History of Minsk
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Overview
There is no exact historical record for the date when Minsk was founded. It was first mentioned (as Mensk) in the
There is a theory, that initially Minsk was located 16 km to the southwest, on the banks of Menka river. According to this view, Kievan troops first seized the town and then marched to the mouth of Niamiha, location of a small fort, where the chronicle battle occurred. Later the fort was rebuilt and renamed Mensk .
There are several theories on the origin of the name.
- The settlement on the banks of Menka river to the southwest of today's Minsk. Remnants of a 10th-century settlement on the banks of the Menka were found by archeologists in the 1930s.
- There is a legend of a giant man with a name Menesk who lived in the area and gave the name to a settlement.
- The city name comes from Slavonic word "мена" ("miena" – "barter" or "trade" in English"), as Minsk initially served as a trading settlement around a marketplace. However, it is less likely, as Slavs rarely used names for trade or craft for their towns. Most towns and cities have been named after rivers or governing princes.
- Niamiha river may have had another name then, possibly Meniha. This would explain why a settlement on its banks would be named Mensk.
Governance timeline
5th century–8th century | To tribal union of Dregovichs
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8th century–9th century | To tribal union of Krivichs |
870–882 | To Novgorod
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882–972 | To Kiev
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972–980 | To Novgorod |
980–980 | To Kiev |
10th century–1101 | To Principality of Polatsk
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1101–1129 | To Principality of Minsk |
1129–1146 | To Principality of Kiev |
1146–1242 | To Principality of Minsk |
1242–1569 | To Grand Duchy of Lithuania |
1569–1654 | To Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth |
1654–1667 | Under Russian occupation |
1667–1708 | To Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth |
1708–1709 | Under Swedish occupation followed by Russian occupation |
1709–1793 | To Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth |
1793–1812 | To Russian Empire |
1812–1813 | Under French occupation |
1813–1917 | To Russian Empire |
1918–1918 | Under German occupation |
1918–1919 | To Belarusian People's Republic
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1919–1919 | To Byelorussian SSR
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1919–1920 | Under Polish occupation |
1921–1941 | To Byelorussian SSR, since 1922 in the Soviet Union |
1941–1944 | Under German occupation |
1944–1991 | To Byelorussian SSR, constituent republic of the Soviet Union |
1991— | To Belarus |
Early history
After the town was rebuilt after the 1067 battle, it was located 100–150 to the south of
In the early 12th century
In 1129 Principality of Minsk was annexed by Kiev, the dominant city of Kievan Rus', however in 1146 the Polatsk dynasty regained control of the principality. By 1150 Minsk has rivaled Polatsk as the major city in the former Principality of Polatsk. Princes of Minsk and Polatsk were engaged in years of struggle trying to unite all lands previously under the rule of Polatsk.
In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
Minsk escaped the
In 1441 Lithuanian prince
By 1450 Minsk was among 15 largest cities of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with about the population of 5,000. It was an important and wealthy trading city profiting from its favourable location. It was on the ancient trading roads connecting Smolensk and Moscow in the east to Poland and Central Europe in the west, and linking Novgorod and Vilnius in the north and northwest respectively with Ukraine. Historical records suggest that Minsk contributed large sums to the treasury of the Grand Duchy.
Minsk was often a target for foreign invasions. In 1505 it was raided by
After the Union of Lublin
In 1569 after the
By the middle of the 16th century Minsk was an important economic and cultural centre of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The city contained several guilds of craftsmen and was an important trading centre. Minsk merchants exported wood, tar, wax, blacksmith's work, glass, skins and furs. They brought in salt, wine, spices, fabrics and metals. Minsk had a thriving merchant port on
Minsk was an important centre for
In 1654 Minsk was conquered by troops of
The last decades of the Polish-Lithuanian rule were indicated by decline or very slow development. Minsk was a small provincial town of little economic or military significance. By 1790 it had population of 6,500–7,000 and was slowly rebuilding to the city limits of 1654. In 1785 the city magistrate was also complemented with an elected city council. Most of Minsk residents were
Russian rule
Minsk was annexed by Russia in 1793 as a consequence of the Second Partition of Poland. In 1796 it became centre of the Minsk Governorate (province). All Polish street names were changed to Russian ones, however spelling of the city's name remained unchanged.
