Zvyahel

Zvyahel lies on the Sluch River in Volhynia, where a crossing and regional roads connected cultivated country with neighboring towns. Agriculture supplied households and markets, while craft production and trade supported urban life. The river and surrounding terrain gave the settlement defensive value as well as resources. Local communities lived within a culturally varied region whose religious institutions and social relationships reflected many layers of eastern European history.

Under Lithuanian rule, the town was granted to Prince Kostiantyn Ostrozky in 1499; he rebuilt it and established a castle. After the Union of Lublin in 1569, Zvyahel passed to Poland. During the Cossack-Polish War it briefly served as a Cossack regimental centre in 1648–1649. Russia took the town in 1793, and it was renamed Novohrad-Volynskyi in 1795.