Łyskaŭ Castle: A Royal Fortress in Belarus
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.3
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Belarus
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Grand Duchy of Lithuania
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page7 sections
History
Łyskaŭ Castle is a royal castle in Belarus, near Lyskovo, whose history extended from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. Built as a defensive stronghold, it stood within the grand-ducal domains and later suffered near-total destruction during the Great Northern War.
Grand-ducal and royal connections
In the fifteenth century, Lyskovo belonged to the grand-ducal domains and formed part of Volkovysk County in the Novogrudok Voivodeship. The castle may have been owned by Bona Sforza, the Italian-born sixteenth-century queen of Poland and grand duchess of Lithuania. A tradition also associates Łyskaŭ Castle with the Bychowiec Chronicle, a history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania preserved through a later manuscript tradition. The claim that the chronicle was produced at the castle remains uncertain.
Destruction and local memory
The Great Northern War, a European conflict fought from 1700 to 1721 mainly over control of the Baltic region, brought military activity to the castle’s vicinity in 1706. The fortress was almost completely destroyed during the war.
Local traditions later connected the ruins with Bona. In the nineteenth century, the folklorist Mikhail Fedorovsky recorded a legend in which a woman identified with Bona owned the castle and cursed it after the palace was destroyed during a war between Polish and Russian forces. The same tradition described cries, weeping, and fires that appeared and vanished on the ramparts. Another story told of villagers who robbed a dead soldier of a ring and cut off his finger. A fingerless warrior then supposedly troubled the village until the bones of the finger were buried.
The ruins are protected by the state as a monument of defensive architecture and are listed among the historical and cultural values of the Republic of Belarus under designation code 113V000622.
Remains
The castle occupies the right bank of the Mukha, also called the Shchiba, River, near the road to Masevichy and about half a kilometre from Lyskovo or the nearby Gorodishche tract. Its defenses consisted of a square inner fortress, surrounding earthworks, and additional ramparts and moats extending into the surrounding landscape.
Inner fortress
The central fortress was square, measuring about 68 by 68 metres, with earthen ramparts around its perimeter. An earthen rampart was a defensive bank made from compacted or deposited soil. The western bank is the best preserved. It is approximately 10 metres wide and carries a summit platform about 2 metres wide, with an entrance passage in the middle. The southern rampart and fragments of the eastern one also remain. Small round towers once occupied the corners, each measuring about 8 metres in diameter, although the towers no longer survive.
Outer defenses
A moat, or defensive ditch, surrounded the inner fortress. Beyond it stood a second rampart about 1 to 1.5 metres high and up to 4 metres wide. Portions of this outer earthwork survive on the western and southern sides. About 90 metres from the castle, a third curved rampart and moat enclosed the site on three sides. A passage through this earthwork was accompanied by a raised platform for a tower, while marshy riverbanks supplied additional protection on the eastern side.
Archaeological evidence
Investigations took place in the nineteenth century under the Russian archaeologist F. V. Pokrovsky and again during the 1970s under M. A. Tkachov. Excavation revealed a cultural layer about 40 centimetres thick. Finds included small pieces of stove tile, pottery dating from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, grooved bricks coated with clay and lime, and other artefacts. The excavation materials are held by the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of Belarus.
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