The city was first mentioned in historical records in 1267. From the 14th century, it was part of the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and since the
Union of Lublin (1569), it has been part of the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, where it became known as
Mohylew. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the city flourished as one of the main nodes of the east–west and north–south trading routes. In 1577, Grand Duke
Stephen Báthory granted it
city rights under Magdeburg law. In 1654, during the
Russo-Polish War (1654–1667), the townsmen negotiated a treaty of surrender to the Russians peacefully, if the Jews were to be expelled and their property divided up among Mogilev's inhabitants.
Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovitch agreed to their proposal. However, instead of expelling the Jews, the Russian troops massacred them after they had led them to the outskirts of the town. During this war, the city was besieged twice by the
Lithuanian army:
in 1655, and . In 1661, residents started against the Russian military occupation. The city was set afire by
Peter the Great's forces in 1708, during the
Great Northern War. After the
First Partition of Poland in 1772, Mogilev became part of the
Russian Empire and became the centre of the
Mogilev Governorate. In the years 1915–1917, during
World War I, the
Stavka, the headquarters of the
Russian Imperial Army, was based in the city and the Tsar,
Nicholas II, spent long periods there as Commander-in-Chief. Following the
Russian Revolution, in 1918, the city was briefly occupied by
Germany and placed under their short-lived
Belarusian People's Republic. In 1919, Mogilev was captured by the forces of
Soviet Russia and incorporated into the
Byelorussian SSR. Up to
World War II and the
Holocaust, like many other cities in Europe, Mogilev had a significant
Jewish population: according to the
Russian census of 1897, out of the total population of 41,100, 21,500 were Jews (i.e. over 50 percent). In 1938 the leadership of Soviet Belarus decided to move the capital of the country from Minsk to Mogilev because Minsk was too close to the then-Polish-Soviet border. Due to that, the now- was built in 1938–1940 to be the government building. It was designed to resemble the
Minsk Government building. {{stack| photograph of Jewish women in Mogilev, July 1941; Mogilev Jews were murdered by Nazi
Police Battalion 322 in October. Mogilev became the official residence of
High SS and police leader (HSSPF)
Erich von dem Bach. During that period, the Jews of Mogilev were
ghettoized and systematically murdered by
Ordnungspolizei and
SS personnel.
Heinrich Himmler personally witnessed the executions of 279 Jews on 23 October 1941. Later that month, several mentally disabled patients were poisoned with car exhaust fumes as an experiment; the method of killing was thereafter applied in several Nazi
extermination camps. Initial plans for establishing a death camp in Mogilev were abandoned in favour of
Maly Trostenets. In 1944, with the
Mogilev offensive, the devastated city was liberated by the
Red Army and returned to Soviet control. Mogilev then was the site of a labour camp for
German POW soldiers. Since
Belarus gained its independence in 1991, Mogilev has remained one of its principal cities. ==Demographics==