Grodno or Hrodna, is a city in western Belarus. The city is located on the Neman River, 300 km (186 mi) from Minsk, about 15 km (9 mi) from the Polish border and 30 km (19 mi) away from Lithuania. In 2019 the city had 373,547 inhabitants. Grodno is the capital of Grodno Region and Grodno District.
Trakai is a historic city and lake resort in Lithuania. It lies 28 kilometres west of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Because of its proximity to Vilnius, Trakai is a popular tourist destination. Trakai is the administrative centre of Trakai district municipality. The town covers 497.1 square kilometres of area and, according to 2007 estimates, is inhabited by 5,357 people. A notable feature of Trakai is that the town was built and preserved by people of different nationalities. Historically, communities of Karaims, Tatars, Lithuanians, Russians, Jews and Poles lived here.
Przemyśl is a city in southeastern Poland with 58,721 inhabitants, as of December 2021. In 1999, it became part of the Subcarpathian Voivodeship; it was previously the capital of Przemyśl Voivodeship.
The Polish Golden Age was the Renaissance period in Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, roughly corresponding to the period of rule of the King Sigismund I the Old and his son, Sigismund II Augustus, the last of the Jagiellonian Dynasty monarchs, until his death in 1572. Some historians reckon the Polish Golden Age to have continued to the mid-17th century, when the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was ravaged by the Khmelnytsky Uprising (1648–57) and by the Swedish and Russian invasion. During its Golden Age, the Commonwealth became one of the largest kingdoms of Europe, stretching from modern Estonia in the north to Moldavia in the east and Bohemia in the west.
Kazimierz is a historical district of Kraków and Kraków Old Town, Poland. From its inception in the 14th century to the early 19th century, Kazimierz was an independent city, a royal city of the Crown of the Polish Kingdom, located south of the Old Town of Kraków, separated from it by a branch of the Vistula river. For many centuries, Kazimierz was a place where ethnic Polish and Jewish cultures coexisted and intermingled. The northeastern part of the district was historically Jewish. In 1941, the Jews of Kraków were forcibly relocated by the German occupying forces into the Krakow ghetto just across the river in Podgórze, and most did not survive the war. Today, Kazimierz is one of the major tourist attractions of Krakow and an important center of cultural life of the city.
Szydłów is a fortified town in Staszów County, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, in southeastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina called Gmina Szydłów. It lies approximately 13 kilometres (8 mi) west of Staszów and 43 km (27 mi) south-east of the regional capital Kielce. The village has a population of 1,093.
The Polish Baroque lasted from the early 17th to the mid-18th century. As with Baroque style elsewhere in Europe, Poland's Baroque emphasized the richness and triumphant power of contemporary art forms. In contrast to the previous, Renaissance style which sought to depict the beauty and harmony of nature, Baroque artists strove to create their own vision of the world. The result was manifold, regarded by some critics as grand and dramatic, but sometimes also chaotic and disharmonious and tinged with affectation and religious exaltation, thus reflecting the turbulent times of the 17th-century Europe.
The Church of St. Andrew in the Old Town district of Kraków, Poland located at Grodzka Street, is a historical Romanesque church built between 1079 and 1098 by a medieval Polish statesman Palatine Sieciech. It is a rare surviving example of the European fortress church used for defensive purposes.
The Old Synagogue was an Orthodox Jewish synagogue situated in the Kazimierz district of Kraków, Poland. In Yiddish it was referred to as the Alta Shul. It is the oldest synagogue building still standing in Poland, and one of the most precious landmarks of Jewish architecture in Europe. Until the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, it was one of the city's most important synagogues as well as the main religious, social, and organizational centre of the Kraków Jewish community.
Yazlovets is a village in Chortkiv Raion, Ternopil Oblast, Ukraine. It is a Roman Catholic pilgrimage centre of local significance. The village belongs to the Buchach urban hromada. It lies on the Vilchivchik river, a tributary of the Strypa and is located 16 km south of Buchach and presently has around 600 inhabitants. From 1947-91, it was known as Yablunivka. Apart from the ruined fortifications, there is little sign now that in the 15th and 16th centuries this was a thriving trading centre, on major international mercantile routes between the Black Sea and Northern Europe, and host to multiple merchant families of diverse ethnicities and religions. It was an instance of a privately owned settlement, such as was Zamość in Poland. The city's square has been entirely obliterated.
The Khotyn Fortress is a fortification complex located on the right bank of the Dniester River in Khotyn, Chernivtsi Oblast (province) of western Ukraine. It is situated on a territory of the historical northern Bessarabia region which was split in 1940 between Ukraine and Moldova. The fortress is also located in a close proximity to another famous defensive structure, the Old Kam'yanets Castle of Kamianets-Podilskyi. Construction on the current stone Khotyn/Hotin fortress was started in 1375, while major improvements were made in the 1380s and in the 1460s, under the Moldavian princes, Alexander the Good, and Stephen the Great.
Kamianets-Podilskyi Castle is a former Ruthenian-Lithuanian castle and a later three-part Polish fortress located in the historic city of Kamianets-Podilskyi, Ukraine, in the historic region of Podolia in the western part of the country. Its name is attributed to the root word kamin', from the Slavic word for 'stone'.
Wooden synagogues are an original style of vernacular synagogue architecture that emerged in the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The style developed between the mid-16th and mid-17th centuries, a period of peace and prosperity for the Polish-Lithuanian Jewish community. While many were destroyed during the First and Second World Wars, there are some that survive today in Lithuania.
The Ternopil Castle is a stronghold which gave birth to the city of Ternopil. It was built in the 16th century to protect the southern border of the Kingdom of Poland and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
A fortified church is a church that is built to serve a defensive role in times of war. Such churches were specially designed to incorporate military features, such as thick walls, battlements, and embrasures. Others, such as the Ávila Cathedral were incorporated into the town wall. Monastic communities, such as Solovki Monastery, are often surrounded by a wall, and some churches, such as St. Arbogast in Muttenz, Switzerland, have an outer wall as well. Churches with additional external defences such as curtain walls and wall towers are often referred to more specifically as fortress churches or Kirchenburgen.
The rule of the Jagiellonian dynasty in Poland between 1386 and 1572 spans the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period in European history. The Lithuanian Grand Duke Jogaila founded the dynasty; his marriage to Queen Jadwiga of Poland in 1386 strengthened an ongoing Polish–Lithuanian union. The partnership brought vast territories controlled by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into Poland's sphere of influence and proved beneficial for both the Polish and Lithuanian people, who coexisted and cooperated in one of the largest political entities in Europe for the next four centuries.
The Great Synagogue in Lutsk, Ukraine, is a Renaissance building with a tower. Located in the Jewish quarter, it was the religious, educational and community centre of Lutsk Jews until the invasion of Poland in the Second World War. It was built in 1626 and is a good example of a fortress synagogue. Partially destroyed in 1942, the synagogue was restored in the 1970s. It is now used as a sports club.
Zamość, founded in 1580, is a town in Poland.
Terebovlia castle is a ruined 17th-century castle in the town of Terebovlia in western Ukraine.
The architecture of Belarus spans a variety of historical periods and styles and reflects the complex history, geography, religion and identity of the country. Several buildings in Belarus have been designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites in recognition of their cultural heritage, and others have been placed on the tentative list.
