Roslavl, Russia

Roslavl is a city in the Smolensk region of the Russian Federation. The administrative center of the Roslavl region. It forms the Roslavl urban settlement.

 

History

The first written mention of the city of Rostislavl is contained in the collection of Smolensk episcopal letters and refers to the years 1211-1218. Historians suggest that it was founded by Prince Rostislav Mstislavich as one of the support centers of the princely power on the lands of the Radimichi around 1137. Presumably Rostislavl was to become a stronghold of the princely power in the lands of the Radimichi.

From 1197 to 1206, the city experienced economic growth. This may be evidence of the presence of the prince in Rostislavl. Having emerged as a center of local government, moreover, far from trade routes, Rostislavl in the XII century could not be a center of craft and trade, the main inhabitants of the city were "people of the princely administration." The Rostislavl inheritance could have existed from 1197 to 1230s. Probably, it was at this time (1197-1206) that the prince's residence was in the city. The economic growth of the city is connected with these years.

Relative prosperity for the residents of Roslavl ended in the XIII century. The Smolensk prince was constantly in conflict with the boyars. This weakened the military and economic power of the principality, which soon split into feuds, constantly at odds with each other. Roslavl found himself on the southern outskirts of the appanage principality. Smolensk lands, already weakened by the pestilence of 1231-1232, suffered from constant civil strife.

 

In 1239, the Lithuanians managed to take Roslavl and Rudnya. The local residents were able to conquer the city by turning to Yaroslav Vsevolodovich for help. Nevertheless, in 1258 the Lithuanian princes again embarked on a campaign against the city, as a result of which Roslavl and its environs were devastated, however, the Lithuanian power in the city was not established. In 1286 the city was won back by the Bryansk appanage prince Roman Glebovich. He wants to subordinate the entire Smolensk principality to his power, for which he resorts to the help of the Tatars, but he did not succeed in carrying out his plans. Smolensk Prince Alexander Glebovich managed to defend his territory and power. The Roslavl inheritance returns independence.

In 1339, hordes of Mongol-Tatars invaded the Smolensk principality. Roslavl was one of the first to suffer. The Tatars were unable to capture the principality, but the border towns were burnt, plundered and weakened. After the Tatar raids, the subordination of the principality to the Lithuanian feudal lords took place under Vitovt. For many years, the inhabitants of the city and the surrounding region paid taxes to the Lithuanian prince.

In 1358, Rostislavl was captured by the Lithuanian prince Olgerd and entered the appanage Mstislavl principality of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. At the end of 1392, Vitovt drives Yuri Svyatoslavich, Skirgailo's protege, from the Smolensk throne, and puts Gleb there, and sends Yuri to reign in the city of Roslavl. Tribute was collected not only in money, but also in food: meat, grain, honey, etc., but payment in money was preferable. In addition to the tax to the Lithuanian prince, the population had to pay the Smolensk ruler.

Wanting to free themselves from foreign domination, the townspeople decided to go under the rule of the Moscow princes, but they managed to achieve their goal only after three long and bloody wars.

In 1515, Rostislavl was returned to the Grand Duchy of Moscow by the governor Andrey Saburov. In 1514, the troops of Vasily III were able to recapture the Smolensk principality, but Roslavl and several other cities continued to remain in the hands of Lithuania; the city managed to be under the rule of the Moscow princes by 1522 under the terms of the armistice.

After a number of peaceful years, the Livonian War became another devastating disaster for the townspeople: in 1563, one of the Lithuanian detachments managed to break through to the city, but the militia successfully repulsed the attack this time too. Half a century later Roslavl had to confront a new enemy: in 1610 the city was captured by the troops of the Commonwealth and was no longer subordinate to the Russian sovereign, but to the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania Sigismund III, becoming part of the Smolensk Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Roslavl governors themselves gave power to the King of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, considering the enemy too strong. After the capture of the city by the Poles, the boyars went with a bow to Sigismund, who set up his camp near Smolensk. In 1623 Roslavl was awarded the Magdeburg Law Certificate.

In 1632, voivode Bogdan Nagoy was sent to Kaluga "to gather with military men" for a campaign against Smolensk against the Poles, in October of the same year he occupied Serpeisk with a small detachment, in November defeated a Polish detachment and took Roslavl, and as a reward for this he received a gold.

