Brest, Belarus

Several theories attempt to explain the origin of the city's name. The name could originate from Slavic root berest meaning "elm". It could likewise have come from the Lithuanian word brasta meaning "ford".[3]

Traditionally, Belarusian-speakers called the city Берасце (Bieraście, Berestie).

Once a center of Jewish scholarship, the city has the Yiddish name בריסק (Brisk), hence the term "Brisker" used to describe followers of the influential Soloveitchik family of rabbis.

Brest became a part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1319.[4] In the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth formed in 1569, the town became known in Polish as Brześć, historically Brześć Litewski (literally: "Lithuanian Brest", in contradistinction to Brześć Kujawski). Brześć became part of the Russian Empire under the name Brest-Litovsk or Brest-Litovskii (Russian: Брест-Литовск, Брест-Литовский, literally "Lithuanian Brest") in the course of the Third Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795. After World War I, and the rebirth of Poland in 1918, the government of the Second Polish Republic renamed the city as Brześć nad Bugiem ("Brest on the Bug") on 20 March 1923.[5] After World War II, the city became part of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic with the name simplified as Brest.

Brest's coat of arms, adopted on 26 January 1991, features an arrow pointed upwards and a bow (both silver) on a sky-blue shield. An alternative coat of arms has a red shield. Sigismund II Augustus, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, first granted Brest a coat of arms in 1554.

In 1019, Brest was first mentioned in chronicles as "Berestye"

As a town, Brest – Berestye in Kievan Rus – was first mentioned in the Primary Chronicle in 1019 when the Kievan Rus' took the stronghold from the Poles. It is one of the oldest cities in Belarus.[6] It was hotly contested between the Polish rulers (kings, principal dukes and dukes of Masovia) and Kievan Rus princes, laid waste by the Mongols in 1241 (see: First Mongol invasion of Poland), and was not rebuilt until 1275.

Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth

Historical affiliations

Principality of Galicia–Volhynia (1241–1319)
Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1319–1320)
Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia (1320–1321)
Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1321–1349)
Kingdom of Poland (1349–1351)
Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1351–1569)
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795)
Russian Empire (1795–1812)
French occupation (1812)
Russian Empire (1812–1915)
German occupation (1915–1918)
Second Polish Republic (1918–1919)
SSR Byelorussia (1919)
Second Polish Republic (1919–1939)
Soviet occupation (1939–1941)
German occupation (1941–1944)
Soviet occupation (1944–1945)
Soviet Union (1945–1991)
 Belarus (1991–present)

In 1500, it was burned again by Crimean Tatars. In 1566, following the decree of Sigismund II Augustus, a new voivodeship was created – Brest Litovsk Voivodeship.

During the union of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Swedish Empire under king Sigismund III Vasa (Polish–Swedish union), diets were held there. In 1594 and 1596, it was the meeting-place of two remarkable councils of regional bishops of the Roman-Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church. The 1596 council established the Uniate Church (also known as the Belarusian Greek Catholic Church in Belarus and Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine). A Sejm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was held in the city in 1653.[8]

Siege of Brest by E. Dahlbergh, 1657

In 1657, and again in 1706, the town and castle were captured by the Swedish Army during its invasions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Then, in an attack from the other direction, on 13 January 1660, the invading Streltsy of the Tsardom of Russia under Ivan Andreyevich Khovansky took the Brest Castle in an early morning surprise attack, the town having been captured earlier, and massacred the 1,700 defenders and their families (according to an Austrian observer, Captain Rosestein).

World War I and interbellum

Brest railway station during World War I, c. 1915

During World War I, the town was captured by the Imperial German Army under August von Mackensen on 25 August 1915, during the Great Retreat of 1915.[9] Shortly after Brest fell into German hands, war poet August Stramm, who has been called "the first of the Expressionists" and one of "the most innovative poets of the First World War,"[10] was shot in the head during an attack on nearby Russian positions on 1 September 1915.

In March 1918, in the Brest Fortress on the western outskirts of Brest at the confluence of the Bug River and Mukhavets Rivers, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed, ending the war between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers and transferring the city and its surrounding region to the sphere of influence of the German Empire. This treaty was subsequently annulled by the Paris Peace Conference treaties which ended the war and even more so by events and developments in Central and Eastern Europe. During 1918, the city became a part of the Podolia Governorate of the Ukrainian People's Republic as a result of negotiations and own treaty between delegation of the Ukrainian Central Rada and Central Powers.[11]

Bank of Poland in the interbellum

Following the Polish–Soviet War Brest became part of the Second Polish Republic, with borders formally recognized by the Treaty of Riga of 1921. It was renamed Brześć nad Bugiem on 20 March 1923 (Brest on the Bug) in Poland, and named the capital of the Polesie Voivodeship in accordance with the pre-1795 tradition. In the twenty years of Poland's sovereignty, of the total of 36 brand new schools established in the city, there were ten public, and five private Jewish schools inaugurated, with Yiddish and Hebrew as the language of instruction. The first-ever Jewish school in Brześć history opened in 1920, almost immediately after Poland's return to independence. In 1936 Jews constituted 41.3% of the Brześć population or 21,518 citizens. Some 80.3% of private enterprises were run by Jews.[12][13][14] The Polish Army troops of the 9th Military District along with its headquarters were stationed in Brześć Fortress.

