Navahradak
Encyclopedia
Navahrudak is a city in the Hrodna voblast
, Belarus
.
against Lithuanian
tribes. It was also mentioned in the Hypatian Codex
under 1252 as Novogorodok (i.e. "new little town") the town was a major settlement in the remote western lands of the Krivichs that came under the control of the Kievan Rus at the end of the 10th century. Later hypothesis is disputed, as there are earliest archaeological
findings from 11th century only.
In the 13th century, the fragile unity of the Rus disintegrated due to nomadic incursions from Asia
, which reached a climax with the Mongol
Horde's sacking of Kiev
(1240), leaving a geopolitical vacuum in the region later to be known under the conventional name Black Ruthenia
. The Early East Slavs splintered along preexisting tribal lines into a number of independent and competing principalities.
Mindaugas
of Lithuania made use of the plight to annex Navahrudak, which also became part of Kingdom of Lithuania
, later Grand Duchy of Lithuania
. During the 16th century, Maciej Stryjkowski
was the first who, in his chronicle, proposed theory, that Navahrudak became the capital of the 13th century state. This statement is supported by several other scholars, while others dispute this notion, mainly because contemporary chronicles of the 13th century do not give any reference about Navahrudak as capital, even stating that city was transferred to the king of Halych-Volhynia
. Vaišvilkas
, the son and successor of Mindaugas, took monastic vows in Lavrashev Monastery near Novgorodok and founded an Orthodox convent there.
following the Union of Lublin
in 1569. In 1795 it was incorporated into Grodno Governorate
of Imperial Russia due to the Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The town was a center of thriving Jewish community, its 1900 population was 5,015. In the First World War
it was under German
occupation from 1915 to 1918, and was occupied by the Polish Army at first, later the Red Army
, during the Polish-Bolshevik war. It was given to Poland by the treaty of Riga, following which Navahrudak became the capital of Nowogródek voivodship.
Soviet troops entered the city in September 1939 and it was annexed into the Soviet Union
via the Byelorussian SSR
. In the administrative division of the new territories, the city briefly (November 2, to December 4;) was the centre of the Navahrudak Voblast
. Afterwards the administrative centre moved to Baranavichy and name of voblast was renamed as Baranavichy Voblast
, the city became the centre of the Navahrudak Raion (January 15, 1940). On June 22, 1941 Nazi Germany
invaded the USSR and Navahrudak was occupied on July 4, following one of the more tragic events when the Red Army was surrounded in what's known as the Novogrudok Cauldron. See Operation Barbarossa: Phase 1.
During the German occupation it became part of the Ostland
. Partisan resistance immediately began, with most famous Bielski partisans
made of Jewish volunteers operated in the region. On 1 August 1943, Nazi troops shot down eleven nuns, the Martyrs of Nowogródek
. The Red Army
reoccupied the city almost exactly three years after its German occupation on July 8, 1944. During the war more than 45,000 people were killed in the city and in the surrounding area, and over 60% of housing was destroyed.
After the war, the BSSR retained the city, and a rapid rebuilding process quickly restored most of the destroyed infrastructure. On July 8, 1954, following the disestablishment of the Baranavichy Voblast, the raion
, along with Navahrudak became part of the Hrodna Voblast
, in which it remains to this day, in modern Belarus
.
Navahrudak was an important Jewish center. It was the birthplace of the Mussar movement
as well as the hometown of Yiddish lexicograph Alexander Harkavy
. Prior to the war, the population was 20,000, of which about half were Jewish; Meyer Meyerovitz and Meyer Abovitz
were the Rabbis there at that time. During a series of "actions" in 1941, the Germans killed all but 550 of the approximately 10,000 Jews
. Those not killed were sent into slave labor. http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/pinkas_poland/pol8_00430.html
The stone castle, so called Mindaugas' Castle, built in the 14th century is now in ruins; as it was burnt down by the Swedes in 1710. The Orthodox Cathedral of Sts. Boris and Gleb, started in 1519 in the Gothic style, was not completed until the 1630s; it was extensively repaired in the 19th century. Other architectural attractions include the Transfiguration Church (1712–23), where Adam Mickiewicz
was baptised, the Church of St. Michael, renovated in 1751 and 1831, and the shopping mall in the central square.
Navahradak was an important shtetl
and home to the Harkavy
Jewish family, including Alexander Harkavy
. Some of the Harkavy are buried at the old Jewish cemetery of Navahrudak. A house is shown where the poet Adam Mickiewicz
was born; there are also his statue and the "Mound of Immortality
", created in his honour by the Polish administration in 1924–31.
Hrodna Voblast
Hrodna Voblast or Grodno Oblast is a voblast in northwestern Belarus.The capital - Grodno is the biggest city of the province. It lies on the Neman River. Grodno's existence is attested to from 1127. Two castles dating from the 14th - 18th centuries are located here on the steep right bank of...
, 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 ,...
.