In 1654 the city was taken by the Russian army during the successful military campaign of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. In 1658-1659 he was briefly captured by the rebellious Cossacks of Ivan Vygovsky. In 1664 Roslavl withstood the siege of a large Lithuanian army, repelled the attacks of Lithuanian troops in 1666.

 

The city received its modern name in 1755. Driving through Roslavl at the end of the Crimean War, the poet Tyutchev wrote the famous poem "These poor villages, This meager nature ..."

 

Soviet rule

After the abdication of Nicholas II from the throne, in March 1917, a representative body of local government “in support of the February reforms” was created in the city - the Public Executive Committee, which sends a welcome telegram to the Provisional Government.

The situation on the fronts of the First World War, mass refugees, funerals, amid the growing and war-generated economic crisis pushed people to protests with a desire to change their lives for the better.

The "bourgeois" representative power that was established after February 1917 in the city and region and consisted mainly of officials of the old tsarist administration, representatives from the merchants, nobility, landowners and clergy did not suit the social democratic forces, which had their cells and supporters in Roslavl since the beginning of 1900 -s, which were not properly represented in the new public council.

On March 4 (17), 1917, after a rally, representatives of the RSDLP (b), having gathered their supporters from among the soldiers, workers of oil mills, railway workshops and other enterprises, moved to the city center. The demonstrators disarmed the gendarmes and policemen, the soldiers arrested the head of the garrison. By the end of the day, the prisoners were politically and administratively released. A Soviet of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies was created in the city.

A group of Bolsheviks headed by Nikolai Konopatsky joined the Roslavl district Soviet. The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries also had influence in the council. A Menshevik soldier was elected chairman, and the "peasant section" was given to the Socialist-Revolutionaries.

On April 18 (May 1), 1917, a large rally was held in the city, organized by the Soviet under slogans demanding the resignation of the Provisional Government and calling for "to fight against the continuation of the imperialist war", to achieve the creation of a democratic republic and the introduction of an 8-hour working day.

By the beginning of autumn 1917, there were already more than 300 people in the city cell of the RSDLP (b). Revolutionary sentiments also increased in the countryside: in the Danilovichi volost in June 1917, peasants under the leadership of the Bolshevik Semyon Ivanov took the landlord and church lands from the owners and voluntarily transferred them to the needy.

In early October, a meeting of workers and soldiers, natives of the Roslavl district, was held in Petrograd, at which the question of a trip to their native villages to help the peasantry in the struggle for the establishment of Soviet power was discussed. Delegates were elected and sent to the city and surrounding villages.

Soviet power in the city was established on October 27 (November 9) 1917. NN Konopatsky later recalled: “At the end of October, a revolutionary committee was formed consisting of Nikolai Nikolaevich Konopatsky, Nikolai Pavlovich Nosov and Dmitry Veniaminovich Klochkov. We sit in the Council around the clock. A specially assigned commissioner is on duty at the telegraph office. Finally, Smolensk announced the victory of the revolution in Petrograd and the formation of the Council of People's Commissars. Soon the first decrees of the Soviet government on peace and land were received. We immediately reprinted them in the Roslavl printing house and pasted them around the city, distributed them in the shelves, and sent them around the county ”.

The civil war in Russia and foreign military intervention (1917-1923) negatively affected the development of the city, as well as the development of the entire young Soviet state.

After the end of the Civil War, the Soviet government "takes a course" on the development of industrial cities, thanks to which a new stage begins in the history of Roslavl. Factories and plants were revived and built, collectivization was carried out in the countryside.

Stalin's five-year plans left their mark on the history of the city. Many factories and enterprises that closed before the revolution and after it were reconstructed and modernized. In 1929, a vegetable drying plant was put into operation, which had no analogues in the entire Smolensk region.

In 1931, a Machine and Tractor Station appeared in the city, at the end of the 1930s - a poultry plant and a glass factory.

The administrative-territorial structure and subordination of the city and district changed several times. In 1929, Roslavl became the center of the Roslavl District of the Western Region of the RSFSR, which included 11 rural areas, and a year later, in 1930, the status of the city was changed due to the abolition of the administrative-territorial division. Now the city is the center of the "Western Rural District" (Smolensk Region). Later Roslavl becomes a city of regional subordination.