The city had an overwhelmingly Jewish population in the Russian Partition: 30,000 out of 45,000 total population according to Russian 1897 census, which fell to 21,000 out of 50,000 according to the Polish census of 1931.[15][16]

World War II

German–Soviet military parade in Brest-Litovsk at the conclusion of the Invasion of Poland. In the centre are Major General Heinz Guderian from the Wehrmacht and Brigadier Semyon Krivoshein from the Red Army.

During the German Invasion of Poland in 1939, the city was defended by a small garrison of four infantry battalions under General Konstanty Plisowski against General Heinz Guderian's XIX Panzer Corps. After four days of heavy fighting, the Polish forces withdrew southwards on 17 September. The Soviet invasion of Poland began on the same day. As a result, the Soviet Red Army entered the city at the end of September 1939 following the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact's Secret Protocol, and a joint Nazi-Soviet military parade took place on 22 September 1939. While Belarusians consider it a reunification of the Belarusian nation under one constituency (the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic at that time), Poles consider it the date when the city was lost. During the Soviet control (1939–41), the Polish population was subject to arrests, executions and mass deportations to Siberia and the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. Many Poles were imprisoned in the local prison, and then moved to a prison Minsk.[17] It is suspected that they were murdered by the Soviets in the Katyn massacre in 1940.[17]

Further information: Brest Ghetto

12 December 1932 The Begin family of Brest-Litovsk Jewish community. Top left to right Herzl; Menahem; Rachel. In front their parents. Only Menahem and Rachel survived the Shoah

A monument in memory of the Jews of Brest who were murdered in the Holocaust. In Kiryat Shaul cemetery in Tel Aviv

On 22 June 1941, Brest Fortress and the city were attacked by Nazi Germany on the first day of Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union. The fortress held out for six days. Nearly all its Soviet army defenders perished. The Germans placed Brest under the administration of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine. The remaining municipal Jewish population (about 20,000) was sequestered in the Brest ghetto established by the German authorities in December 1941 and later murdered in October 1942. Only seven Jews survived the Nazi executions.[16]

The Germans also operated a Nazi prison, a forced labour "education" camp for men and women, a forced labour camp for Jews, the AGSSt 3 prisoner-of-war assembly center, the Dulag 314 transit POW camp for Italians, the Stalag 397 POW camp for Soviet POWs and a subcamp of the Stalag 360 POW camp in the city.[18][19][20][21]

The Polish resistance movement, including the Polesie District of the Home Army, was active in the city.

The city was re-occupied by the Red Army on 28 July 1944, and eventually annexed from Poland the following year.

Brest lies astride the Mukhavets River, which is known to Bresters as "the river". The river flows west through the city, dividing it into north and south, and meets the Bug River in the Brest Fortress. The river flows slowly and gently. You can hop into a tire innertube and take a relaxing float down this river. Today the river looks quite broad in Brest. The terrain is fairly flat around Brest. The river has an extremely broad floodplain, that is about 2 to 3 kilometres (1 to 2 miles) across. Brest was subject to flooding in the past. One of the worst floods in recorded history occurred in 1974.

Part of the floodplain was reclaimed with hydraulic mining. In the 1980s, big cutter-suction dredgers mined sand and clay from the riverbed to build up the banks.

In the 2000s, two new residential areas were developed in the southwest of Brest.

To the east of Brest, the Dnieper–Bug Canal was built in the mid-nineteenth century to join the river to Pina, a tributary of the Pripyat River which in turn drains into the Dnieper. Thus Brest has a shipping route all the way to the Black Sea. If not for a dam and neglected weirs west of Brest, north-western European shipping would be connected with the Black Sea also.

Brest has a humid continental climate but slightly leans towards oceanic due to the irregular winter temperatures that mostly hover around the freezing point. However, summers are warm and influenced by its inland position compared to areas nearer the Baltic Sea.

Rowing course in Brest

A southern stretch of the ring barracks of the Citadel with a projecting semi-tower on the left

A majestic Soviet-era war memorial was constructed on the site of the 1941 battle to commemorate the known and unknown defenders of the Brest Fortress. This war memorial is the largest tourist attraction in the city. The Berestye Archeological Museum of the old city is located on the southern island of the Hero-Fortress. It has objects and huts dating from the 11th – 13th century that were unearthed during the 1970s.

