Medinis paveldas. Ieškant Adomo Karaliaus pėdsakų Suvalkų gubernijos bažnyčiose

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Adomas Karalius; Suvalkų gubernijos bažnyčios; Mediniai altoriai; Adomas Karalius; Churches of the Suvalkai province; Wooden altars.

ENAdomas Karalius (1854-1946) was one of the most prominent masters of wooden altars, creators of sacred art in the Suvalkai province. He worked in southeastern Lithuania, called Užnemunė, and in Lithuanian ethnic territories in Poland. He created altars, minialtars, pulpits, confessionals, other wooden parts of the church interior decorated with carvings of artistic and historical value. Having come from his native village to the city of Šakiai and having worked for local craftsmen, A. Karalius quickly became famous for his artistic carvings. In 1880 he established The Altar, Carpenter and Other Wood Workshop in Šakiai. An example of his early work is the altar erected in the Scapular Church of the St. Virgin Mary in Gudeliai which have been classified as “the most attractive ensembles of the Lithuanian neo-Gothic style” by expert artists (Prof. Aleksandra Aleksandravičiūtė). In 1903, A. Karalius moved to Suvalkai, another Lithuanian city and the centre of the Province. There he also opened a workshop and called it the Artistic Church Institution. The workshop flourished. He received many orders, he had assistants and students, who later became famous sculptors (Vytautas Košuba, Matas Menčinskas, Antanas Aleksandravičius). He carved altars, pulpits, confessionals, cyborias, organ prospectuses, sacristy furniture, and other wooden parts of the church. After the collapse of the province and the restoration of Lithuania’s independence, around 1920, A. Karalius moved to Marijampolė together with the family of seven children and his Artistic Church Institution. Being no longer young (he lived 93 years), he created artistic, mostly neo-Gothic, neoBaroque forms of sacral art ensembles; some of them are among the “most important neo-Gothic ensembles in Lithuania”.In 1926, after the opening of the State Craft School in Marijampolė, A. Karalius became the first teacher of practical work. For half a century, during the Russian occupation in Lithuania, A. Karalius’ works were just a buried treasure; not only did the artists, in fear of repression, struggle whether to create for church, but art critics were not encouraged to take any interest in sacred art. The restoration of independence (1990) brought about fundamental changes in all fields of art and culture. The researchers of the Department of Sacred Art of the Institute of Cultural Philosophy and Art published several collections of scientific articles examining the ecclesiastical art heritage of Lithuanian dioceses. They also contain important conclusions and remarks about A. Karalius’s legacy (they were referred to in this article). Yet, it remained unclear where and how many of A. Karalius works are. An important discovery was made by the relatives who found among the old papers of Adomas Karalius’s “The List of Works in the Churches.” It is not absolutely accurate and complete but was compiled, “as much as he could remember”, by a master who was already old. However, it is indicated that there are works of A. Karalius in twenty-seven churches in Lithuania and ten in Poland: in Birštonas, Šilavotas, Gelgaudiškis, Didvyžiai, Gražiškės, Mažasis Plockas, Krasnyboras, Sylvanovcas, etc. Following the List, we went (me, musicologist S.J. Vyliūtė, artist Rimantas Tumasonis and Ignas Dučinskas) to the churches of the former Suvalkai Province to look for A. Karalius’s legacy. We did not find much: the churches were damaged during the war, burned down, rebuilt, renewed, our competencies were insufficient to determine exactly where Karalius was after the restoration (for example, in the churches of Aukštadvaris, Kalvarija).However, in some places we were simply blinded by the well-preserved works of the old altar master: in Punskas, Gudeliai, Sasnava where people can see the pulpit, the last piece A. Karalius’s sacral art, which has been declared an object of state-protected heritage. We also detected his works where we did not look for, e.g., in the Nemunaitis church. During the trip, the various attitudes of pastors and congregation towards the church of their parish were revealed. We found out that not only zealous Catholic Poles prominently adore their shrines, as for example in Studzieniczna, but also in the small towns of Lithuania (Paluobiai, Višakio Rūda), where the churches are richly decorated and maintained. The latter article does not claim to the professional insights, meanings and definitions of A. Karalius’s legacy. Its aim was to make at least a narrow exposure in the history of Lithuanian sacred art, to remind of the works of a talented wood master drowning in oblivion. [From the publication]