Pinsk

Pinsk stands where the Pina joins the Pripyat, amid the rivers and marshes of Polesia. First mentioned in 1097, it was a princely centre of Rus' before passing into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Its waterways made it a natural focus for the surrounding country.

When the local princely line died out in 1521, Pinsk became a royal possession; Queen Bona Sforza subsequently held it and promoted its development. King Stephen Báthory granted Magdeburg rights in 1581. In 1631 Albrycht Stanisław Radziwiłł brought the Jesuits to Pinsk and founded a college, whose community maintained a pharmacy and printing house. An Orthodox monastery with a school and hospital was also authorised in 1633. Pinsk suffered terribly during the wars of the mid-seventeenth century. Cossacks entered the city in 1648, and its recapture by Lithuanian forces brought fire and destruction. Russian and Cossack troops attacked again in 1655. In the eighteenth century new canals connected the region's waterways, while the college continued after the suppression of the Jesuits.