Slonim is a town in Grodno Region, in western Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Slonim District.),

implying that the city once functioned as an outpost at the southern border of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

History

Middle Ages

The earliest record is of a wooden fort on the left bank of the Shchara river in the 11th century, although there may have been earlier settlement.

The area was disputed between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Kievan Rus' in early history and it changed hands several times. In 1040, the Kievans won control of the area after a battle but lost Slonim to the Lithuanians in 1103. The Ruthenians retook the area early in the 13th century but were expelled by a Tatar invasion in 1241 and the town was pillaged. When, later in the year, the Tatars withdrew, Slonim became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania once again, in personal union with the Kingdom of Poland after the Union of Krewo of 1385.

left|thumb|200x200px|Slonim was the location of one of many Roman [[Catholic churches where the priests had to know the Lithuanian language according to the Grand Duke of Lithuania Alexander Jagiellon in 1501]]

Early modern period

Slonim was the location of one of many Roman Catholic churches where the priests had to know the Lithuanian language according to the Grand Duke of Lithuania Alexander Jagiellon in 1501. In 1532 King Sigismund I of Poland granted Slonim town rights. In 1558, King Sigismund II Augustus, in a privilege issued in Vilnius, established two two-week fairs.

In 1569, the Polish–Lithuanian union was transformed into a single state and Słonim became an important regional centre within the newly established Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Administratively it was part of the Nowogródek Voivodeship. Thanks to the efforts of nobleman, statesman and Słonim starost Lew Sapieha, King Sigismund III Vasa renewed the town rights of Słonim and granted the city coat of arms, which included the Lis coat of arms of Sapieha. Also thanks to Lew Sapieha, from 1631 to 1685 the city flourished as the seat of the Lithuanian diet. including 9,000 on 14 November 1941. The second mass murder of 8,000 Jews took place in 1942. From August 1942 to November 1943, the occupiers operated a forced labour camp for Jewish men in the town.

In 1944, on the insistence of Joseph Stalin in Yalta the Soviet Union retained possession of the eastern parts of pre-war Poland including Słonim, as agreed between the Allies. The Polish population was forcibly resettled to new post-war Polish boundaries before the end of 1946.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Slonim became part of an independent state of Belarus.

In 2019 a Soviet-era statue of Vladimir Lenin in the city center was replaced with a new monument of Lew Sapieha.

An earlier Gazeta Slonimskaya was originally published in 1938 and 1939, at that time in Polish.

Another local newspaper is Slonimski Vesnik. Being a state owned newspaper, it is run and censored by local authorities. Slonimski Vesnik is published three times a week and has a circulation of around 3,000 copies.

Transport and infrastructure

Slonim has road-links with Baranovichi, Ivatsevichi, Ruzhany, Volkovysk, and Lida. There are around a dozen bus routes in Slonim and half a dozen of mini-bus routes. Taxi services are widely available. Slonim is on the railway line between Baranavichy and Vaukavysk.

Notable buildings

  • Orthodox church of the Holy Trinity (former Catholic church of the Holy Trinity, Baroque)
  • Convent of the Benedictines
  • Chapel of St. Dominick
  • St Andrew's Church (Baroque)
  • Catholic church of the Immaculate Conception of Blessed Virgin Mary and the convent of Bernardine
  • Orthodox church of Transfiguration (former Catholic church), Baroque, dating back to the 17th century
  • The Great Synagogue of Slonim, building of a former major synagogue of a large Jewish community that used to live in Slonim before the Second World War. The building is in a dilapidated condition. It is listed by the private World Monuments Fund as their top priority site of Jewish interest in Eastern Europe that requires restoration. The building was left untouched by the German Luftwaffe during World War II, but it has subsequently deteriorated and is now in urgent need of protection and restoration. British TV personality Natasha Kaplinsky was the subject of one of a series of BBC television programmes, Who Do You Think You Are?. Kaplinsky visited the synagogue, it having been the place of worship of her great-grandparents. Her cousin sang a lament in Hebrew in the synagogue.

Slonim has also a theatre and a museum of regional studies, as well as a medical school. There is a new recreation area development in north-east Slonim called Enka. The main sports are: running, gymnastics, football and ice hockey. The telecommunication guyed mast, tall, for FM-/TV-broadcasting is located at Novaya Strazha ().

Northeast of Slonim, there is a CHAYKA-transmitter.

Notable people

  • Samuel Hirszhorn (1876–1942), Polish-Jewish writer, journalist, and politician, born in Slonim
  • Haim Lensky (1905–1943), Russian-Jewish poet
  • Michael Marks (1859–1907), Jewish businessman and entrepreneur, and co-founder of the British retail chain Marks & Spencer
  • Miriam Raskin (1889–1973), Yiddish writer, born in Slonim.
  • Michal Smajewski, known as Michel Sima (1912-1987), sculptor, photographer

See also

  • Anshe Slonim Synagogue on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York

Notes

References

Sources

  • Cholawski, Shalom. Slonim in Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust vol. 4, pp. 1363–1364. Map.
  • Gazeta Slonimskaya on the web
  • Photos on Radzima.org