In 1805 a municipal garden was established by the Minsk governor for the enjoyment of local residents. By 1811 Minsk had about 11,000 residents. Its development was interrupted by
In 1830 was one of the centres of the November Uprising in the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania. After 1831, the use of Belarusian and Polish languages has been banned, and Russian was the only official language. In 1835 Minsk was officially included into the Pale of Settlement, which later led to a rise in Jewish population. Throughout the 19th century the city grew and significantly improved. In the 1830s major streets and squares of Minsk were cobbled and paved. A first public library was opened in 1836, a fire brigade was put into operation in 1837. In 1838 first local newspaper, Minskie gubernskie vedomosti ("Minsk province news") went into circulation. First theatre was established in 1844. By 1850 Minsk had a dozen of schools and two colleges. By 1860 Minsk was an important trading city with population of 27,000. There was a construction boom which led to building 2- and 3-storey brick and stone houses in Upper Town.
Minsk was one of the Belarusian cities, which supported the January Uprising in Poland, Lithuania and in Belarus in 1863–64. It was under Russian martial law from 1863 to 1870. The suppression of the uprising led to increased repressions against use of the Polish and Belarusian languages, particularly in education and newspapers.
Development of the city was boosted by improvements in transportation. In 1846 Moscow-Warsaw road was laid though Minsk. In 1871 railway link between Moscow and Warsaw ran via Minsk, and in 1873 a new railway from Romny in Ukraine to the Baltic Sea port of Libava (Liepāja). Thus Minsk became an important rail junction and a manufacturing hub. Municipal water supply was introduced in 1872, telephone – in 1890, horse tram – in 1892, and first power generator – in 1894. By 1900 Minsk had 58 factories employing 3,000 workers. The city had theatres, cinemas, newspapers, schools and colleges, as well as numerous monasteries, churches, synagogues and a mosque. According to the 1897 Russian census the city had 91,494 inhabitants, the majority of them Jews. Other large groups were Poles and Russians. Belarusians made only 8% of Minsk's then population (some historians believe, many Belarusians were counted as Russians to boost the number of the latter).
20th century
In the early years of the 20th century, Minsk was a major centre for the worker's movement within Belarus. It was also one of the major centres of Belarusian national revival, along with Vilnius.
World War I affected the development of Minsk tremendously, by 1915 Minsk was on the front lines. Some factories were closed down and residents began evacuating to the east. Minsk became the headquarters of the Western Front of the Russian army, while also housing military hospitals and military supply bases.
The
In 1919 (see
During World War I, the Russian Revolution and the Polish-Bolshevik war, Minsk suffered significant damage. A programme of reconstruction and development was started in 1922. By 1924 there were 29 factories in operation; schools, museums, theatres, libraries were opening. In 1921 Belarusian State University, now a major university of Belarus, was founded in Minsk. In 1929 an electric tramway was put into operation, and in 1934 the airport (Minsk-1) was opened. Throughout the 1920s and the 1930s Minsk saw rapid development with dozens of new factories built, new schools, colleges, higher education establishments, hospitals, theatres and cinemas opened. Throughout the 1920s and the early 1930s Minsk was a centre for development of both Belarusian language and culture. By 1935 it was virtually bilingual, with Belarusian being the major language of newspapers, theatres and education. In the late 1930s the trend had been reversed with a Russification policy.
Minsk was the center of Communist repression in Belarus in the late 1930s. The
Before World War II Minsk had a population of 300,000 people. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 in Operation Barbarossa Minsk came under immediate attack. The city was bombed on the first day of the war and taken over by the Germans four days later. However, some factories, museums and thousands of civilians had been evacuated to the east.
The Germans made Minsk the administrative centre of the Reichskomissariat Ostland and repressed the local population. Communists and sympathisers were killed or imprisoned; thousands were forced into slave labour, both locally and in Germany. Homes were expropriated to house German occupying forces. Thousands starved as rations were expropriated and paid work was scarce. At the same time, some residents supported the Germans, especially in the earlier years. Some Belarusian nationalists hoped for a formation of a Belarusian national state under the German
Minsk was the site of one of the largest Nazi-run ghettos in the World War II, the Minsk ghetto, which held over 100,000 Jews. A living space of 1.5 square meters was allotted for each person, with none for children. As new Jews were brought to the ghetto from the west, the existing Jewish residents were slaughtered—2,000 Jews were killed on 7 November 1941, 30,000 Jews were murdered over three days in July 1942, and tens of thousands more were killed at other times, even as more Jews were forced into the ghetto. Only a handful survived.
