Liachavičy Castle was a fortified

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

castle.Also known as

Lyakhavichy Lyakhavichy or Lyakhovichi is a town in Brest Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Lyakhavichy District. As of 2025, it has a population of 10,537. History Known since the 15th century in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as t ...

, Lachowicze, Lyakhovichi, Lachavičy, and Liahovichi It was one of the most significant

castle A castle is a type of fortification, fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by Military order (monastic society), military orders. Scholars usually consider a ''castle'' to be the private ...

s in Belarus in the 17th century. It may have been in existence as a

hill fort A hillfort is a type of fortification, fortified refuge or defended settlement located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typical of the late Bronze Age Europe, European Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe, Iron Age. So ...

since the eleventh or twelfth century. It was built at the end of the 16th century by the

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, ...

Yan Eromin of the Hadkevich family, on a hill in the Belarus town of the same name. It stood on the bank of the Vedz'ma ("Witch") river, surrounded by a moat regulated by a dam. In the centre stood a two-storey palace. Eromin's son, Yan Korol, the hetman of the Great Lithuanian Principality, reconstructed and fortified the castle. The 17th century occupants, the Sapieha family, fortified the castle such that it was the only castle in the region to survive the Cossack Khmelnitzky massacres and subsequent wars with Russia. The castle survived a siege in 1660, the only fortress in the

Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a sovereign state in northeastern Europe that existed from the 13th century, succeeding the Kingdom of Lithuania, to the late 18th century, when the territory was suppressed during the 1795 Partitions of Poland, ...

not to be captured by Russia during the Russo-Polish War (1654–67). The castle and surrounding settlement was destroyed during the

Great Northern War In the Great Northern War (1700–1721) a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in Northern Europe, Northern, Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the ant ...

of 1700–21, after the

Radziwiłł family The House of Radziwiłł (; ; ; ) is a Polish princely family of Lithuanian origin, and one of the most powerful magnate families originating from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later also prominent in the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. Pa ...

had the crown requisition the cannons of Liachavičy for the defense of Słuck. The Swedish army burned the castle and a Catholic church to the ground in 1706.

References

Liahavichy Castle, Belarus
Former castles in Belarus Lyakhavichy {{Belarus-hist-stub

See also

References