Polatsk

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Polatsk

Polotsk (Polatsk, , , , ) is a historical city in Belarus

Belarus

Belarus is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the north....
, situated on the Dvina river. It is the center of Polotsk district in Vitsebsk Voblast

Vitsebsk Voblast

Vitsebsk Voblast or Vitebsk Oblast is a province of Belarus with its Capital city being Vitebsk.As of a 2005 estimate, the voblast has a population of 1,294,700....
. Its population is approximately 79,000. It is served by Polotsk Airport

Polotsk Airport

Polotsk Airport is an airport in Belarus, located 9 km south of Polotsk. It is purely civilian use....
and during the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state of conflict, tension and competition that existed between a number of world powers, including the United States, the Soviet Union, People's Republic of China, France, United Kingdom and those countries' respective allies from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s....
was home to Borovitsy

Borovitsy

Borovitsy is an air base in Belarus, located 16 km northwest of Polatsk. It is a Cold War air base with sprawling taxiway area and pads for about 40 aircraft....
air base.

Old East Slavic

Old East Slavic language

Old East Slavic, also known as Old Russian or Old Ruthenian, was a vernacular literary language used from the tenth to the fourteenth centuries by East Slavs in Kievan Rus' and states which formed after its collapse....
name, Polotesk, is derived from the Polota river, that flows into the Dvina nearby. The Viking

Viking

A Viking is one of the Norsemen explorers, warriors, merchants, and Piracy who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the late eighth to the early eleventh century....
s rendered that name as Palteskja, or Paltejsborg.

Polotsk is one of the most ancient cities of the Eastern Slavs. It was mentioned for the first time by the Primary Chronicle

Primary Chronicle

The Primary Chronicle , or Russian Primary Chronicle, is a history of Kievan Rus' from about 850 to 1110, originally compiled in Kiev about 1113....
in 862 (as ?????????, /polotesku/), together with Murom

Murom

Murom is a historic city in Vladimir Oblast, Russia, which sprawls majestically along the left bank of Oka River, about 300 km east of Moscow....
and Beloozero.

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Encyclopedia

Polotsk (Polatsk, , , , ) is a historical city in Belarus

Belarus

Vitsebsk Voblast

Polotsk Airport

Polotsk Airport is an airport in Belarus, located 9 km south of Polotsk. It is purely civilian use....
and during the Cold War

Cold War

Borovitsy

Borovitsy is an air base in Belarus, located 16 km northwest of Polatsk. It is a Cold War air base with sprawling taxiway area and pads for about 40 aircraft....
air base.

History

The Old East Slavic

Old East Slavic language

Viking

Primary Chronicle

Murom

Murom is a historic city in Vladimir Oblast, Russia, which sprawls majestically along the left bank of Oka River, about 300 km east of Moscow....
and Beloozero. The Norse saga

Norse saga

The sagas , are stories about ancient Scandinavia and Germanic tribes history, about early Viking voyages, about migration to Iceland, and of feuds between Icelandic families....
s describe the city as the most heavily fortified in all of Rus

Kievan Rus'

Kievan Rus' , also written as Kyivan Rus', was a medieval state which existed from approximately 880 to the middle of the 12th century. Founded by the Scandinavian traders called "Rus' " and centered in the city of Kiev , Rus' polity is considered an early predecessor of three modern East Slavs nations: Belarusians, Russians, and Ukrai...
.

Between the 10th and 12th centuries, the Principality of Polotsk emerged as the dominant center of power in what is now Belarusian territory, with a lesser role played by the principality of Turau

Turau

Turau or Turaw is a town in the Zhytkavichy district Zhytkavichy Raion of Homiel Voblast of Belarus....
to the south. It repeatedly asserted its sovereignty in relation to other centers of Kievan Rus, becoming a political capital, the episcopal see and the controller of vassal territories among Balts in the west. Its most powerful ruler was prince Vseslav Bryachislavich (reigned from 1044 to 1101). A 12th-century inscription commissioned by Vseslav's son Boris may still be seen on a huge boulder

Boris stones

Boris Stones , also called Dvina Stones , are nine medieval Artifact s erected along the bank of the Western Dvina between Polotsk and Drissa in the 12th century....
installed near the St. Sophia Cathedral. For a full list of Polotsk rulers, please see List of Belarusian rulers.

Polotsk became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

Grand Duchy of Lithuania

The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was an Eastern and Central European state from the 12th /13th century until the 18th century. It was founded by Lithuanians, at the time one of the Lithuanian mythology Baltic tribes, whose initial lands covered Auk?taitija, the eastern part of present day Lithuania....
in 1307, and it is said to have been the main center of trade in the state. The Magdeburg law was adopted in 1498. Polotsk was a capital of Polock Voivodship of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

The Polish?Lithuanian Commonwealth was one of the largest and most populous countries in 16th and 17th-century Europe, formed by a Union of Lublin of Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1569....
until 1772. Captured by the Russia

Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
n army of Ivan the Terrible in 1563, it was returned to Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast to the southwest....
just 15 years later.

