Hrodna

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Image:Coat of Arms of Hrodna, Belarus.png

Hrodna (or Grodna, Horadnia, Harodnia) (Template:Lang-be; Template:Lang-ru; Template:Lang-pl, Template:Lang-lt) is a city in Belarus. It is located at Template:Coor dm, on the Neman river, close to the borders of Poland and Lithuania (about 15 km and 30 km away respectively). It has 317,366 inhabitants (2005 estimate). It is the capital of Hrodna voblast (province) and Hrodna raion (district).

Because the city is located near the border of Poland and Lithuania, it has one of the largest concentrations of Catholics in Belarus. It is also a center of Polish culture, with the majority of Poles living in Belarus, residing in the city and its surroundings.

This city is famous for very important Medical University.

1 History
- 1.1 Governance timeline
2 Related pages
3 External links

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History

The modern city of Hrodna originates as a small fortress and a fortified trading outpost kept by Ruthenian princes on a border with the lands of the Baltic tribal union Yotvingians (Yatvyags). Mentioned for the first time in the annals under 1127 as Horoden with prince Vsevolodka Davydovich (of Volhynia origin) and located on the crossing of numerous trading routes, the Slavic settlement (archaeologists date it as far as the end of the 10th century) flourished and in the 12th and 14th centuries it was a capital of a separate principality. With Navahradak Hrodna was the main city on the west of the territory so-called Black Ruthenia ("Black Rus"), that was neighbouring to the original Lithuania. It was often attacked by various invaders, especially the Teutonic Knights. Both the principality and the city lost most of their wealth and in the 1370s the area was finally incorporated into the developing Baltic-Slavic state - Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL). So, the famous Lithuanian grand duke Vitautas was the prince of Hrodna from 1370 to 1382, also he stayed here during a preparation for the Battle of Grunwald (1410).

To aid the reconstruction of trade and commerce, the grand dukes allowed the creation of a Jewish commune in 1389. It was one of the first Jewish communities in the Grand Duchy. In 1441 the city received its charter, based on the Magdeburg Law. After the Union of Lublin in 1569, which created the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the city was part of the Trakai Voivodship of the GDL, and in 1793 became the capital of the Hrodna Voivodship.

An important centre of trade, commerce, and culture, Hrodna remained one of the places where the Sejms were held. Also, the Old and New Castles were often visited by the Commonwealth monarchs. Especially, famous King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania Stefan Batory rebuilt the Old Castle (stoned as far back as Vitautas) and in fact made there his main residence, where he died 10 years later, in 1586 (originally he was buried in Hrodna too). In 1793 the last Sejm in the history of the Commonwealth occurred at Hrodna. Two years afterwards, in 1795, Russia overran the city in the Third Partition of Poland. It was in the New Castle on November 25 of that year that the last Polish king and Lithuanian grand duke Stanisław August Poniatowski abdicated. In the Russian Empire, the city continued to serve its role as a seat of a guberniya. The industrial activities, started in the late 18th century by Antoni Tyzenhauz, continued to develop.

During World War I, after 1915 Hrodna was occupied by Germany and ceded by Bolshevist Russia under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918. After the war the German government permitted a short-lived state to be set up there, the first one with a Belarusian name - the Belarusian National Republic. This declared its independence from Russia in March of 1918 in Minsk, but then the BNR's Rada (Council) had to leave Minsk and crossed to Hrodna. However, the military authority in the city remained in German hands. After the outbreak of the Polish-Bolshevik War, the German commanders of the Ober Ost feared that the city might fall to Soviet Russia, so on April 27 1919 they passed authority to Poland. The city was seized by the Polish Army the following day and Polish administration was established in the city. The city was lost to the Red Army on July 19 1920 because of the Polish strategic withdrawal towards Warsaw. The city was also claimed by Lithuanian government, who were promised during the July 12 1920 talks in Moscow that it would be transferred to Lithuania. However, Soviet defeat in the Battle of Warsaw made these plans obsolete, and Lithuanian authority was never established in the city. Instead, the Red Army organised its last stand in the city and the Battle of Neman took place there. On September 23 the Polish Army recaptured the city. After the Peace Treaty of Riga, the city remained in Poland.

Initially, prosperity was reduced due to the fact that the city remained only the capital of a powiat, while the capital of the voivodship was moved to Białystok. However, in the late 1920s the city became one of the biggest Polish Army garrisons. This brought the local economy back on track. Also, the city was a notable centre of Jewish culture, with roughly 42% of the city's population being Jewish. The Belarusian language was forbidden by the Polish authorities and Belarusian schools were closed down.

During the Polish Defence War of 1939 the garrison of Hrodna was mostly used for the creation of numerous military units fighting against the invading Wehrmacht. In the course of the Soviet invasion of Poland initiated on September 17, there was heavy fighting in the city between Soviet and improvised Polish forces, composed mostly of march battalions and volunteers. In the course of the Battle of Grodno (September 20–September 22), the Red Army lost some hundred men (by the Polish sources; by the Soviet sources - 57 killed and 159 wounded) and also 19 tanks and 4 APCs destroyed or damaged. The Polish side suffered at least 100 killed in action, military and civil, but losses still remain uncertain in detail (Soviet sources claim 644 killed and 1543 captives with many guns and machine guns etc. captured). Many more were shot in mass executions after being imprisoned. After the engaged Polish units were surrounded, the remaining units withdrew to Lithuania.

In accordance with the Nazi-Soviet Alliance the city was annexed by the Soviet Union to the Belarusian SSR, and several thousand of the city's Polish inhabitants were deported to remote areas of the Soviet Union. In 1941, the city came under German occupation, which lasted until July 1944. In the course of the World War II, the majority of Hrodna's remaining Jews perished in German concentration camps.

Image:Grodno tank dramteatr.jpg

Since 1945 the city has been a centre of one of provinces of the Belarusian SSR, now of the independent Republic of Belarus.

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Governance timeline

Since 6th century	To Early East Slavs (tribal union Krivichs?)
8th century–981	?To tribal principality of Volynyanes
981–988	To Kiev
988–1015	To Volhynia
1075–1036	To Kiev
1036–1057	To Volhynia
1057–1078	To Kiev
1078–1084	To Volhynia
RURIKOVICH-Gorodensky
1084–1090s d. aft. 1092	Vsevolod I
1090s–1116	Mstislav I
1116–1141	Vsevolodka Davydovich
1141–1150s d. aft. 1151	Boris
1150s–1167	Gleb
1167–117?	Mstislav II
RURIKOVICH-Vitebsky
1170s–1185	Izyaslav
1185–11??	Vsevolod II
GEDIMINDIS
11??–11??	Erdywil
11??–1192	Mingayl
1192–12??	Skirmunt
RURIKOVICH-Vitebsky
12??–1219	Basil
12??–1239	To Navahradak (Black Ruthenia)
1239–1252	To Grand Duchy of Lithuania
1252–1254	To Halych-Volhynia
1254–1795	To Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Rzeczpospolita from 1569)
1795–1812	To Russian Empire
1812, July - December	French occupation
1812–1915	To Russian Empire
1915–1918	German occupation
1918–1919	To Belarusian National Republic
1919–1920	To Lithuania
1920–1939	To Poland
1939–1941	To Soviet Union
1941–1944	Nazi occupation
1944–1991	To Soviet Union
1991—	To Belarus