Minsk was re-taken by the Soviet troops on 3 July 1944 during the Operation Bagration. The city was the centre of German resistance to the Soviet advance and was a site of heavy fighting between German and Soviet troops; by mid-1944, the city was in ruins. Factories, municipal buildings, power stations, bridges, most roads, and 80% of housing were reduced to rubble. Some churches which survived the fighting were later demolished by the Soviet authorities. In 1944 Minsk's population was down to 50,000, with most residents (especially Jewish residents) having been evacuated or killed.
After World War II Minsk was re-built, but not re-constructed. The historical centre was substituted in the 1940s and 1950 by Stalinist architecture, which favoured grand buildings, broad avenues and wide squares. In the following years the city grew rapidly as a result of massive industrialisation. This generated the so-called Minsk Phenomenon in the 1960s and 1970s (the phenomenon was caused by combining R&D-intensive manufacturing, research institutions and highly skilled labour, which resulted in high rates of output expansion). Minsk became an important centre for manufacturing (trucks, tractors, refrigerators, television sets, military equipment, optical, etc.) and science. It was home to the Belarusian Academy of Sciences, dozens of R&D institutes in both academic and applied sciences and several universities.
Since the 1960s Minsk's population has grown rapidly, reaching 1 million in 1972 and 1.5 million in 1986. Rapid population growth was primarily driven by mass migration of young unskilled workers from rural areas of Belarus as well as migration of skilled workers from other parts of the Soviet Union. To house the expanding population, Minsk grew dramatically. Its surrounding villages were absorbed and rebuilt as mikroraions, districts of high-density apartment housing. They were normally known as sleeping districts, as they contained few workplaces and entertainment venues. Among the mikroraions, Chyzhouka was built in the 1960s, Serabranka, Zahad, Kurasoushchyna (expanded), Paudnyovy Zahad, Uskhod in the 1970s, Kuntsaushchyna, Malinauka and Uruchcha in the 1980s. To link mikroraions and the city centre, public transportation was developed. It consisted of buses, trolleybuses, trams, and since 1984 of metro system (see Minsk Metro). Minsk Circular Road has been built to provide a bypass for through traffic. International airport (Minsk-2) was built in 1982.
In the late 1980s Minsk once again became a centre for Belarusian national movement. Manifestations and protests during
Recent developments
Throughout the 1990s the city has continued to change. Becoming capital of a newly independent country required obtaining attributes of a capital city. Embassies have been opened, a number of administrative buildings have been turned over into government buildings. During the early and mid-1990s Minsk was hit by the economic crisis – many development projects have been halted, unemployment and underemployment was high. Since the late 1990s there have been improvements in transport infrastructure and arrival of a housing boom, especially after 2002. On the outskirts of Minsk new
Minsk has become one of the centers of the
Technology timeline
- 1871 – railway
- 1874 – water supply
- 1889 – telegraph
- 1890 – telephone
- 1892 – horse tram
- 1894 – power supply
- 1929 – tram
- 1933 – airport
- 1952 – trolleybus
- 1984 – metro
- 1993 – internet
Population growth
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Historical names
- Mensk, Miensk (Менск), the historical name.
- Polish: Mińsk, Mińsk Litewski, Mińsk Białoruski, used when Belarus was part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
See also
- Timeline of Minsk
- Mińsk Voivodeship
References
- The Museum of the Jewish People at Beit Hatfutsot. Retrieved 27 June 2018.
- ^ "Police Crack Down on Protests in Belarus After Results Show Lukashenka Winning in Landslide". RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. Retrieved 13 August 2020.
Bibliography
External links
- Belarus National Republic – the Belarusian Government in exile
- History of Minsk – the big article in English about Minsk history
- Stary Hetman – Belarusian history forums
- Belarusian diaspora
- Jews in Minsk. Poland-Lithuania – czarist rule – enlightenment, labour movement, and Herzl Zionism – Soviet rule until 1941 – Holocaust – Soviet rule (Encyclopaedia Judaica 1971)
- Historical dates of Minsk