Brody Lvivska-Castle casemate-from back palace

Brody Castle (, ''Brodivskyi zamok'') is a former fortress in the city of Brody, part of

Lviv Oblast Lviv Oblast (, ), also referred to as Lvivshchyna (, ), is an administrative divisions of Ukraine, oblast in western Ukraine. The capital city, capital of the oblast is the city of Lviv. The current population is History Name The region is named ...

, Ukraine.

History and overview

The earliest information about the construction of the castle in Brody town refers to the 1580s. Crown

Hetman ''Hetman'' is a political title from Central and Eastern Europe, historically assigned to military commanders (comparable to a field marshal or imperial marshal in the Holy Roman Empire). First used by the Czechs in Bohemia in the 15th century, ...

()

Stanisław Koniecpolski Stanisław Koniecpolski (1591 – 11 March 1646) was a Polish military commander, regarded as one of the most talented and capable in the History of Poland in the Early Modern era (1569–1795), history of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. ...

acquired

Brody Brody (, ; ; ; ) is a city in Zolochiv Raion, Lviv Oblast, Zolochiv Raion, Lviv Oblast, western Ukraine. It is located in the valley of the upper Styr, Styr River, approximately northeast of the oblast capital, Lviv. Brody hosts the administrati ...

town in 1629 and built the castle bastion of a new type between 1630 and 1635 under the supervision of Italian architect Andrea del Aqua, based on a design by

Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan Guillaume Levasseur de Beauplan ( – 6 December 1673) or William le Vasseur de Beauplan was a French-Polish cartographer, engineer and architect. Beauplan is best known for his maps of Ukraine (which he spelt as ''Ukranie'' or ''Vkranie'', wi ...

. The castle was

pentagonal In geometry, a pentagon () is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagon may be simple or self-intersecting. A self-intersecting ''regular pentagon'' (or ''star pentagon'') is cal ...

in plan and included five

bastion A bastion is a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly angular in shape and positioned at the corners of the fort. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks, with fire from the ...

s and curtain walls, with octagonal dungeons in the middle. It was surrounded by the deep moat. The total number of

casemate A casemate is a fortified gun emplacement or armoured structure from which guns are fired, in a fortification, warship, or armoured fighting vehicle.Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary When referring to antiquity, the term "casemate wall" ...

s in the castle was 75; they were used as barracks and warehouses. The governor lived in a wooden house in the castle grounds. This house, as well as a wooden chapel, remained until the middle of the 18th century. The castle and the fortress withstood a siege by Cossack troops that lasted several weeks during the

Khmelnytsky Uprising The Khmelnytsky Uprising, also known as the Cossack–Polish War, Khmelnytsky insurrection, or the National Liberation War, was a Cossack uprisings, Cossack rebellion that took place between 1648 and 1657 in the eastern territories of the Poli ...

in 1648. During the

Battle of Berestechko The Battle of Berestechko (Ukrainian language, Ukrainian: Битва під Берестечком, Polish language, Polish: ''Bitwa pod Beresteczkiem''; 28 June – 10 July 1651) was fought between the Cossack Hetmanate and Crimean Khanate ag ...

(1651) the fortress was the Polish military base. Here the captive Cossacks were detained.Brody Ukraine city overview, history, attractions, photos
/ref> In the late 1660s the castle was renovated, and thanks to this the locals could hide there during the Turkish campaigns in 1672 and in 1676. The castle was acquired in 1704 by the Potocki family. Count Potocki reconstructed the castle for his own residence in

rococo Rococo, less commonly Roccoco ( , ; or ), also known as Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and dramatic style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpte ...

style.
In 1772, after the

First Partition of Poland The First Partition of Poland took place in 1772 as the first of three partitions that eventually ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth by 1795. The growth of power in the Russian Empire threatened the Kingdom of Prussia an ...

, Brody town was withdrawn by Austria.Brody – Ukrainian Portal
/ref>

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

n forces ravaged Brody during the

War of the Polish Succession The War of the Polish Succession (; 1733–35) was a major European conflict sparked by a civil war in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth over the succession to Augustus II the Strong, which the other European powers widened in pursuit of ...

. At the order of the Austrian administration, most of the remaining fortifications were demolished by Wincenty Potocki in 1812: the

ravelin A ravelin is a triangular fortification or detached outwork, located in front of the innerworks of a fortress (the curtain walls and bastions). Originally called a ''demi-lune'', after the ''lunette'', the ravelin is placed outside a castle a ...

, the clock tower, two bastions from the city side; the moat was filled. In the

aftermath of World War II The aftermath of World War II saw the rise of two global superpowers, the United States (U.S.) and the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.). The aftermath of World War II was also defined by the rising threat of nuclear warfare, the creation and implementati ...

, the castle housed a military unit, and at that time it was badly damaged due to reconstructions. The military unit left the fortress only in the 1990s. After that the palace facilities were transferred to the local school; there is also the regional archive and exhibition halls of the Brody Museum of Local History. The castle dungeons are still in ruins and are not used, that leads to considerable damages. The only surviving structure now is the much rebuilt two-storey palace of Stanislaw Potocki (1753–1805). It is worth mentioning that there was once a beautiful park in front of the castle. Before the war, the Serwański family played a crucial role in managing and maintaining the park, becoming not only guardians of its natural wealth but also advocates of the idea of harmony between man and nature.

References

{{Castles in Ukraine Castles in Ukraine Buildings and structures in Lviv Oblast Brody Potocki family residences