Navahrudak,
Novgorodok or
Novogrudok (
Belarusian Навагрудак,
IPA&_160;
[nava'ɣrudak];
Russian Новогрудок) also known as
Polish Nowogródek and
Lithuanian Naugardukas) is a city in the
Hrodna voblast,
Belarus.
First mentioned in the Hypatian Codex under 1252 as Novogorodok (i.e. "new little town") the town was a major settlement in the remote western lands of the Krivichs that came under the control of the Kievan Rus at the end of the 10th century. Later hypothesis is disputed, as there are earliest archaeological findings from 11th century only.[1]
In the 13th century, the fragile unity of the Rus disintegrated due to nomadic incursions from Asia, which reached a climax with the Mongol Horde's sacking of Kiev (1240), leaving a geopolitical vacuum in the region later to be known under the conventional name Black Ruthenia. The Early East Slavs splintered along preexisting tribal lines into a number of independent and competing principalities.
Navahrudak was a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth following the Union of Lublin in 1569. In 1795 it was incorporated into Grodno Governorate of Imperial Russia due to the Partitions of Poland. In the First World War, it was under German occupation from 1915 to 1918, and was occupied by the Polish Army at first, later the Red Army, during the Polish-Bolshevik war. It was returned to Poland by the treaty of Riga, following which Navahrudak became the capital of Nowogródek voivodship.
