Trakai is a city and lake resort in Lithuania. It lies 28 kilometres west of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania or just 7 kilometres from the administrative limits of the Lithuanian capital city. Because of its proximity to Vilnius, Trakai is a popular tourist destination. Trakai is the administrative centre of Trakai district municipality. The city is inhabited by 5,357 people, according to 2007 estimates. A notable feature of Trakai is that the city 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 the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, roughly corresponding to the period of the Jagiellonian dynasty (1386-1572). Some historians argue that the Polish Golden Age continued into 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 and at its peak stretched from modern-day Estonia in the north to Moldavia in the south and from Moscow in the east to Brandenburg 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 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 a former Orthodox Jewish congregation and fortress synagogue, located at 24 Szeroka Street, in the Kazimierz district of Kraków, in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship of Poland.
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 southwestern Ukraine. It lies within the historical region of northern Bukovina, a Romanian territory occupied in 1940 by the Soviet Union following the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The fortress is located near another famous defensive structure, the Kamianets-Podilskyi Castle. Construction of the current stone Khotyn Fortress began in 1375. The fortress underwent significant improvements 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 Podilia 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.
Olyka Castle is a fortified palace in Olyka, Ukraine. Constructed in 1564, it became the principal seat of the Radziwiłł family in Volhynia, once part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and now Ukraine. The Radziwiłłs hold the castle for almost four hundred years, since the last owner, Janusz Radziwiłł, owned the castle till 1945. After 1945, it was confiscated and changed into a psychiatric hospital. In 2021, it was transferred to the Volyn museum and is now open for the public.
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 is a former Orthodox Jewish synagogue, located at 33 Karaimska Street, in the Jewish quarter of Lutsk, in Volynska Oblast, Ukraine. The congregation worshipped in the Ashkenazi rite.
Zamość, founded in 1580, is a town in Poland.
The Church of Saint John the Baptist is a Catholic parish church in the village Kamai in the Pastavy District of Vitebsk Region, Belarus. The church is one of the fortified churches of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
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.
