Druya

Druya Друя
Agrotown
The Sapiezhyn church of the Trinity
UTC+3 (MSK )

Druya (

Medieval Druja was a stronghold of the

In the 1921 census, 49.8% people declared Polish nationality, 33.8% declared Jewish nationality, 11.5% declared Belarusian nationality, and 3.4% declared Russian nationality.^[1]

Following the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939, the town was first occupied by the Soviet Union until 1941, then by Nazi Germany until 1944, and re-occupied by the Soviet Union afterwards, which eventually annexed it from Poland in 1945.

Monasteries

Druja's oldest building is a Baroque Catholic church of the Trinity in the part of town known as Sapiezhyn. It was built in the 1640s and later expanded. The church was previously part of a Bernardine monastery.

In the

Druja was formerly known for its thriving Jewish community, around 2,200 Jews lived in Druya on the eve of World War II (half of the whole local population). The father of Nobel Literature Prize winner Saul Bellow was from Druja.^[5]

Most of the town's Jewish population was killed during the

• Fabijan Abrantovich, Belarusian Roman Catholic priest and social activist, was active in Druya
• Vladimir Beneshevich, scholar, born there
• Alter Druyanov, writer, editor, translator, folklorist, journalist, historian of early Zionism, and Zionist activist was born there and took his pen name, Druyanov, from the town
• Jazep Hermanovich, Belarusian Eastern Catholic priest, poet and Gulag survivor was active in Druya for some time
• Jury Kashyra, Roman Catholic priest, was active in Druya
• Abraham Resnick studied under Rabbi Abraham Zadok Bagin in Druya
• Ceslaus Sipovich attended catholic school in Druja
• Andrei Tsikota, Belarusian Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic priest, was active in Druya

Gallery

• 
  Divine service in the Sapiezhyn church
• 
  A Boris stone retrieved from the Drujka River has become a local tourist attraction.

References