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Hrodna (Belarusian: Гро́дна; Russian: Гро́дно; Polish: Grodno; Lithuanian: Gardinas) is a city in Belarus. It is located on the Neman River, close to the borders of Poland and Lithuania (about 15 km and 30 km away respectively). It has 317,366 inhabitants (2005 estimate). It is the capital of Hrodna voblast (province) and Hrodna raion (district).

History

Medieval origin

The modern city of Hrodna originated as a small fortress and a fortified trading outpost maintained by the Rurikid princes on the border with the lands of the Baltic tribal union Yotvingians. Its name derives from the Old East Slavic verb gorodit', i.e., to enclose, to fence (see "grad" for details).

Mentioned for the first time in the Primary Chronicle under 1127 as Goroden' and located at a crossing of numerous trading routes, this Slavic settlement, possibly originating as far as the late 10th century, became the capital of a poorly attested but separate principality, ruled by Yaroslav the Wise's grandson and his descendants.

Along with Navahradak, Hrodna was regarded as the main city on the far west of Black Rus, that was neighbouring original Lithuania. It was often attacked by various invaders, especially the Teutonic Knights. In the 1250s the Hrodna area was overrun by the pagan Lithuanians, who later formed the Grand Duchy of Lithuania on these territories. The famous Lithuanian grand duke Vytautas was the prince of Hrodna from 1376 to 1392, and he stayed there during his preparations for the Battle of Grunwald (1410).

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

To aid the reconstruction of trade and commerce, the grand dukes allowed the creation of a Jewish commune in 1389. It was one of the first Jewish communities in the grand duchy. In 1441 the city received its charter, based on the Magdeburg Law. After the 1569 Union of Lublin, which created the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the city was part of the Trakai Voivodship, and in 1793 became the capital of the short-lived Hrodna Voivodship.

An important centre of trade, commerce, and culture, Hrodna remained one of the places where the Sejms were held. Also, the Old and New Castles were often visited by the Commonwealth monarchs. In 1793 the last Sejm in the history of the Commonwealth occurred at Hrodna. Two years afterwards, in 1795, Russia obtained the city in the Third Partition of Poland. It was in the New Castle on November 25 of that year that the last Polish king and Lithuanian grand duke Stanisław August Poniatowski abdicated. In the Russian Empire, the city continued to serve its role as a seat of a guberniya. The industrial activities, started in the late 18th century by Antoni Tyzenhauz, continued to develop.

Read more at Wikipedia.org