 

The Great Patriotic War

At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Roslavl, being a large transport hub with a developed track facilities, was of strategic interest to the Wehrmacht High Command in preparing and organizing an offensive on Moscow, conducting flank strikes in the rear of the Red Army groupings and uninterrupted supply of its own troops. In late July - early August 1941, fierce battles unfolded on the outskirts of the city. The city was defended by units of the 222nd Infantry Division, which was hastily redeployed to the lines around Roslavl. By July 28, having completed a 350-kilometer march, units of the division took up defensive positions on the line: Krivoles - the channel of the Oster River - the vicinity of the Krapivinskaya station. The situation on the Western Front after the capture of Smolensk in the last ten days of July, the loss of the Red Army, "boilers", led to the fact that the 222nd rifle division was the only division defending the city.

At dawn on July 30, 1941, the XXIV motorized and VII enemy army corps launched an offensive from the Mstislavl - Krichev area in the direction of Roslavl and with the aim of encircling and destroying the "Kachalov group" (145, 149 RD, 104 td), which attempted a counterattack on Smolensk. The next day, the IX Army Corps struck east of Roslavl from the Pochinok - Strigino area. By the evening of August 2, the division was in a "semi-encirclement", and by August 3 (according to the official version) it was forced to retreat to an intermediate defense line in the Yekimovichi area, in fact, it began an indiscriminate retreat, having lost contact with the 774th rifle regiment.

Under the blows of enemy tank groups and infantry, it was dismembered. The division commander, who had no contact with the neighbors, decided to withdraw the division east of Roslavl.

Among the military units defending the city was the 18th PTO artillery regiment. Fierce battles of the brave artillerymen in the area of ​​the village of Byval'skoe with the advancing enemy lasted 8 hours. Until late at night, the Germans were unable to break into the defenses of the two divisions. Many batteries have distinguished themselves on this day.

On August 3, 1941, at 10:05, the advance detachment of the 35th Panzer Regiment (Pz.Rgt. 35) of the 4th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht under the command of General of the Panzer Forces Wilibald von Langermann und Erlenkamp broke into Roslavl.

The occupation lasted 784 days. During this time, industrial enterprises were destroyed, 2/3 of residential buildings were burned. The central streets of the city and the station area were damaged. The population decreased from 41,480 people (according to the 1939 census) to 7,400 people (as of 10/20/1943).

Roslavl became the "district center" with 10 administrative districts. The district was governed by the "military field commandant's office of the 1st category". The so-called "local self-government of civilians" was organized. The burgomaster was "elected" in the city (the son of the city's architect Aristov N.A.), and in the villages and settlements - the elders. The occupants in the city organized a Jewish ghetto in the area of ​​Krasnoflotsky lanes. In November 1941, over 600 Jews, including women and children, were shot in the Bukhteev Moat, near the Jewish cemetery. The notorious Dulag No. 130 transit camp for Soviet prisoners of war was established in August 1941 on the southwestern outskirts of the city. Before the war, the School of junior commanders of the NKVD border troops was located here. From 1942 to 1943, the "Advanced command Moscow" (German: Sonderkommando 7c) of Einsatzgroup "B" was deployed in the city, formed as a special unit of the SD in July 1941, with the main task of capturing and maintaining the archives of Soviet documents. In addition, the team was ordered to carry out the search, arrest and arrest of persons named in the “Special wanted list for the USSR”. The group took an active part on the territory of the Smolensk region in actions for the "requisition of property", the liquidation of the Jewish population, underground fighters and partisans in the cities of Roslavl, Mstislavl, the village of Tatarsk. During the years of occupation, numerous underground cells operated in the city; back in June - July 1941, partisan detachments were created.

On September 25, 1943, the city was liberated by units: 247, 139, 326, 49 rifle divisions of the 10th Guards Army during the Smolensk - Roslavl operation. Subsequently, all of them were given the honorary title "Roslavlskys". From the air, the advancing units were supported: 1st Guards. AK DD, 2nd Guards. AK DD, part of the forces of the 8th Guards. AK DD. In the skies over Roslavl, in 1943, the pilots of the 1st fighter aviation regiment "Normandy" also fought.