Navahrudak

Early history

It was first mentioned in the Sophian First Chronicle and Fourth Novgorod Chronicle in 1044 in relation to a war of Yaroslav I the Wise against Lithuanian tribes. In 1241 it was destroyed by the Mongols. It was also mentioned in the Hypatian Codex under the year of 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.

Age of the partitions

Navahrudak was a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth following the Union of Lublin in 1569. In 1795 it was incorporated into Grodno Governorate (It was founded as Slonim Governorate in 1795 and renamed in 1801) of Imperial Russia due to the Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was transferred to Minsk Governorate in 1843. The town was a center of thriving Jewish community, its 1900 population was 5,015.

In the course of the First World War the town was under the German occupation from 22 September 1915 to 27 December 1918. During the ensuing Polish-Bolshevik war it was occupied by the Polish Army in 18 April 1919 and later the Red Army in 19 July 1920 and finally the Polish one in 1 October 1920. It was ceded to Poland in the Peace of Riga signed on 18 March 1921 by the Soviet Russia and Poland thus ending the hostilities. In the interwar period, Nowogródek served as capital of the Nowogródek voivodship, until the 1939 invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

World War II

Soviet troops entered the city in 18 September 1939 and it was annexed into the Soviet Union via the Byelorussian SSR. The Polish people living there were transported by train to Siberia where they were forced to work in labor camps under harsh conditions. These were among the millions of Poles deported from their homes to Siberia by the Soviet Union, becoming displaced persons. 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 Reichskommissariat Ostland territory. Partisan resistance immediately began. The 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.

Navahrudak was an important Jewish center and shtetl. It was home to the Novardok yeshiva, led by Rabbi Yosef Yozel Horwitz, as well as the hometown of Rabbi Yechiel Michel Epstein and of the Harkavy Jewish family, including Yiddish lexicograph Alexander Harkavy. Before 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. (The first mass murder of Navahrudak's Jews occurred in December, 1941.) Those not killed were sent into slave labor.

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.

Sights

Some of the Harkavys 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.

Climate

The Köppen Climate Classification subtype for this climate is "Dfb" (Warm Summer Continental Climate).

Twin towns – Sister cities

Navahrudak is twinned with: