Dubno

Dubno belonged to the Ostrogski princes, and it was they who made it a town: Konstanty Ostrogski won a charter from Grand Duke Alexander in 1498, and in 1507 Sigismund I granted it Magdeburg law, drawing Jewish and Armenian settlers. The castle proved its worth in March 1577, when Tatar raiders burned the town and some two hundred villages around it, and only the walls defended by Prince Janusz Ostrogski held. The town's best years came under the Lubomirski princes in the 18th century. After Lviv passed to the Habsburgs, the great Contracts fair moved to Dubno in 1774, opening each 7 January and running for a month, and for two decades a town of barely 6,000 people received up to 30,000 guests a year, with feasts, tournaments and plays staged in the castle.