Smolenskian

The Smolenskians were the East Slavic people of the upper Dnieper around Smolensk, a region placed in the Belarusian dialect belt. Like the Polatskians they sprang from the Krivichs, and Smolensk grew rich on the trade road from the Varangians to the Greeks, exporting wax, honey and furs to Riga and Visby.

It became an independent principality in 1125 under Rostislav, founder of the Rostislavichi branch of the Rurikids, whose princes several times sat on the throne of Kiev. The Mongol wars and Lithuanian pressure left it squeezed between Lithuania and Moscow; its troops fought at Kulikovo in 1380, but Vytautas of Lithuania annexed the principality in 1404 and it became the Smolensk Voivodeship in 1508.

Vasili III of Moscow took the city in 1514, lost it to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1611 during the Time of Troubles, and recovered it only in 1654, with the Treaty of Andrusovo of 1667 confirming Russian rule.