Early history
First mentioned in the Sophian First Chronicle and Fourth Novgorod Chronicle in 1044 in relation to a war of Yaroslav I the WiseYaroslav I the Wise
Yaroslav I, Grand Prince of Rus, known as Yaroslav the Wise Yaroslav I, Grand Prince of Rus, known as Yaroslav the Wise Yaroslav I, Grand Prince of Rus, known as Yaroslav the Wise (Old Norse: Jarizleifr; ; Old East Slavic and Russian: Ярослав Мудрый; Ukrainian: Ярослав Мудрий; c...
against Lithuanian
Lithuanians
Lithuanians are the Baltic ethnic group native to Lithuania, where they number around 2,765,600 people. Another million or more make up the Lithuanian diaspora, largely found in countries such as the United States, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Russia, United Kingdom and Ireland. Their native language...
tribes. It was also mentioned in the Hypatian Codex
Hypatian Codex
The Hypatian Codex is a compendium of three chronicles: the Primary Chronicle, Kiev Chronicle, and Galician-Volhynian Chronicle. It is the most important source of historical data for southern Rus'...
under 1252 as Novogorodok (i.e. "new little town") the town was a major settlement in the remote western lands of the Krivichs that came under the control of the Kievan Rus at the end of the 10th century. Later hypothesis is disputed, as there are earliest archaeological
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
findings from 11th century only.
In the 13th century, the fragile unity of the Rus disintegrated due to nomadic incursions from Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
, which reached a climax with the Mongol
Mongols
Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...
Horde's sacking of Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
(1240), leaving a geopolitical vacuum in the region later to be known under the conventional name Black Ruthenia
Black Ruthenia
Black Ruthenia, Black Rus or Black Russia are variant conventional terms used for a region around Navahrudak , in the western part of contemporary Belarus on the upper reaches of the Neman River for the time period between the 13th and 14th centuries...
. The Early East Slavs splintered along preexisting tribal lines into a number of independent and competing principalities.
Mindaugas
Mindaugas
Mindaugas was the first known Grand Duke of Lithuania and the only King of Lithuania. Little is known of his origins, early life, or rise to power; he is mentioned in a 1219 treaty as an elder duke, and in 1236 as the leader of all the Lithuanians...
of Lithuania made use of the plight to annex Navahrudak, which also became part of Kingdom of Lithuania
Kingdom of Lithuania
The Kingdom of Lithuania was a Lithuanian monarchy which existed from 1251 to roughly 1263. King Mindaugas was the first and only crowned king of Lithuania. The status of a kingdom was lost after Mindaugas' assassination in 1263. Other monarchs of Lithuania are referred to as Grand Dukes, even...
, later 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...
. During the 16th century, Maciej Stryjkowski
Maciej Stryjkowski
Maciej Stryjkowski was a Polish-Lithuanian historian, writer and a poet, notable as the author of Chronicle of Poland, Lithuania, Samogitia and all of Ruthenia , amongst other aspects of this work considered the first printed book on the history of Lithuania.-Biography:Maciej Stryjkowski was...
was the first who, in his chronicle, proposed theory, that Navahrudak became the capital of the 13th century state. This statement is supported by several other scholars, while others dispute this notion, mainly because contemporary chronicles of the 13th century do not give any reference about Navahrudak as capital, even stating that city was transferred to the king of Halych-Volhynia
Halych-Volhynia
The Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia or Kingdom of Rus or Galicia–Vladimir was a Ruthenian state in the regions of Galicia and Volhynia during 1199–1349. Along with Novgorod and Vladimir-Suzdal, it was one of the three most important powers to emerge from the collapse of Kievan Rus'...
. Vaišvilkas
Vaišvilkas
Vaišelga or Vaišvilkas was the Grand Duke of Lithuania...
, the son and successor of Mindaugas, took monastic vows in Lavrashev Monastery near Novgorodok and founded an Orthodox convent there.
Later history
Navahrudak was a part of the Polish-Lithuanian CommonwealthPolish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...
following the 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...
in 1569. In 1795 it was incorporated into Grodno Governorate
Grodno Governorate
The Grodno Governorate, was a governorate of the Russian Empire.-Overview:Grodno: a western province or government of Europe lying between 52 and 54 N lat 23 and E long and bounded N by Vilna E by Minsk S Volhynia and W by the former kingdom of Poland The country was a wide plain in parts very...
of Imperial Russia due to the Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The town was a center of thriving Jewish community, its 1900 population was 5,015. In the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
it was under German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
occupation from 1915 to 1918, and was occupied by the Polish Army at first, later the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
, during the Polish-Bolshevik war. It was given to Poland by the treaty of Riga, following which Navahrudak became the capital of Nowogródek voivodship.
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....
via the Byelorussian SSR
Byelorussian SSR
The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic was one of fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union. It was one of the four original founding members of the Soviet Union in 1922, together with the Ukrainian SSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic...
. In the administrative division of the new territories, the city briefly (November 2, to December 4;) was the centre of the Navahrudak Voblast
Navahrudak Voblast
Navahrudak Voblast or Novogrudak Oblast was a Voblast of the Byelorussian SSR following the annexation of West Belarus into the BSSR in 1939. The Voblast was formed on November 2, 1939, out of parts of the former Nowogródek Voivodeship in the Second Polish Republic.The Sovietisation of the...
