikorski–Majski Agreement of July 30, 1941, joining the formed Polish Army
in the USSR (August 14, 1941), the soldier’s journey through Kermine in Uzbekistan, Krasnovodsk, Caspian Sea,
Khanaqin in Iraq, Palestine to the military camp near Tel-Aviv and then Egypt and the entire Italian campaign,
that is the battles of Monte Cassino, Loreto and Ancona. After the war, leaving Italy to England (1946), followed by
a short stay in Argentina and finally settling in Perth, Australia.