As a town, Brest –
Berestij in
Kievan Rus – was first mentioned in the
Primary Chronicle in 1019 when the
Kievan Rus' took the stronghold from the Poles. It is one of the oldest cities in Belarus. It was hotly contested between the Polish rulers (kings, principal dukes and dukes of
Masovia) and Kievan Rus princes. It was recaptured by Poland in 1020, and
unsuccessfully besieged by Prince
Yaroslav the Wise of Kiev in 1022. It was captured by Yaroslav the Wise, according to various sources, either in 1042 or 1044, remaining under Polish suzerainty until 1205, when Roman the Great rebelled against Poland, but was
killed in action in the
Battle of Zawichost. Passing under Polish suzerainty again, in 1207, it was granted by
Leszek the White as a fief to Princess
Anna-Euphrosyne and her children. From 1210, it was directly part of Poland, until it passed to Galicia–Volhynia either in 1215 or 1217.
Grand Duchy of Lithuania In 1319, the city became part of the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and Grand Duke
Gediminas stayed in the city in the winter of 1319–1320, preparing to capture
Kyiv. Its suburbs were burned by the
Teutonic Order in 1379. In 1385, it became part of the
Polish–Lithuanian union. During the
Lithuanian Civil War (1389–1392), in 1390, the city was captured by Polish forces of
Władysław II Jagiełło. In 1390, Brześć became the second city in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (after the capital
Vilnius), and the first in the lands that now are Belarus, to receive
Magdeburg rights. Given its proximity to Poland, it was a significant centre for trade with Poland. In 1410 the city mustered a cavalry banner that participated in the
Polish-Lithuanian military victory at Grunwald. In 1419 it became a seat of the
starost in the newly created
Trakai Voivodeship. Under Władysław II and Vytautas the city was significantly developed and granted privileges similar to those of the Polish city of
Lublin. In 1425, the city hosted a congress attended by Władysław II, Vytautas, dukes of
Masovia and Polish and Lithuanian nobles. In 1440, a
Sejm of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was held in the city, at which
Casimir IV Jagiellon was chosen Grand Duke of Lithuania. A royal mint was founded in the city by King
John II Casimir Vasa in 1665. , 1657 In 1657, and again in 1706, the town and castle were captured by the
Swedish Army during its
invasions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Then, in an attack from the other direction, on 13 January 1660, the invading
Streltsy of the
Tsardom of Russia under
Ivan Andreyevich Khovansky took the
Brest Castle in an early morning surprise attack, the town having been captured earlier, and massacred the 1,700 defenders and their families (according to an Austrian observer, Captain Rosestein).
Partitions On 23 July 1792, the defending
Grand Ducal Lithuanian Army, under the leadership of
Szymon Zabiełło, and the invading
Imperial Russian Army fought a battle near Brześć. On 19 September 1794, the area between Brest and
Terespol was the site of another
battle won by the Russian invaders led by
Alexander Suvorov over a Polish-Lithuanian division under General Karol Sierakowski. Thereafter, Brest was annexed by Russia when
the Poland-Lithuania Commonwealth was partitioned for the third time in 1795.
19th century to World War I on a painting by
Marcin Zaleski from 1846 During Russian rule in the 19th century,
Brest Fortress was built in and around the city. The Russians demolished the
Polish Royal Castle and most of the Old Town "to make room" for the fortress. The main Jewish synagogue in the city, the
Choral Synagogue, was completed c. 1862. In 1895, a massive fire rendered 15,000 people homeless, and dozens were killed. Because of the proximity of the fortress, only wooden buildings could be erected in the city; masonry construction was permitted only in exceptional cases and to a limited height. After the fire, more masonry buildings began to appear. During
World War I, the town was captured by the
Imperial German Army under
August von Mackensen on 25 August 1915, during the
Great Retreat of 1915. Shortly after Brest fell into German hands,
war poet August Stramm, who has been called "the first of the
Expressionists" and one of "the most innovative poets of the First World War," was shot in the head during an attack on nearby Russian positions on 1 September 1915. , c. 1915 In March 1918, in the
Brest Fortress at the confluence of the
Bug and
Mukhavets rivers on the city' western outskirts, the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed, ending the war between
Soviet Russia and the
Central Powers and transferring the city and its surrounding region to the
sphere of influence of the
German Empire. This treaty was subsequently annulled by the
Paris Peace Conference treaties which ended the war and even more so by events and developments in
Central and Eastern Europe. During 1918, the city became a part of the
Volhynia Governorate of the
Ukrainian People's Republic as a result of negotiations and own treaty between the delegation of the
Ukrainian Central Rada and Central Powers.
