Cherlenkiv Castle: A Ruined Defensive Fortification in Ukraine
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.2
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Ukraine
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Russian
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page12 sections
History
Cherlenkiv Castle is a ruined defensive structure in Ukraine, near Selyshche in Vinnytsia Oblast, generally dated to the sixteenth century. The fortification belonged to the early modern history of the region, although clear documentary references to a castle at Selyshche appear only in the seventeenth century.
Origins and the two Cherlenkivs
The castle must be distinguished from the earlier settlement of Cherlenkiv, which stood several kilometres upstream along the Southern Bug. Claims that the castle was founded by the Koriatovych princes, members of the Lithuanian ruling dynasty who governed parts of medieval Podolia, or that Cherlenkiv was larger than Vinnytsia, received Magdeburg law, and gained a coat of arms in 1448, arose from confusion with Chervonohorod, a different former town near present-day Nyrkiv in Ternopil region.
After Tatars destroyed the older Cherlenkiv settlement in the seventeenth century, a new fortification was established at Selyshche. The estates were then described as Old Cherlenkiv, referring to the burned settlement, and Selyshche or New Cherlenkiv. These paired names appear in a lease and estate record from 1668 but fell out of use after the eighteenth century. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the castle and its surrounding lands belonged to the Kmytiv-Cherlenkivsky family, and the wider area became known as Cherlenkivshchyna.
Religious refuge and changing ownership
In 1648, after the destruction of the Dominican monastery in Vinnytsia, Cherlenkiv Castle sheltered expelled Dominican monks. Basilian monks, members of a Byzantine Christian monastic order united with the Catholic Church, reportedly housed them in a nearby monastery, with the Dominicans occupying its first floor and the Basilians the second.
Atanas, the last male member of the Cherlenkivsky family, entered monastic life and transferred the castle and other estates to Stefan Pisochynsky. The property later passed through the Pisochynsky, Shashkevych, Charnetsky, Kunitsky, and Nitoslavsky families. From 1750 it belonged to the Shcheniovskys.
Military decline and family use
Stanislav Shcheniovsky, starosta of Trakhtemyriv and cupbearer of Zhytomyr, repaired the castle walls and supplied the fortification with artillery. During the Bar Confederation in 1768, an eighteenth-century Polish-Lithuanian armed movement opposed to Russian influence and royal policies, the Bratslav voivode Onufry Shcheniovskyi was defeated by Russian imperial forces near Bila Tserkva and imprisoned. His son Ignacy then dismantled the castle for building material for his own palace. The fortification consequently lost its defensive function, although it never underwent a siege.
From the nineteenth century, one surviving tower was converted into a chapel and family crypt for the Shcheniovskys. Ignacy Shcheniovskyi was buried there in 1820, and the coffins were suspended on chains. The artist Napoleon Orda depicted the ruins and chapel during his travels in the area in the 1870s.
Destruction, traditions, and preservation
The palace and crypt were destroyed during the Bolshevik period. The Shcheniovsky coffins were thrown into the Southern Bug, and one was later used as a footbridge over a stream. The second tower was subsequently dismantled brick by brick in the modern period. An attempted Soviet-era demolition reportedly left three of its walls standing.
Local traditions give the castle a dramatic past. One tells of two noble brothers who fought over a woman. After one brother locked himself with her in the castle, the other besieged the fortification until hunger forced a surrender. The besieged man then killed his rival with an arrow but was pardoned by the king because of his service.
Another tradition places Charnetska, who was born a Cherlenkivsky, in the castle with an old servant during the period of the Haidamakas, armed rebel groups active mainly in the Polish-Lithuanian borderlands during the eighteenth century. She allegedly defended herself in a tower and survived a raid. Stories also speak of underground passages linking the castle site with the Southern Bug and Vinnytsia, and of treasure hunters searching during the Soviet period for sixteen barrels of gold.
Archaeological excavations in 1969 and 2007 produced material from the Trypillian culture, a prehistoric farming culture of eastern Europe generally dated to the fifth and fourth millennia BC. The ruins are undergoing restoration. Cherlenkiv Castle is a national-significance architectural monument of Ukraine and also appears in the Vinnytsia regional register as a local architectural and urban-planning monument.
Remains
Cherlenkiv Castle survives as a brick-and-stone ruin, incorporating granite and red brick. The former castle area is partly occupied by private houses. The surviving remains include a principal hexagonal tower, a second partially surviving tower, foundations of a rectangular building, and the ruins of a monastery bell tower.
Towers and later adaptations
Principal hexagonal tower
The principal tower has two tiers and a hexagonal plan. Some exterior plaster remains, while the corners are treated with rustication, masonry or plasterwork that emphasizes joints and corners through a deliberately rough, deeply defined surface. The tower continues to deteriorate. Openings in the second tier of the towers were enlarged or altered at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
River tower and family chapel
The tower above the river was converted during the nineteenth century into the Shcheniovsky family chapel and crypt. The chapel and crypt were later destroyed, while the tower forms part of the surviving ruin. The family coffins were suspended on chains in the crypt, linking the tower’s later use to the Shcheniovskys’ occupation of the estate.
Second tower
A second tower survives only in part. An attempted Soviet-era demolition reportedly left three walls standing, after which the structure was dismantled brick by brick in the modern period. Its openings, like those of the other tower, were enlarged or altered at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Foundations, bell tower, and excavated material
The castle remains include the foundations of a rectangular-plan building and the ruins of a monastery bell tower. Excavations revealed fragments of thin, broad plinth bricks, a type associated with some late Roman and medieval construction traditions, together with archaeological material linked to the Trypillian culture. These finds place human activity at the site long before the early modern fortification.
Modern construction beside the ruins
Since 2007, a fortress-style restaurant and entertainment complex has been under construction beside the ruins. The planned complex includes a hotel, restaurant, and museum.
Nearby sites
