Night in Zofiówka

Zofiówka Park is one of the most beautiful parks of the eastern lands, founded in 1796 in Uman by Stanisław Szczęsny Potocki. The park was established as a gift for the owner’s beloved wife, Zofia Potocka. This was an enormous undertaking, both in financial terms and in scale of operations. The designer of the park was the military engineer Ludwik Metzell (1764 – 1848), who transformed the desolate yet picturesque terrain along the banks of the Kamianka River, known as the Uman Barrens, into a masterpiece of the gardener’s art. Described as an “earthly paradise”, the park was impressive not only for its scale, but also for the wealth of vegetation brought from all over Europe, its quaint beauty highlighted by cascades, artificial grottoes, and bronze and marble statuary. The layout of the park was made popular in Europe by the watercolours of the Scottish artist William Allen (1872-1850), who visited Tulchyn and Uman in the years 1810-13. Six of these, in the form of engravings made by Wilhelm Friedrich Schlotterbeck, were included in the epic poem Sofiówka by Stanisław Trembecki, published in 1815 on the occasion of the Congress of Vienna and translated into French.