Museum of Antiquities in Vilnius

The reformed library and museum served to support the official Russification policies and displayed many items related to the Russian Empire and the Eastern Orthodox Church.

He envisioned a museum with four main sections that would focus both on history and on progress: nature (minerals, plants, animals), antiquity (archaeological artifacts, coins, medals, art objects), library (publications, manuscripts, engravings), and economy (agriculture, equipment models, household items).

[3] After long bureaucratic delays (for example, Tyszkiewicz's refusal to provide a detailed inventory of the collection that he promised to donate or long discussions between the Ministry of National Education and the Ministry of Internal Affairs on how to handle archives of closed Catholic churches and monasteries),[3] new Tsar Alexander II of Russia approved the museum and the Vilnius Provisional Archaeological Commission on 11 May [O.S.

[7][8] In 1858–1862, Jan Kazimierz Wilczyński printed an album Musée Archéologique à Wilno illustrating some of the holdings in the museum: scepter and seal of Vilnius University, portraits of Grand Dukes of Lithuania, medals, archaeological artifacts.

[3] In 1862, the museum organized a special exhibition of items from Egypt, China, Japan, mostly donated by officers of the Imperial Russian Navy.

Already in November 1863, Governor General Mikhail Muravyov-Vilensky ordered a sculpture of King Władysław II Jagiełło and Jadwiga by sculptor Tomasz Oskar Sosnowski [pl] to be removed as it inspired Polish patriotism.

[11] The commission sought to discredit the museum and targeted sentimental items related to Polish and romantic nationalism, often ridiculing their dubious value and authenticity.

For example, the commission frequently mentioned "moth eaten" cloak of poet Adam Mickiewicz and the binoculars that allegedly used by Tadeusz Kościuszko in the Battle of Maciejowice but were proven to be of a later technology.

[12] The main hall was redecorated – painter Vasily Gryaznov replaced Neoclassicist murals of Smuglewicz's with Neo-Byzantine decor.

[14] Interest in collecting items related to Polish–Lithuanian history did not diminish; instead, it became a form of passive resistance and an expression national pride.

He studied tumuli, published museum guide with some photographs in 1892, and helped organizing the 9th congress of the Moscow Archaeological Society [ru] in Vilnius in 1893.

It was initially established as a temporary or provisional group, but quickly became a well respected learned society and an integral part of the museum.

[5] It published two volumes of Pamiętniki Komisji Archeologicznej Wileńskiej (Notes of the Vilnius Archaeological Commission) and a collection of royal act and privileges from 1387 to 1711 compiled by Ignacy Daniłowicz [ru].

[5] In 1858, the commission petitioned to be officially reorganized into a learned society that would have four sections (archaeology, archaeography, natural science, and statistics-economics), but the project was not approved.

[7] Instead, the commission focused on publishing historical material that would demonstrate that Lithuania was an ancient Russian and Eastern Orthodox land that needed to return to its roots (i.e. the official position to justify various Russification policies).

[21] The documents included files from courts in Vilnius, Hrodna, Ukmergė, Upytė, Trakai, Minsk, Slonim (vols.

The new public library was a typical government-run institution fully dependent on the Vilnius educational district [ru] and with a mission to become an outpost of Russian culture.

According to the official position, before the Union of Lublin of 1569, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a Russian state with books and decrees in the Ruthenian language and needed to be returned to its roots.

[2] The museum grew primarily from donations of local nobles, including members of the Kossakowski, Ogiński, Radziwiłł, Sapieha families.

[2] The collection included a number of items related to the Kościuszko Uprising in 1794, French invasion of Russia in 1812, faculty members of the closed Vilnius University.

For example, cap that Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz wore on the day of his execution, lock of hair of Napoleon, grass from the grave of poet Franciszek Karpiński, a piece of bed drapes from the deathbed of Władysław IV Vasa.

[1] In a catalog of 1858, the first listed item was a bronze figure of Perkūnas, the Lithuanian god of thunder, found in Kernavė but it was revealed to be a piece of a 13th-century candelabra from Hildesheim in Germany.

For example, items in the Chancery Slavonic language to showcase Russian roots that Lithuanians should return to (an official position to justify Russification), a gallery of portraits of Russian officials and Orthodox metropolitans, silver hammer and shovel that Tsar Alexander II used to ceremoniously open the construction of the Paneriai railway tunnel [lt] in 1858.

For example, exhibits related to Governor General Mikhail Muravyov-Vilensky were removed to a separate museum located in the present-day Presidential Palace.

[16] In 1865, the vast majority of numismatic items, including all the hoards except for the six silver bars of Lithuanian long currency found in Veliuona, were taken to Moscow.

[30] Samples included gemstones (pyrope, beryl, geodes, chalcedony, hematite, hydrophane opal), silicates (clay, mica, asbestos, basalt, lava from Vesuvius), coal, anthracite, graphite, amber, metals (gold, pyrite, malachite, magnetite, hematite from Elba gifted by Adam Jerzy Czartoryski,[31] limonite, galena, cassiterite, stibnite), sedimentary and volcanic rocks.

It was enlarged by an ornithological collection of Konstanty Tyzenhauz (1,093 birds, 563 eggs)[32] as well as donation of mollusc shells for the Lake Baikal in 1858 and 1,324 seashells in 1860–1861.

For example, at least fourteen portraits from the museum are currently held by the Lithuanian Art Museum, including Tsar Nicholas I (an anonymous copy after Franz Krüger), Mikhail Muravyov-Vilensky by Nikolai Tikhobrazov, Dmitry Bludov by Ivan Trutnev, Pompey Batiushkov [ru] by Nikolay Koshelev, two portraits of Metropolitan Yosyf Semashko, before and after his conversion from the Ruthenian Uniate Church to Eastern Orthodoxy, attributed to Konstantin Makovsky.

[32] Already in 1918, activists, including Jonas Basanavičius and the short-lived People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Lithuanian SSR, started working on recovering the removed exhibits from Russia.

[11] During the interwar, Lithuania managed to recover some archives, but only one item from the former collections of the Museum of Antiquities was returned – the sculpture of King Władysław II Jagiełło and Jadwiga.