Drohiczyn is a small historic town in Siemiatycze County

Siemiatycze County

Siemiatycze County is a unit of territorial administration and local government in Podlaskie Voivodeship, north-eastern Poland, on the border with Belarus. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 1998. Its administrative seat and largest...

, Podlaskie Voivodeship

Podlaskie Voivodeship

Podlaskie Voivodeship , is a voivodeship in northeastern Poland. It borders on Masovian Voivodeship to the west, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship to the northwest, Lublin Voivodeship to the south, the Belarusssian Voblasts of Grodno and Brest to the east, the Lithuanian Counties of Alytus and...

, Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

. The town with population 2,110 is situated on a bank of the Bug River

Bug River

The Bug River is a left tributary of the Narew river flows from central Ukraine to the west, passing along the Ukraine-Polish and Polish-Belarusian border and into Poland, where it empties into the Narew river near Serock. The part between the lake and the Vistula River is sometimes referred to as...

.

History

A Neolithic

Neolithic

The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...

 settlement, La Tène culture

La Tène culture

The La Tène culture was a European Iron Age culture named after the archaeological site of La Tène on the north side of Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland, where a rich cache of artifacts was discovered by Hansli Kopp in 1857....

 crematoria, and ancient graves have been uncovered at Drohiczyn.

Drohiczyn lay astride a trade route between Ukraine and Poland, and in the 13th century was a part of Berestia Land

Berestia

Berestia , or Land of Berestia is the part of Belarusian and Polish ethnic territory, bounded by the Bug River, Pripyat River, Yaselda River, and Narew River.-Cities:...

 of the principality of the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia. It was annexed by Mazovia

Mazovia

Mazovia or Masovia is a geographical, historical and cultural region in east-central Poland. It is also a voivodeship in Poland.Its historic capital is Płock, which was the medieval residence of first Dukes of Masovia...

 in 1238. In 1253, prince Daniel of Halych

Daniel of Halych

Daniel I of Galicia or Daniel Romanovych or Danylo Halytskyi was a King of Galicia , Peremyshl , and Volodymyr...

 was crowned by a papal archbishop

Archbishop

An archbishop is a bishop of higher rank, but not of higher sacramental order above that of the three orders of deacon, priest , and bishop...

 in Drohiczyn as the first King of all Rus' (Latin: Rex Rusiae).

From 1443 it was a Lithuanian domain. After the 1569 Union of Lublin

Union of Lublin

The Union of Lublin replaced the personal union of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with a real union and an elective monarchy, since Sigismund II Augustus, the last of the Jagiellons, remained childless after three marriages. In addition, the autonomy of Royal Prussia was...

 it was ceded to Poland.

City rights were granted to Drohiczyn by Alexander Jagiellon

Alexander Jagiellon

Alexander of the House of Jagiellon was the Grand Duke of Lithuania and later also King of Poland. He was the fourth son of Casimir IV Jagiellon...

 in 1498. From 1520 to 1795 it served as the capital of Podlaskie Voivodeship

Podlaskie Voivodeship (1513–1795)

The Podlaskie Voivodeship was formed in 1513 by Sigismund I the Old as a voivodeship in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, from a split off part of the Trakai Voivodeship....

. In 1795 annexed by Prussia

Prussia

Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

. From 1807 to 1916 the town was part of the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

. In 1916 occupied by the Germans. In 1918 Drohiczyn returned to the Second Polish Republic

Second Polish Republic

The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...

.

In 1939-1940, when Poland was occupied by Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 and the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

, Drohiczyn became a border town between both countries. The Soviets plundered the town, destroyed the rich interior of both Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches and deported a number of the town inhabitants to Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

. In spring of 1940, Soviet authorities ordered the destruction of all buildings within 800 meters from the river Bug.

In 1991, the city was made the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Drohiczyn as part of the newly created Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Białystok.