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Pinsk

 
Dictionary: Pinsk   (pĭnsk) pronunciation

A city of southwest Belarus south-southwest of Minsk. First mentioned in chronicles in 1097, it was the capital of the Pinsk duchy in the 13th century. Pinsk passed to Lithuania in 1320, to Poland in 1569, to Russia in 1793, back to Poland in 1921, and to the USSR in 1945. Population: 130,000.

 

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Pinsk (pĭnsk, Rus. pēnsk), city (1989 pop. 118,636), S Belarus, in the Pripyat Marshes and at the confluence of the Pina and Pripyat rivers. A port on the Pina River (part of the Dnieper-Buh waterway), it has long been a noted water transport junction; timber is now the chief export. Pinsk is also a rail terminus. Industries include the manufacture of metal products, building materials, and clothing. A national university is in the city.

Mentioned in the chronicles in 1097 as part of the Kievan state, the city became the capital of Pinsk duchy in the 13th cent. It passed to Lithuania in 1320 and to Poland in 1569. Pinsk was transferred to Russia in 1793 with the second partition of Poland; it reverted to Poland in 1921 but was ceded to the USSR in 1945. During the German occupation of World War II, the city's Jews (who had formed a majority of the population) were mostly exterminated.


Wikipedia: Pinsk
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Pinsk
Пінск
Пинск
The Assumption Cathedral in Pinsk.

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Pinsk is located in Belarus
Pinsk
Location of Pinsk in Belarus
Coordinates: 52°07′N 26°06′E / 52.117°N 26.1°E / 52.117; 26.1
Country
Subdivision
 Belarus
Brest Voblast
Mentioned 1097
Population (1999 census)
 - Total 129,935
Time zone EET (UTC+2)
 - Summer (DST) EEST (UTC+3)
Area code(s) +375 165
License plate 1
Website www.pinsk.by/

Pinsk (Belarusian: Пінск, Polish: Pińsk), a town in Belarus, in the Polesia region, traversed by the river Pripyat, at the confluence of the Strumen and Pina rivers. The region is known as the Marsh of Pinsk. It is a fertile agricultural center. It lies south-west of Minsk. The population is about 130,000. The city is a small industrial center producing ships sailing the local rivers.

The historic city has a beautifully restored downtown full of two-story buildings dating from the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.

Contents

History

Pinsk is first mentioned in the chronicles of 1097 as Pinesk, a town belonging to Sviatopolk of Turau. The name is derived from the river Pina. Pinsk's early history is closely linked with the history of Turau. Until the mid-12th century Pinsk was the seat of Sviatopolk's descendants, but a cadet line of the same family established their own seat at Pinsk after the Mongol invasion of Rus in 1239.

The Pinsk principality had an important strategic location, between the principalities of Navahrudak and Halych-Volynia, which fought each other for other Ruthenian territories. Pinsk did not take part in this struggle, although it was inclined towards the princes of Novaharodak, which is shown by the fact that the future prince of Novaharodak and Voyshalk of Lithuania spent some time in Pinsk.

In 1320 Pinsk was won by the rulers of Navahrudak, who incorporated it into their state, known as the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. From this time on Pinsk was ruled by Gedimin's eldest son, Narymunt. Afterwards, for the next two centuries the city had different rulers.

In 1581 Pinsk was granted the Magdeburg rights and in 1569, after the union of Lithuania with the Crown of the Polish Kingdom, it became the seat of the province of Brest.

From 1633 on Pinsk had a secondary school, a so-called brotherhood school (the brotherhoods were religious citizens' organisations with the aim of providing education for their members and their children). During the Cossack rebellion of Bohdan Khmelnytsky (1640), it was captured by Cossacks who carried out a pogrom against the city's Jewish population; the Poles retook it by assault, killing 24,000 persons and burning 5,000 houses. Eight years later the town was burned by the Russians.

In 1648, on the eve of the Russo-Polish War (1654-1667), Pinsk was occupied by Ukrainian Cossack army under commander Niababy and could only be reconquered with great difficulty by prince Janusz Radziwiłł, a high-ranking commander in the Polish-Lithuanian army. During the war between Moscow and Poland-Lithuania (1654-1667) the city suffered heavily from the attacks of the Muscovite army under Prince Volkolnsky and its allied army of Ukrainian Cossacks.

Charles XII took it in 1706, and burned the town with its suburbs. In spite of all the wars the city recovered and the town developed with the existence of a printing workshop in Pinsk from 1729-44. Pinsk fell to the Russian Empire in 1793 in the Third Partition of Poland.

Up to the Second World War and the Holocaust, like many other cities in Europe, Pinsk had a significant Jewish population: according to Russian census of 1897, out of the total population of 28,400, Jews constituted 21,100 (so around 74% percent), making it one of the most Jewish cities in the Eastern Europe.[1]

Pinsk Jews reading Mishna (1924)

In April 1919, at the beginning of the Polish-Soviet War, thirty-five Jews from Pinsk were murdered by Polish soldiers, in an incident known as the Pinsk massacre. The Poles suspected them of being Bolshevik collaborators. This event created a diplomatic incident that was noted at the Versailles Conference.[2]

Pinsk became part of Poland in 1920 after the Polish-Soviet War and was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1939. At this time, the city's population was over 90% Jewish.

From 1941 to 1944, Pinsk was under Nazi Germany. In 1939, the population of Pinsk totaled 30,000, of whom 27,000 were Jews. Most of them were killed in late October 1942, after their deportation by the Nazis from the Pinsk ghetto. [3]Ten thousand were murdered in one day. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 Pinsk has belonged to the Republic of Belarus.

Landmarks

Jesuit collegium

Two main sights of the town are lined along the river. These are the Assumption Cathedral of the monastery of the greyfriars (1712-30) with a campanile from 1817 and the Jesuit collegium (1635-48), a large Mannerist complex, whose cathedral was demolished after the World War II. The foremost among modern buildings is the black-domed Orthodox cathedral of St. Theodore.

Notable residents

St. Theodore Cathedral

Bibliography

  • The Jews of Pinsk, 1506-1880 Mordechai Nadav, Stanford University Press

References

  1. ^ Joshua D. Zimmerman, Poles, Jews, and the politics of nationality, Univ of Wisconsin Press, 2004, ISBN 0299194647, Google Print, p.16
  2. ^ Best of the memory books, Marcin Wodzinski, Haaretz, Books, February 2009, pp.28-30
  3. ^ Best of the memory books, Marcin Wodzinski, Haaretz, Books, February 2009, pp.28-30

External links

Coordinates: 52°07′N 26°06′E / 52.117°N 26.1°E / 52.117; 26.1


 
 
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Pripyat (river, Ukraine/Belarus)
Ivan (Vladislavovich) Zholtovsky (art)
Andrew Bobola

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