The
Kievan Rus' town of
Luchesk had a wooden wall as early as 1075, when
Boleslaus the Bold laid siege to it for six months.
Yury Dolgoruky failed to take Lutsk after a six-weeks siege in 1149. In 1255, the walls of Lutsk were stormed by Khan
Jochi's grandson
Kuremsa. The current castle, towering over the
Styr River, was built mostly in the 1340s, although some parts of the earlier walls were used. It repelled sieges by numerous potentates, including
Casimir the Great (1349),
Jogaila (1431), and
Sigismund Kęstutaitis (1436). In addition to the Lithuanian nobles gathered there with the Supreme Duke of Lithuania
Władysław II Jagiełło and the
Grand Duke Vytautas, the Congress was attended by the
Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund; the
Grand Prince of Moscow Vasily II; and the
Voivode Dan II of Wallachia. During the long reign of Vytautas, Lutsk Castle was further fortified to guard against
artillery and gunfire. The principal entrance, now bricked in, was from the west and adjoined a
bridge over outer
moat. Three main towers, now named "Lubart", "
Švitrigaila" (both after
Lithuanian princes) and the "Bishop", were built up in the course of the 16th and 17th centuries. The walls of the castle formerly enclosed St. John's Cathedral, a palace of the
grand dukes, and an episcopal palace. Of these buildings, only the
Neoclassical palace of the bishops still stands. During the 1940s Lubart’s Castle became a Nazi execution site of over 4000 Jews. One photograph, taken June 18, 1941, shows a large group of Jewish men sitting under German guard in front of Lubart’s Castle in Lutsk guarded by German soldiers. Only weeks prior several massacres had taken place at this same place. On 2 July 1941 1,160 Jews were murdered within the walls of the castle. There is no monument or marker for this tragedy in the castle. On July 4, 3,000 more Jews were executed by gunshot here. Lutsk castle 1916.jpg|View of the castle circa 1916 200-uah-2020-2.png|The castle tower on the reverse of 200 hryvnias banknote ==References==