The Museum of Rescued Art Treasures has a collection of paintings and icons. Brest City Park is over 100 years old and underwent renovations from 2004 to 2006 as part of a ceremony marking the park's centennial. In July 2009, the Millennium Monument of Brest was unveiled. Sovetskaya Street is a popular tourist destination in Brest; it was dramatically reconstructed in 2007–2009. Other important landmarks include the Brest Railway Museum.

Brest is home to two Universities: A.S. Pushkin Brest State University and Brest State Technical University.

Being situated on the main railway line connecting Berlin and Moscow, and a transcontinental highway (the M1 highway is part of the European route E30 running from Cork to Omsk, where it links with Asian Highway 6 leading to Busan), Brest became a principal border crossing out of the Soviet Union in the postwar era. Today it links the European Union and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

The city of Brest is served by Brest-Tsentralny railway station. Because of the break-of-gauge at Brest, where the Russian broad gauge meets the European standard gauge, all passenger trains, coming from Poland, must have their bogies replaced here, to travel on across Belarus. The freight must be transloaded from cars of one gauge to cars of another. Some of the land in the Brest rail yards remains contaminated due to the transhipment of radioactive materials here since Soviet days. However, cleanup operations have been taking place.

The local airport, Brest Airport (code BQT), operates flights on a seasonal schedule to Kaliningrad[27] in the Russian Federation and seasonal charter flights to Burgas and Antalya.[28]

Regional Sport Complex Brestsky, Brest's largest stadium

HC Meshkov Brest is the most successful team of the Belarusian Men's Handball Championship, as well as the current (2018–19) champions. Also, there is a Women's handball club in Brest – HC Victoria-Berestie.

HK Brest of the Belarusian Extraleague are the local pro hockey team.

The sports venues are located on the northern riverside on the hydraulic fill, consisting of an indoor track-and-field centre, the Brest Ice Rink,[29] and Belarus' first outdoor baseball stadium. On the opposite riverside is a large rowing course opened in 2007, home of the National Center for Olympic Training in Rowing. It meets international requirements and can host international competitions. Moreover, it has accommodation and training facilities, favourable location, 3 kilometres (2 miles) away from the border crossing along Warsaw Highway (the European route E30).

There are some newspapers in Brest: Brestskaya Gazeta, Brestskiy Kurier, Vecherniy Brest.

A minor planet, 3232 Brest, discovered by the Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Ivanovna Chernykh in 1974, is named after the city.[32]

Menachem Begin

• Rabbi Yehoshua Leib Diskin, Rabbi of Brisk
• Menachem Begin, late Prime Minister of Israel
• Jarosław Dąbrowski, Polish revolutionary and general
• David Dubinsky, head of the International Ladies Garment Workers' Union
• Andrej Dyńko (b. 1974), journalist and editor[33]
• Louis Gruenberg, composer
• Nikolay Karpol, Russian women's volleyball coach
• Jerzy Kolendo, Polish classical archaeologist and historian
• Harry Kopp (1880–1943), American lawyer and politician
• Pyotr Masherov, secretary of Belarusian committee of the Communist Party of Soviet Union
• Yulia Nesterenko, Olympian women's 100 m champion
• Dzmitryj Rubašeŭski (nom de guerre (“Hans”))(1992-2022), Belarusian volunteer killed in action defending Ukraine during the 2022 Russian invasion[34]
• Nathan Sharon (1925–2011), Israeli biochemist, expert on lectins
• Hienadz Shutau (1975 – 2020), a protestor killed during the protests against the 2020 Belarusian presidential election[35]
• The Soloveitchik rabbinical family associated with the Brisk yeshivas, and descendant Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik
• David B. Steinman, American structural engineer; the designer of the Mackinac Bridge called "Big Mac"
• Aliaksandar Cvikievič (1888 – 1937), Belarusian politician, historian, jurist, philosopher and a victim of Stalin's purges[36]
• Ganna Walska, Polish opera singer
• Liubov Charkashyna, Belarusian bronze medallist in the individual all-around rhythmic gymnastics competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics
• Rabbi Aaron ben Meir of Brest, eighteenth-century rabbi
• Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman, haredi rabbi in Israel
• Sara Szweber, Bundist

• Names of European cities in different languages: B

• Kristian Gantser [Christian Ganzer], Irina Yelenskaya, Yelena Pashkovich [et al.] (ed.): Brest. Leto 1941 g. Dokumenty, materiyaly, fotografii. Smolensk: Inbelkul’t, 2016. ISBN 978-5-00076-030-7

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Brest, Belarus.

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Brest_(Belarus).

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Brest-Litovsk".

• Brest Stories Guide – Audiotheatre on the history of anti-semitism and the Shoah in Brest from 1937 to 1944 by the independent Brest theatre "Krylja Cholopa" (English/Russian)
• Brest, Belarus at JewishGen