Shchytkavichy or Shchitkovichi (; ; ) is an agrotown in Staryya Darohi District, Minsk Region,

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 ...

. It serves as the administrative center of Shchytkavichy selsoviet.

Toponymy

The suffix ''-vichi'' or ''-wicze'', derived from

Old Polish The Old Polish language () was a period in the history of the Polish language between the 10th and the 16th centuries. It was followed by the Middle Polish language. The sources for the study of the Old Polish language are the data of the co ...

, indicates that this is a

patronymic name A patronymic, or patronym, is a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather (more specifically an avonymic), or an earlier male ancestor. It is the male equivalent of a matronymic. Patronymics are used, ...

. The lexical morpheme of a patronymic name could be the name of a father's office or ancestors or the name or surname of a patron (e.g. the

Polish surname Polish names have two main elements: the given name, and the surname. The usage of personal names in Poland is generally governed by civil law (legal system), civil law, church law, personal taste and family custom. The law requires a given nam ...

Szczytko).

History

The village was mentioned in 1433 as part of 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, ...

. According to Matvei Lyubavsky, Shchytkavichy was then part of the

Principality of Slutsk The Principality of Slutsk () was originally a specific Turov Principality of land in the 12th through 14th centuries. It stood out in 1160 and took shape in the 1190s. It became a large feudal principality in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Hist ...

, a

magnate The term magnate, from the late Latin ''magnas'', a great man, itself from Latin ''magnus'', "great", means a man from the higher nobility, a man who belongs to the high office-holders or a man in a high social position, by birth, wealth or ot ...

state of

Olelkovich The House of Olelkovich was a princely family from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 15th and 16th centuries. Their main possession was the Duchy of Slutsk– Kapyl. They are sometimes known as Slutskys. They were descended from the Lithuanian ...

dukes Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of Royal family, royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and above sovereign princes. As royalty or nobi ...

, descendants from the Lithuanian

Gediminids The House of Gediminas (), or simply the Gediminids, were a dynasty of monarchs in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania that reigned from the 14th to the 16th century. A cadet branch of this family, known as the Jagiellonian dynasty, reigned also in th ...

(male line) and Ruthenian

Rurikids The Rurik dynasty, also known as the Rurikid or Riurikid dynasty, as well as simply Rurikids or Riurikids, was a noble lineage allegedly founded by the Varangian prince Rurik, who, according to tradition, established himself at Novgorod in the ...

(female line).''Любавский М.'' Областное деление и местное управление Литовско-Русского государства ко времени издания первого литовского статута. 1892. The Slutsk dukes ruled with the help of a boyar "

duma A duma () is a Russian assembly with advisory or legislative functions. The term ''boyar duma'' is used to refer to advisory councils in Russia from the 10th to 17th centuries. Starting in the 18th century, city dumas were formed across Russia ...

", and their

fief A fief (; ) was a central element in medieval contracts based on feudal law. It consisted of a form of property holding or other rights granted by an overlord to a vassal, who held it in fealty or "in fee" in return for a form of feudal alle ...

s were

knyaz A , also , ''knjaz'' or (), is a historical Slavs, Slavic title, used both as a royal and noble title in different times. It is usually translated into English language, English as 'prince', 'king' or 'duke', depending on specific historical c ...

boyar A boyar or bolyar was a member of the highest rank of the feudal nobility in many Eastern European states, including Bulgaria, Kievan Rus' (and later Russia), Moldavia and Wallachia (and later Romania), Lithuania and among Baltic Germans. C ...

s and veldamai, who received

landownership A landlord is the owner of property such as a house, apartment, condominium, land, or real estate that is rented or leased to an individual or business, known as a tenant (also called a ''lessee'' or ''renter''). The term landlord applies ...

for their military or administrative service. Since 1567, Shchytkavichy was a part of the Porzecze estate in the Minsk province. From 1588, part of the Koidanova estate (now

Dzyarzhynsk Dzyarzhynsk, or Dzerzhinsk, formerly known as Koydanava until 1932, is a town in Minsk Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Dzyarzhynsk District. As of 2025, it has a population of 29,630. History In the Middle Ages, the ...

), belonging to the

family estate An estate is a large parcel of land under single ownership, which generates income for its owner. British context In the United Kingdom, historically an estate comprises the houses, outbuildings, supporting farmland, tenanted buildings, and ...

of the Radziwiłłs of the

Trąby coat of arms Trąby (, "French horn, Horns") is a Polish heraldry, Polish coat of arms. It was used by many ''szlachta'' (noble) families under the History of Poland, Kingdom of Poland and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. History The origin of the horn ...

. In 1791−1793, it was part of the Novogródek Voivodeship. From 1793 in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

. From 1800 a village in Igumen county. In the second half of the 19th century, Marie von

Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn was a county of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, comprising the lands of the region of Sayn. It was created as a partition of Sayn-Wittgenstein in 1607, although it was not until the next year that it obtained fully the C ...

, Duchess of

Hohenlohe The House of Hohenlohe () is a German princely dynasty. It formerly ruled an immediate territory within the Holy Roman Empire, which was divided between several branches. In 1806, the area of Hohenlohe was 1,760 km² and its estimated pop ...

, daughter of

Stefania Radziwiłł ''Stefania'' is a genus of frogs in the family Hemiphractidae. They are native to the highlands of the Guiana Shield in southern Venezuela, Guyana, and adjacent far northern Brazil. Most are restricted to the tepui highlands, but '' S. evansi'' ...

and Ludwig zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg, sold the territory of the former

(including Shchytkavichy) under pressure of Tsar Alexander III of Russia. Shchytkavichy was a village and a ''folwark''. The Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw store architectural drawings of the folwark and the village of ''Szczytkowicze'', dated between 1815 and 1873. The Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland (Volume 10th, page 527) mentions: ''Sielec, a large swamp on the southern edge of the Igumen county, in the area between the villages Szczytkowicze and Porzecze, belongs to the Porzecze Radziwiłł estate, in the Omelno municipality''. In 1919, Shchytkavichy became part of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic, and from 1959 it was a village. Since 25 August 1991, Shchytkavichy has belonged to the Republic of Belarus; on 8 October 2010; the village received the status of an agrotown.

References

{{reflist Staryya Darohi district Agrotowns in Belarus Populated places in Minsk region