Mstsislaw

Mstsislaw was a princely town on the eastern edge of the Lithuanian lands. First mentioned in the Hypatian Chronicle in 1156, it belonged initially to Smolensk and became the centre of its own principality by 1180. Under the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, it became the seat of a voivodeship, its regional assembly and court. Orthodox and Catholic churches and the houses of Carmelite, Basilian and Jesuit orders marked the town's religious life.

King Władysław IV granted Mstsislaw Magdeburg rights in 1634. Twenty years later Russian forces under Aleksey Trubetskoy captured the town and massacred its inhabitants. Polish-Lithuanian forces recovered the depopulated and partly ruined town in 1661, after which Ruthenians, Poles and Lithuanians helped repopulate it. A Jesuit school opened in 1691. During the Great Northern War Swedish troops plundered Mstsislaw in 1708, and Russian authorities deported some inhabitants to Smolensk in 1717. The town passed to Russia in the first partition of the Commonwealth in 1772.