A city and a myth

This is a place, where legends come to life
This is a place, where legends come to life

The city is famed in legends and Belarusians believe that once Novogrudok was their capital, the second one after Polotsk. The emergence of this beautiful myth dates back to the times, when the Grand Principality of Lithuania, the land of both Lithuanian and Belarusian ancestors, was arising in the dense forests between the rivers of Neman and Viliya. The first ruler of the medieval Lithuania Mindaugas annexed the modern north-east of Belarus, which was then populated by yatvyag tribes, to Lithuania in the 60s of XIII century. Novogrudok was the richest and most captivating city of the land, probably more prosperous and famous than Grodno. The mount of Mindaugas is still there. The legend has it that the eminent grand duke rests there. However, historians argue that there was a host of Mindaugas’ mounts both in Lithuania and Belarus, so which one of them is a true last resting place of the great master is unknown.
Chroniclers are not sure if Mindaugas visited Novogrudok, but can tell a lot about the rule of his son Vaisalgas, the first Lithuanian prince, who adopted Orthodoxy.
Under the rule of Vaisalgas, Novogrudok was something like one of the Lithuanian capitals. At the time, Lithiania was at war with its southern neighbour Ukraine’s Volyn Principality, which was why Lithuanian monarchs would stay on in Novogrudok.
In late 1316 — early 1317 the city turned into the centre of the just established Orthodox archdiocese of Lithuania. Now, the Belarusians did not have to go bowing to Moscow metropolitan, because Constantinople patriarch would send his own.
Novogrudok was the meeting point of various cultural and religious routes. The local tribes, including Lithuanians and yatvyags, continued worshipping their gods in the forests. The Orthodox Belarusians were made to slightly crowd together to make room for the first Catholic church, which Lithuanian Prince Vytenis built here for the missionaries of Franciscan order in 1312. In 1314 Catholic crusaders burned down the church…
In XVI century, poets and chroniclers glorified the turbulences that bellowed 200-300 years before. That was the time, when a legend saying that Novogrudok was a capital, was born. The city was of great significance in the past.
The ruins of a XII-century stone church have remained, while the Catholic church that stands next to the castle keeps the memories of the wedding of Jogaila, the Polish king and grand duke of Lithuania, and Sofia H alshanskaya, who made her husband happy with long-awaited heirs. The children of Jogaila and Sofia controlled almost all of Central-Eastern Europe under the name of Jagiellonowie for several centuries. Novogrudok had something in it that wooed and lured. Merchants from Byzantine, Syria and Iran occasionally visited the place in XIII century. Numerous pieces of crockery and ornaments from these countries were found on the territory of the city. In XVI, an imposing castle, which ruins still produce an indelible impressive, grew in the centre of the city. Back in XVII century these walls sheltered the sessions of Lithuania’s Chief Tribunal that handled the lawsuits of local gentry. To top it all, in 1511 Novogrudok was among the first to be granted the Magdeburg right, while in 1595 — a coat-of-arms depicting Archangel Michael holding a sword and a balance in his hands against the red background. Basilian order monasteries were scattered about Belarus, in Minsk alone there were three of them. The first one was founded in Novogrudok in 1617, of course.
Nevertheless, Adam Mickiewicz is probably the most outstanding celebrity of the city. His name seems to train along the streets — from old houses to churches and cathedrals — like a veil. If you stand in the centre of the marketplace, anywhere you look you will see the places touched by Mickiewicz’s presence: the house, where the would-be classic was raised, the church, where he was later baptised, the mount erected in his honour and the monument to the poet… The wanderer’s eye can be attracted to one of the survived wooden mosques, a sanctuary of the Belarusian Tatars. It is the bulbous dome with a silver crest on the top of it that gives the yellow house the cathedral look.
Half a millennium ago, there were five thousand residents in Novogrudok, while today the figure is six times bigger. Once the city served the centre of a large province that equals the territory of today’s region and enjoyed the status similar to that of the present-day Minsk. Now it’s just a district centre. However, the air of patriarchal romanticism, which has long ago evaporated from other metropolitans, guards the city: many streets are imbued with l’esprit of the 20s–30s and little has changed since the visit of Jozef Pilsudski, head of the Polish state. Alongside Belarusian one could hear Polish and Jewish chatting, the same houses, the same quiet yards sinking in greenery. The only thing that breaks the silence is the sound of bells coming from the revived cathedrals.
Nowadays, it is not carts and wagons that gather at the marketplace, but comfortable buses with Belarusian, Polish and Lithuanian tourists. The square, as if having remembered what it used to be like centuries ago, begins to bubble and squeak with polyphony of voices and languages. Local people call it “pliats”. The Catholic and Orthodox churches get along well here.
The grinding sounds of steel and explosions are heard near the castle. No, it is neither Germans nor Swedes attacking. Those are modern knights “playing history”. Staging medieval knight contests is very popular and attracts the brave from the Czech Republic, Germany and other Western-European countries. The city is famed in myths, myths abounds in the city. Novogrudok is the only place in Belarus, where history continues influencing modern life.

Viktar Korbut
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