Lenino () is a large village in

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...

. Administratively a part of the Horki District of

Mogilev Region Mogilev Region or Mogilev Oblast or Mahiliow Voblasts ( be, link=no, Магілёўская вобласць; ''Mahiloŭskaja voblasć''; russian: link=no, Могилёвская область; ''Mogilyovskaya Oblast''), is a region (''oblast'' ...

. It is notable for the battlefield of the 1943

Battle of Lenino The Battle of Lenino was a tactical World War II engagement that took place on 12 and 13 October 1943, north of the village of Lenino in the Mogilev region of Byelorussia. The battle itself was a part of a larger Soviet Spas-Demensk offensi ...

History

Historically until 1918 the village had been known as Romanovo (, Ramanaw). Since the

Truce of Andrusovo The Truce of Andrusovo ( pl, Rozejm w Andruszowie, russian: Андрусовское перемирие, ''Andrusovskoye Pieriemiriye'', also sometimes known as Treaty of Andrusovo) established a thirteen-and-a-half year truce, signed in 1667 be ...

of 1697 it was part of the

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, after 1791, as the Commonwealth of Poland, was a bi- confederal state, sometimes called a federation, of Poland and Lithuania ru ...

and was located not far from the Polish-Muscovite border. Administratively part of the Mścisław Voivodeship, it was a private property of the mighty Radziwiłł family. Its last owner before the partitions of Poland was

Karol Stanisław "Panie Kochanku" Radziwiłł Karol may refer to: Places * Karol, Gujarat, a village on Saurashtra peninsula in Gujarat, west India * Karol State, a former Rajput petty princely state with seat in the above town Film/TV *'' Karol: A Man Who Became Pope'', a 2005 miniseries *' ...

. However, as he declined to sign an oath of loyalty to empress Catherine II of Russia, the village was confiscated and donated to a Russian family of Dondukov-Korsakov in 1774. At that time the group of villages consisted of 72 settlements with 8589 houses. In late 19th century the village itself had 700 inhabitants, roughly half of them Jews. In late July 1941, all the Jews of the village and from the surrounding area were resettled into a ghetto. Local police guarded the ghetto, which was surrounded by barbed wire on one side and enclosed by a river and a swamp on the other. On June 12, 1942, the Germans and local police shot all of them in pits that had been prepared 2 kilometers to the East of the village. On October 12, 1943, a major battle took place to the north of the village, later to be known by the name of

battle of Lenino The Battle of Lenino was a tactical World War II engagement that took place on 12 and 13 October 1943, north of the village of Lenino in the Mogilev region of Byelorussia. The battle itself was a part of a larger Soviet Spas-Demensk offensi ...

, even though the village itself was not targeted by any of the sides. In 1968 a Polish-Soviet Brotherhood Memorial was opened in the village, marking the battlefield. In 1989 a Polish War Cemetery was created. On the edge of the battlefield, there is a museum containing artefacts from the time and also a panorama of the battle.

References

Populated places in Mogilev Region Horki District Villages in Belarus Goretsky Uyezd Holocaust locations in Belarus {{Belarus-geo-stub