Žadeikiai Manor

This manor is located in Pasvalys district, the village Žadeikiai. In the 40s of the nineteenth century, the land reform of public estates started. One part of the Žadeikiai estate lands were distributed to peasants, and from remaining lands a Žadeikiai farm, which the tsarist government leased by a public tender, was formed. One thousand 953 peasants and 10 thousand 727.93 tithes of land belonged to the manor of Žadeikiai. According to the lustration data of inventory in 1856, there were 625 families and 3 thousand 437 residents in Žadeikiai. The State’s farm was formed from the former manor, Pasvalys town and 32 villages. The Rivers Lėvuo, Mūša, Pyvesa, Orija and Svalia and the streams Karaučis and Ašmenėlė ran through the manor’s territory. There were two water mills: one two-storey, tile-covered mill stood on the bank of the River Lėvuo in Pasvalys town, another was on the bank of the River Pyvesa. The second one was wooden covered with straw. There were 7 pubs, a public grain warehouse and 6.5 km of the road Panevėžys–Riga. The manor’s land was distributed to peasants, a farm, former recruits, Pasvalys Church and Daujėnai Church. According to the lustration data of inventory in 1856, there were 10 farm buildings in Žadeikiai: a residential house, a wooden outbuilding for servants, a cellar, a stable, a wooden granary, a wooden cow-shed, a clay barn with a grain drying room, a granary for bread storage, a distillery with a food warehouse, a ruined malt-house and a cellar. From the very beginning of the Žadeikiai farm in 1846 until 1853, the manor farm was managed by the owner of Pamūšis manor Baron Alexander von Ropp. From 1853 until 1859, Žadeikiai tenant was Reserve Major Henrikas Zbomirskis, but he was very neglectful. In 1858, Mr. Kazimieras Chodakauskas won the public tender for the Žadeikiai farm. Two years later, he signed a lease agreement and in 1860 transferred it to his brother Mr. Aleksandras Chodakauskas until 1871. Subsequently, the lease agreement was transferred to Baron Osten-Saken, but he was farming carelessly, violated the conditions of the lease, so in 1867 the agreement was cancelled. In 1868, the farm was bought by Kaunas province Vice-Governor Fiodor Lvov. At the end of the nineteenth century his children transferred the estate of Žadeikiai to the Russian origin landlord Nikolai Ivanov, who owned the estate until 1915. Mr. A. Chodakauskas’ residential building (built in 1861) remained up to this day. In 1918, a primary school was opened in this building. In 1920, a famous Lithuanian poet Bernardas Brazdžionis finished this school. From 1915 to 1925, he lived in the manor bathhouse building with his parents and sister. After the restoration of the Independence, Žadeikiai elementary school was named after Bernardas Brazdžionis. In 2009, it closed and Bernardas Brazdžionis Educational Center was founded.