Ashmyany or Oshmyany[a] is a city in Grodno Region, Belarus.[2] It is located 50 kilometres (31 mi) from Vilnius in Lithuania, and serves as the administrative center of Ashmyany District.[1][2] The river Ashmyanka passes through the city. As of 2024, it has a population of 16,787.[1]
Name
Since time immemorial, Ašmena and its surroundings were ethnic Lithuanian territory.[3] However, many of the indigenous inhabitants died out during the wars, famine and plague in the late 17th and the early 18th centuries, and the Belarusian population replaced them.[3] Lithuanians were slavicized along the Minsk-Ašmena-Vilnius axis, and by the mid-19th century, the numbers of Lithuanian-speakers had severely decreased.[3]
Presently, its Lithuanian past is sealed in the towns's name, which is of Lithuanian origin.[4] The town's name is derived from the name of the Ašmena (modern Ashmyanka River), itself derived from the Lithuanian word akmuo (stone).[4] The link between consonants š and k is old and present in the Lithuanian words, respectively ašmuo (sharp blade) and akmuo (stone).[4] The present name Ashmyany uses the plural form of the name and is a modern invention. Through the ancient town's history, its name was recorded in the Lithuanian singular form.[4]
Hanseatic trade routes passed through the town in the 15th century.[3] On 1 September 1432, Švitrigaila was deposed from the throne in Ašmena.[3] On 8 December 1432, Ašmena was the site of the Battle of Ašmena between Švitrigaila and Sigismund Kęstutaitis.[3] There was a residential palace in Ašmena from the early 15th century to the end of the 18th century.[3]
16th century
The Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven burnt down in 1505, but was rebuilt.[3] The Muscovite army destroyed and burnt Ašmena to the ground in 1519, during the Fourth Lithuanian–Muscovite War.[3] The town was granted the Magdeburg rights in the 16th century.[3] From 1566, Ašmena was the centre of the Ašmena County [lt].[3]
In 1792, King Stanisław August Poniatowski confirmed all previous privileges and the fact, that Oszmiany, as it was then called, was a free city, subordinate only to the king and the local city council. With this, the town received its first ever Coat of arms. Composed of three fields, it featured a shield, a hand holding scales and the bull from Ciołek coat of arms, the monarch's personal coat of arms.
The Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven was also rebuilt in bricks in 1812; however, the church decayed over the 19th century.[3] During the French invasion of Russia, the Grande Armée took over Ašmena in 1812, and during several battles, the town partially burnt down.[3]
Russian coat of arms of the town of Oszmiana, created after the November Uprising
November Uprising (1830-1831)
During the November Uprising, it was liberated by the town's citizens, led by a local priest, Jasiński, and Colonel Count Karol Dominik Przeździecki.[citation needed] However, in April 1831, in the face of a Russian offensive, the fighters were forced to withdraw to the Naliboki forest.[citation needed] After a minor skirmish with Stelnicki's rearguard, the Russian punitive expeditionary force of some 1,500 officers and soldiers proceeded to burn the town and massacre the civilian population, including some 500 women, children and elderly, who sought refuge in the Dominican Catholic Church.[citation needed] Even the local priest was murdered.[citation needed] Nothing is known of the fate of Ashmyany's Jews.[citation needed] In the Uprising of 1831, the Imperial Russian Army razed the town and massacred 150 locals in one of the town's churches.[3]
Rebuilding
In 1845, as the town was rebuilding, it received a new coat of arms, in recognition of its population increase.[citation needed] It never recovered from its earlier losses, and by the end of the 19th century it became rather a provincial town, inhabited primarily by Jewish immigrants from other parts of Russia 'beyond the Pale'.[citation needed]
Dominican Church of Saint Michael the Archangel
The Church of Saint Michael the Archangel was closed down in 1850, but rebuilt in 1900–10.[3] In the late 19th century, a tavern was built and the Russian authorities built a Russian Orthodox church.[3]
20th century
In 1912 the local Jewish community built a large synagogue.[citation needed]
It was a county center, first of Wilno Land, then of Wilno Voivodeship during Polish rule. The town was capital of Oszmiana County. According to the census from 1931, Poles constituted 81% of the inhabitants of the Oszmiana County. On the other hand, Poles and Jews dominated the town of Oszmiana.
On July 7, 1944, it was reoccupied by the Red Army during the Vilnius offensive. In 1945, the town was annexed by the USSR to the Byelorussian SSR. After 1944, the town was once more part of Vileyka Region, and between 1944 and 1960 it was incorporated into Molodechno Region until that region was disestablished. At that point Ashmyany became part of the Grodno Region, where it remains today.
This climatic region is typified by large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and cold (sometimes severely cold) winters. According to the Köppen climate classification system, Ashmyany has a humid continental climate, abbreviated "Dfb" on climate maps.[5]
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