Liahavichy Castle was a fortified Belarus

Belarus

Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...

 castle

Castle

A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...

. It was one of the most significant castles in Belarus in the 17th century. It may have been in existence as a hill fort since the eleventh or twelfth century.

It was built at the end of the 16th century by the hetman

Hetman

Hetman was the title of the second-highest military commander in 15th- to 18th-century Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which together, from 1569 to 1795, comprised the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, or Rzeczpospolita....

 Yan Eromin of the Hadkevich family, on a hill in the Belarus town of the same name. It stood on the bank of the Vedz'ma ("Witch") river, surrounded by a moat regulated by a dam. In the centre stood a two-storey palace. Eromin's son, Yan Korol, the hetman of the Great Lithuanian Principality, reconstructed and fortified the castle.

The 17th century occupants, the Sapieha family, fortified the castle such that it was the only castle in the region to survive the Cossack Khmelnitzky massacres

Khmelnytsky Uprising

The Khmelnytsky Uprising, was a Cossack rebellion in the Ukraine between the years 1648–1657 which turned into a Ukrainian war of liberation from Poland...

 and subsequent wars with Russia. The castle survived a siege in 1660

Siege of Lyakhavichy

Siege of Lyakhavichy took place from 23 March to 28 June 1660 during the Russo-Polish War . Lachowicze was one of the major Grand Duchy of Lithuania strongholds in the disputed region . A Russian army of about 30,000 under Ivan Nikitich Khovansky laid siege to the castle, defended by Mikołaj Judycki...

, the only fortress in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

Grand Duchy of Lithuania

The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state from the 12th /13th century until 1569 and then as a constituent part of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1791 when Constitution of May 3, 1791 abolished it in favor of unitary state. It was founded by the Lithuanians, one of the polytheistic...

 not to be captured by Russia during the Russo-Polish War (1654–1667)

Russo-Polish War (1654–1667)

The Russo-Polish War of 1654–1667, also called Thirteen Years' War, First Northern War, War for Ukraine was the last major conflict between Tsardom of Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Between 1655 and 1660, the Second Northern War was also fought in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth,...

.

The castle and surrounding settlement was destroyed during the Great Northern War

Great Northern War

The Great Northern War was a conflict in which a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in northern Central Europe and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the anti-Swedish alliance were Peter I the Great of Russia, Frederick IV of...

 of 1700-1721, after the Radziwiłł family had the crown requisition the cannons of Liahavichy for the defense of Słuck

Slutsk

Slutsk is a town in Belarus, located on the Sluch River south of Minsk. As of 2010 its population is of 61,400).-Geography:The town is situated in the south-west of its Voblast, not too far from from the city of Soligorsk.-History:...

. The Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

army burned the castle and a Catholic church to the ground in 1706.