Interwar Poland On 9 February 1919, Polish troops entered the city, and it returned to
Poland, which regained independence three months earlier. During the
Polish–Soviet War it was occupied by the Soviet Russians on 1 August 1920, and recaptured by the Poles on 20 August, with borders formally recognized by the
Treaty of Riga of 1921. In 1921, it became the temporary capital of the
Polesie Voivodeship instead of
Pińsk. It was renamed Brześć nad Bugiem (
Brest on the Bug) on 20 March 1923. During World War I, the city was destroyed by 70% and required reconstruction. The city was developed significantly and a number of representative public buildings were erected in
Neoclassical and
Modernist styles, especially at
Ulica Unii Lubelskiej (
Union of Lublin Street, now Lenin Street), including the Bank of Poland, Tax Chamber, Regional Chamber of the State Control, Healthcare Fund and Voivodeship Office. Other notable projects include the officials' housing estate, stylistically inspired by historic
manor houses of Polish nobility and the
garden city movement, and the Warburg Residential Colony, dedicated to poor Jews who had lost their homes in World War I, founded by Felix M. Warburg, chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee of American Funds for Jewish War Sufferers. In 1929, city limits were greatly expanded. In the twenty years of Poland's sovereignty, of the total of 36 brand new schools established in the city, there were ten public, and five private
Jewish schools inaugurated, with
Yiddish and
Hebrew as the language of instruction. The first-ever Jewish school in Brześć history opened in 1920, almost immediately after Poland's return to independence. In 1936 Jews constituted 41.3% of the Brześć population or 21,518 citizens. Some 80.3% of private enterprises were run by Jews. The
Polish Army troops of the 9th Military District along with its headquarters were stationed in Brześć Fortress. The city had an overwhelmingly Jewish population during Russian rule: 30,000 out of 45,000 total population according to
Russian 1897 census, which fell to 21,000 out of 50,000 according to the
Polish census of 1931.
World War II at the conclusion of the
Invasion of Poland. In the centre are Major General
Heinz Guderian from the
Wehrmacht and Brigadier
Semyon Krivoshein from the
Red Army. In early September 1939, the Polish government evacuated a portion of the Polish
gold reserve from
Warsaw to Brześć, and then further southeast to
Śniatyn at the Poland-
Romania border, from where it was transported via Romania and
Turkey to territory controlled by
Polish-allied France. During the German
Invasion of Poland in 1939, the city was defended by a small garrison of four infantry battalions under General
Konstanty Plisowski against General
Heinz Guderian's
XIX Panzer Corps. After
four days of heavy fighting, the Polish forces withdrew southwards on 17 September. The
Soviet invasion of Poland began on the same day. As a result, the Soviet
Red Army entered the city at the end of September 1939 following the
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact's Secret Protocol, and a joint
Nazi-Soviet military parade took place on 22 September 1939. While Belarusians consider it a reunification of the Belarusian nation under one constituency (the
Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic at that time), Poles consider it the date when the city was lost. During the
Soviet occupation (1939–41), the Polish population was subject to arrests, executions and mass deportations to
Siberia and the
Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. The largest Soviet prison in the Byelorussian SSR was located in the city, and its prisoners were mostly Poles, including politicians, landowners, officers, educators, priests, both locals, including pre-war Polish mayor Franciszek Kolbusz, and people arrested in other places, including former Prime Minister of Poland
Leopold Skulski, and Jews fleeing the Germans from western and central Poland. The prison had poor conditions, causing the spread of
lice and
bed bugs, and brutal interrogations, even resulting in two confirmed cases of suicide. It is suspected that they were murdered by the Soviets in the
Katyn massacre in 1940. The
Polish resistance movement, including the Polesie District of the
Home Army, was active in the city. The city was re-occupied by the
Red Army on 28 July 1944, and eventually annexed from Poland the following year.
Post-war period In 1945, the
Związek Obrońców Wolności ("Freedom Defenders Association") Polish resistance organization was founded in the city, with its activities including secret Polish schooling, rescuing historical Polish monuments from devastation and organising aid for repressed people and those in a difficult material situation. The organization was crushed by the
NKVD in 1948, and its members were deported to
Gulag forced labour camps for 25 years. ==Geography==