That period of warfare started the gradual decline of the city. After the first partition of Poland

Partitions of Poland

The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish?Lithuanian Commonwealth....
Polotsk degraded to the status of a small provincial town of the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

File:Russian Emperor Flag.jpgFile:Romanov Flag.svgThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917....
. During the French invasion of Russia in 1812, it was the setting of two battles: see First battle of Polotsk

First battle of Polotsk

In the First battle of Polotsk, which took place on August 17-18, 1812, Russian Empire troops under the command of Peter Wittgenstein defeated First French Empire troops led by Nicolas Oudinot and stopped their advance to Saint Petersburg....
and Second battle of Polotsk

Second Battle of Polotsk

The Second Battle of Polotsk took place during Napoleon's invasion of Russia. In this encounter the Russians under General Peter Wittgenstein attacked and defeated a Franco-Bavarian force under Laurent, marquis de Gouvion Saint-Cyr....
for details.

Cultural heritage

The city's Cathedral of Saint Sophia in Polotsk (1044-1066) was a symbol of the independent-mindedness of Polotsk, rivaling churches of the same name in Novgorod and Kiev

Kiev

Kiev, also known as Kyiv , is the Capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River....
and referring to the original Hagia Sophia
Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sophia is a former Patriarchate basilica, later a mosque, now a museum in Istanbul, Turkey. Famous in particular for its massive dome, it is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture....
in Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the empire capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire . Strategically located between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara at the point where Europe meets Asia, Byzantine Constantinople had been the capital of a Christendom empire, successor to ancient ancient Greece...
(and thus to claims of imperial prestige, authority and sovereignty). The building of the Cathedral had been ruined by the troops of Peter I of Russia

Peter I of Russia

Peter I the Great or Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov ruled Russia and later the Russian Empire from until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his weak and sickly half-brother, Ivan V of Russia....
. That's why the by Johann Christoph Glaubitz

Johann Christoph Glaubitz

Johann Christoph Glaubitz was a Grand Duchy of Lithuania architect of Germans descent. He is generally considered as the most prominent Baroque architecture architect in Lithuania....
dates from the mid-18th century. Some genuine 12th-century architecture survives in the Convent of Saint Euphrosyne, which also features a neo-Byzantine cathedral

Neo-Byzantine architecture

Neo-Byzantine architecture is an Revivalism , most frequently seen in religious, institutional and public buildings. It emerged in 1840s in Western Europe and peaked in the last quarter of 19th century in the Russian Empire; an isolated Neo-Byzantine school was active in Yugoslavia between World War I and World War II....
, designed and built in 1893—1899 by Vladimir Korshikov.

Cultural achievements of the medieval period include the work of the nun Euphrosyne of Polotsk

Euphrosyne of Polatsk

Euphrosyne of Polatsk was the granddaughter of a prince of Polacak, Vseslav of Polotsk.She refused all proposals of marriage and, without her parents' knowledge, ran away to the convent of which her aunt was the abbess and became a nun....
(1120-1173), who built monasteries, transcribed books, promoted literacy and sponsored art (including local artisan Lazarus Bohsha's famous "Cross of Euphrosyne," a national symbol and treasure lost during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
), and the prolific, original Church Slavonic sermons and writings of Bishop Cyril of Turaw

Cyril of Turaw

Cyril of Turau was a bishop and saint. He was one of the first and finest theologians of Kievan Rus'; he lived in Turau, now Southern Belarus....
(1130-1182).

Belarusian first printer Francysk Skaryna

Francysk Skaryna

Francysk Skaryna was a Belarusians famous as one of the first printing in Eastern Europe, laying groundwork for the development of Belarusian language....
was born in Polotsk around 1490. He is famous for the first printing of the Bible

Bible

The Bible is the central religious text of Judaism and Christianity. The exact Books of the Bible is dependent on the religious traditions of specific denominations....
in an East Slavic language (in Old Belarusian) in 1517, several decades after the first ever printed book by Johann Gutenberg and just several years after the first Czech Bible (1506).

In September 2003, as "Days of Belarusian Literacy" were celebrated for the 10th time in Polotsk, city authorities opened a monument to honor the unique Cyrillic Belarusian letter ?, which is not used in any other Slavic language. The original idea for the monument came from the Belarusian calligraphy professor Paval Siemchanka, who has been studying Cyrillic scripts for many years.

Polatsk

History

Cultural heritage

External links