This world changes continually and we change with it. However, the values and moral principles that form the essence of what it is to be human, do not change. One of these values is philanthropy (from the Greek, philanthrōpia: ‘love of humanity’), the desire to help others, and to perform works of charity.

At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the renowned activist Juozapas Montvila [a.k.a. Józef Montwiłł] (1850–1911) stood out for his desire to help others. He was a businessman and banker, and initiated the construction of many ecclesiastical and secular buildings. He was born on 21 March 1850 at Mitėniškiai Manor near the small town of Šėta (on the border of the present-day Kėdainiai and Jonava Districts) and this year marks the 175^th anniversary of his birth. This anniversary has become the stimulus for the Lithuanian State Historical Archive along with other Lithuanian state archives and national memorial institutions to organize an exhibition to remind people today of this noble person’s contributions to architecture, scholarship, art and especially charity. The exhibition is called “Juozapas Montvila – The Great Philanthropist”.

After completing his studies at Vilnius Grammar School, in 1867 J. Montvila went off to study law at the University of St Petersburg. In Berlin and Vienna he attended lectures on sociology and economics, becoming acquainted with the activities of western social, philanthropic and cultural institutions. Thus, it comes as no surprise that after his return to Lithuania he quite threw himself into the ossified social life of Vilnius, and he demonstrated by personal example opportunities for positive action that hitherto had not been noticed. On Montvila’s initiative the Vilnius Land Bank, of which he was director, set about financing the building of terraced dwelling houses, called colonies, in the city districts of Naujamiestis, Pohulianka, Šnipiškės, Rasos, and Lukiškės; the bank also financed the foundation of orphanages. For the best part of three decades, he was a generous source of charity and a philanthropist sympathizing with the poor and destitute.

The documents on display in this exhibition may be divided into three main groups. The first group comprises documents connected with Montvila himself: his baptismal record, photographs and portraits, personal correspondence, cartes de visite, announcements of his death and funeral in Kurjer wileński in 1911, and so on.

The second group of documents is connected with the Montvila gentry family, Holy Trinity Church in Šėta and Mitėniškiai Manor. These include the wills of Juozapas’ great-great grandfather, Andrius Montvila (1761) and his great grandmother, Elena Siesickaitė-Daumantaitė Montvilienė (1801), Montvila family trees (using the ‘Columns’ coat of arms) and certificates confirming the family’s gentry status. There are also plans from the second half of the nineteenth century which show land belonging to the parish priest of Šėta and Juozapas’ father, the gentleman Stanislovas Montvila, Holy Trinity Church Šėta, and Mitėniskiai Manor; copies of the epitaphs of Stanislovas Montvila and his son Juozapas Montvila preserved today in the Šėta Grammar School Museum, and photographs of Holy Trinity Church, Šėta. Also on display are the 1928 plan parcelling out Mitėniškiai Manor land, photographs of the last owners of this manor, Vladislovas Montvila and Marija Huščaitė-Montvilienė, deported to Siberia in 1940, and Vladislovas Montvila’s finger prints from his deportation records.

The third group contains what are probably the most interesting documents connected with the Vilnius (Franciscan) Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the former Franciscan Friary, whose fate is closely intertwined with the history of the Lithuanian State Historical Archive. After repressing the Uprising of 1863-1864, the imperial Russian authorities closed down the Franciscan Church and Friary. In these buildings the authorities founded the Vilnius Gubernia Public Institutions’ Archive where nineteenth-century documents from state institutions were collected. At first documents were held only in the monastic cells but from 1871 the church itself was also adapted to serve as an archive – after repair work was carried out, the desecrated space was divided with beams and planks into five storeys. Archival documents were held here until 1992.

At the beginning of the twentieth century the Franciscan Friary was the heart of charitable organizations working in Vilnius. This was the site of institutions founded by Juozapas Montvila, namely the Children’s Care Society, St Zita’s Female Servants’ Society, the Society for the Protection of the Poor with its free canteen, hospital, and night shelter, the Children’s Care Society “Drop of Milk”, and others. In August 1908 an exhibition opened here called “Children”; it was the brainchild of its sponsor Juozapas Montvila. The exhibition displayed photographs of the Franciscan Church and Friary by the famous photographer Jan Bułhak, projects drafted by Montvila’s architects August Klein and Aleksander Parczewski for orphanages on Little Pohulianka Street and Vitebsk Street, as well as photographs by the brothers Miron and Leon Butkowski for the “Children” Exhibition. It is no coincidence that a memorial plaque in honour of Juozapas Montvila was unveiled in the Blessed Virgin Mary Chapel of the former Franciscan Friary in 1911 and a monument was built in his honour in 1932 next to the Franciscan Church and Friary.

We hope that the archival documents presented in the exhibition will not only interest scholars studying the personality of this prominent social activist and philanthropist, who has left a long-lasting footprint in the history of Šėta and Vilnius, but also that it will encourage us all to think about our own contributions to public welfare. Montvila himself acknowledged that “people often complain that the world is unfair to them, but if they were to compare exactly what good they have done themselves with what they have received from others, most likely they would be convinced that in the final calculation it is they that are the debtors”.

Please look over the Exhibition.