I have seen books from Stanisław Kunatt’s library in Krasnogruda, ten kilometres away from Sejny. His name features among the notable personalities of the Suwałki region (Biografie Suwalskie part IV, the article titled Konserwatywny liberał [A Conservative Liberal]). There we learn that he descended from a Calvinist noble family, was born in 1799 in the manor of Michaliszki, Mariampol county, Suwałki region and he graduated from the Sejny Secondary School in 1817. The school became famous for its famous Great Emigration graduates: Antoni Bukaty, Heronim Kajsiewicz and Leonard Niedźwiecki.
Stanisław Kunatt studied law at the Warsaw University and then, in 1820–1823, he went on to study economy and philosophy in Berlin and Paris. Returning to Poland he lectured on law and economy in Warsaw. He supported the liberal opposition. He became a member of the Academic Guards and then a Privy Councillor and a clerk of the Parliamentary sessions. While in emigration, he remained loyal to the Hotel Lambert line. He co-founded the Literary Association and was a lecturer at the Higher Polish School.
His younger brothers were also born in Michaliszki: Mikołaj, an officer in the November Uprising, then émigré and member of the Democratic Society; and Teofil who bought Krasnogruda (from his Eysymont relatives) in 1853. He was the father of Bronisław and Zygmunt, i.e.. my grandfather.
Sejny, in the inter-war period, was a small Jewish town. There was also the other Sejny, the Lithuanian one, the seat of the, mostly Lithuanian, diocese. Its bishop, at the turn of the 20th century, was Antoni Baranowski, a poet and mathematician. Here we find some complication: Baranowski, hailing from Onikszty [Anykščiai], Lithuania, while in the seminary, used the name Baranauskas and was a Lithuanian patriot. He wrote then, in Lithuanian and imitating the descriptions of nature in Mickiewicz’s Pan Tadeusz, the poem titled Anikšcio Šilelis [Onikszty Forest], the work ranking high in the history of the Lithuanian literature. Later on, however, Baranauskas ceased to write poetry and departed from his language, writing treatises in Polish. The Sejny Lithuanians wish to erect a monument to him in front of the cathedral, the idea that I very much support, although it would commemorate him only in his early incarnation as a Lithuanian poet.
The extract is an entry in Miłosz's Alphabet, quoted after the Collected Works edition (Kraków 2001).