. Afterwards the administrative centre moved to Baranavichy and name of voblast was renamed as Baranavichy Voblast
Baranavichy Voblast
Baranavichy Oblast was a territorial unit in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic created after the annexation of West Belarus into the BSSR in November 1939. The administrative centre of the province was the city of Baranavichy....
, the city became the centre of the Navahrudak Raion (January 15, 1940). On June 22, 1941 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...
invaded the USSR and Navahrudak was occupied on July 4, following one of the more tragic events when the Red Army was surrounded in what's known as the Novogrudok Cauldron. See Operation Barbarossa: Phase 1.
During the German occupation it became part of the Ostland
Reichskommissariat Ostland
Reichskommissariat Ostland, literally "Reich Commissariat Eastland", was the civilian occupation regime established by Nazi Germany in the Baltic states and much of Belarus during World War II. It was also known as Reichskommissariat Baltenland initially...
. Partisan resistance immediately began, with most famous Bielski partisans
Bielski partisans
The Bielski partisans were an organisation of Jewish partisans who rescued Jews from extermination and fought against the Nazi German occupiers and their collaborators in the vicinity of Nowogródek and Lida in German-occupied Poland...
made of Jewish volunteers operated in the region. On 1 August 1943, Nazi troops shot down eleven nuns, the Martyrs of Nowogródek
Blessed Martyrs of Nowogródek
The Blessed Martyrs of Nowogródek, also known as the Eleven Nuns of Nowogródek or Sister Stella and Companions were a group of Roman Catholic nuns from the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth killed by the Gestapo in August 1943 in present-day Belarus.-Background:The Sisters of the Holy Family...
. The Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
reoccupied the city almost exactly three years after its German occupation on July 8, 1944. During the war more than 45,000 people were killed in the city and in the surrounding area, and over 60% of housing was destroyed.
After the war, the BSSR retained the city, and a rapid rebuilding process quickly restored most of the destroyed infrastructure. On July 8, 1954, following the disestablishment of the Baranavichy Voblast, the raion
Raion
A raion is a type of administrative unit of several post-Soviet countries. The term, which is from French rayon 'honeycomb, department,' describes both a type of a subnational entity and a division of a city, and is commonly translated in English as "district"...
, along with Navahrudak became part of the Hrodna Voblast
Hrodna Voblast
Hrodna Voblast or Grodno Oblast is a voblast in northwestern Belarus.The capital - Grodno is the biggest city of the province. It lies on the Neman River. Grodno's existence is attested to from 1127. Two castles dating from the 14th - 18th centuries are located here on the steep right bank of...
, in which it remains to this day, in modern 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 ,...
.
Navahrudak was an important Jewish center. It was the birthplace of the Mussar movement
Mussar movement
The Musar movement is a Jewish ethical, educational and cultural movement that developed in 19th century Eastern Europe, particularly among Orthodox Lithuanian Jews. The Hebrew term Musar , is from the book of Proverbs 1:2 meaning instruction, discipline, or conduct...
as well as the hometown of Yiddish lexicograph Alexander Harkavy
Alexander Harkavy
Alexander Harkavy was a Russian-born American writer, lexicographer and linguist.Alexander was educated privately, and at an early age evinced a predilection for philology...
. Prior to the war, the population was 20,000, of which about half were Jewish; Meyer Meyerovitz and Meyer Abovitz
Meyer Abovitz
Meyer Abovitz was a Rabbi and Rosh Yeshiva active in Mizrachi in Eastern Europe between the Two World Wars....
were the Rabbis there at that time. During a series of "actions" in 1941, the Germans killed all but 550 of the approximately 10,000 Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
. Those not killed were sent into slave labor. http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/pinkas_poland/pol8_00430.html
Sights
Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...
was baptised, the Church of St. Michael, renovated in 1751 and 1831, and the shopping mall in the central square.
Navahradak was an important shtetl
Shtetl
A shtetl was typically a small town with a large Jewish population in Central and Eastern Europe until The Holocaust. Shtetls were mainly found in the areas which constituted the 19th century Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire, the Congress Kingdom of Poland, Galicia and Romania...
and home to the Harkavy
Harkavy
Harkavy is surname which may refer to:* Abraham Harkavy , historian* Alexander Harkavy , writer* Yehoshafat Harkabi military historian...
Jewish family, including Alexander Harkavy
Alexander Harkavy
Alexander Harkavy was a Russian-born American writer, lexicographer and linguist.Alexander was educated privately, and at an early age evinced a predilection for philology...
. Some of the Harkavy are buried at the old Jewish cemetery of Navahrudak. A house is shown where the poet Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...
was born; there are also his statue and the "Mound of Immortality
Mound of Immortality
Mound of Immortality is the name of several memorials/monuments in several places of the former Soviet Union that commemorate the Soviet soldiers and ordinary citizens who fought and perished during the German-Soviet War....
", created in his honour by the Polish administration in 1924–31.