Trembowel Castle is a building with a particularly rich history, shining with fame for its heroic defence during the Polish-Turkish War of 1672-1676. This event has become a symbol of the defence of the south-eastern borderlands of the Republic of Poland against the Turkish invasion. Undoubtedly, the heroic attitude of the commandant's wife, Anna Dorota Chrzanowska, was conducive to the creation of a peculiar legend of the Trembowel fortress.

Trembowla (ukr. Теребовля) is currently a district town in western Ukraine in the Ternopil region, on the Gniezna River, a tributary of the Seret. It is one of the oldest settlements in the Halych region, inhabited as early as the 9th century, and first mentioned in written sources at the end of the 11th century as the capital of the Trembowel principality, under the rule of the princes of the Rostislavovic family. This was the role of Trembowla until 1141, when it was incorporated into the Duchy of Halych. Nevertheless, the settlement continued to be an important centre of trade as it lay at the intersection of two important routes, the eastern one towards Kiev and the southern one towards the Black Sea. In the 1440s, Trembowla came into the possession of King Casimir the Great. The castle here was mentioned in the list of this monarch's investments in Ruthenia, handed down to us in the Cracow Cathedral Chronicle (next to the realisations in Lwów, Przemyśl, Sanok, Lubaczów, Halicz and Tustań). The stronghold, erected on the site of an earlier Ruthenian stronghold, secured the king's new territorial acquisitions in Ruthenia, and was also the seat of the royal starosta. In 1389. Władysław Jagiełło granted Trembowla the Magdeburg Law. Around 1420, the same ruler issued a privilege for the incorporation of a new town on the other bank of the Gniezno River. From then on, Trembowla was divided into the Old Town, below the castle, and the New Town, across the river. In the 15th century, the town became a place where the courts of justice for the surrounding nobility were held: the land and municipal courts. Trembowla was also of great strategic importance, as it was located on the so-called Kuchma route, one of the traditional directions of Tartar invasions. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that the town and castle were subject to frequent attacks. In 1498, Trembowla suffered during an invasion by the Turkish army of the Sylistrian pasha Bali beja, supported by the Moldavian troops of the hospodar Stefan III (this was in retaliation for the Bukovina expedition of Jan Olbracht). During the 16th century, battles with the Tatars were fought here many times, with varying degrees of success. In 1534, the dilapidated and neglected castle was rebuilt "at great cost and with great haste" by the then starost of Trembowel and castellan of Krakow, Andrzej Tęczyński. The next work of rebuilding the fortress was undertaken by the Trombowel starost Aleksander Balaban. The work was completed before 1631.

We do not fully know the layout of the castle from the times of Casimir the Great, although it is known that the building did not differ much in outline from the present one. The castle was built of stone on the site of older Ruthenian fortifications, at the end of an elongated promontory with steep slopes, in the bend of the Gniezno River. The only access to the fortress was from the north. It was founded on the plan of an irregular pentagon, narrowing towards the south, with the northern curtain broken in half. The entrance led through a gate tower, with an irregular quadrilateral ground plan, situated in the northern part of the eastern perimeter wall. The internal buildings were probably exclusively made of wood.

We can reconstruct the appearance of the castle after the "costly and hasty" rebuilding by Andrzej Tęczyński thanks to the inventories of the building from 1550 and 1551, discussed in detail by Aleksander Czołowski, and more recently by Tadeusz Grabarczyk. The medieval layout of the fortress was not changed at that time. Where the 14th century defence perimeter had deteriorated (the southern and western sections of the walls), wooden (oak) fortifications were erected. They were crowned with wooden "blanks". The digging of a dry moat on the northern side was also begun. The gate tower had three storeys and was closed with double gates. The first storey housed the castle scribe's chamber, while the first floor stored part of the castle arsenal, including gunpowder and bullets. The wooden castle house stood by the eastern (stone) curtain. In the ground floor there were storage rooms, above there were living rooms, including a chamber, decorated with coats of arms painted above the door: Jagiellonians and Tęczyńskis. It also contained a table with the coat of arms of the Lords of Tęczyn and a tiled cooker - so it was a representative room. Above the residential storey was an attic, divided into five chambers. In addition to the castle house, the fortifications included a kitchen, a bakery, a stable for 11 horses and 11 empty chambers, built on brick foundations, probably of medieval origin. There was also an "oak well" near the stables. Further outbuildings were located in the bailey, including a brewery, a malt house and a mill. Sixteen years after the rebuilding of Andrzej Tęczyński, the whole defensive establishment was in a bad state and needed urgent repairs. These were probably not carried out, as Trembowla was destroyed by the Tatars in 1575, and in 1594, during the so-called Nalewajka uprising, the town and the castle were temporarily occupied by Cossacks.

The work of restoring the castle was done only by Trembowel starost Aleksander Balaban. He, too, did not fundamentally change the medieval layout of the building, limiting himself to the restoration of damaged or destroyed walls. Instead, the castle received two powerful defensive works. On the south side, a massive basteja was erected, founded on an oval ground plan, equipped with rows of cannon and small arms ranges, spread over two storeys. The walls of the basteja were over 4 metres thick at the ground floor. To the north-east, the defence perimeter was strengthened by a hexagonal tower, also equipped with loopholes. Also in the rebuilt defensive walls, rifle slots were made for firearms. The castle house still stood at the eastern curtain, but was no longer made of wood, but of stone. A new entrance was pierced in the eastern curtain, behind the former gate tower. There was then a "nobleman's tower" in the courtyard, which is not mentioned in the 16th century sources. It was therefore already erected in the 17th century (for defence and penitentiary purposes) and its shape was depicted in his engraving by Romeyn de Hooghe.

Balaban's reconstruction significantly improved the defensive qualities of the castle. Despite this, it fell into the hands of Cossack insurgents in 1648. In 1672, the fortress was temporarily occupied by a Turkish garrison, but soon returned to Polish hands. In the autumn of 1675, a Turkish-Tartar corps of several thousand men under the command of Ibrahim Shishman laid siege to the castle. It was then defended by a small garrison of 80 soldiers and about 200 noblemen, peasants and townspeople. Captain Jan Samuel Chrzanowski was in command. After a two-week siege, having achieved nothing, Szyszman, fearing an incoming relief under Jan Sobieski, ordered a retreat. It is rumoured that the crew's fighting spirit was effectively kept up by the commandant's wife, Anna Dorota Chrzanowska (née von Frezen), who even threatened her husband with death if he decided to surrender. The fierce defence of the trembling fortress went down in legend, and the fortress itself became an important strategic point on the Polish-Turkish border. After 1699, the castle lost its military significance and fell into ruins. After 1772, it was taken over by the partitioning Austrian authorities, and was later partly demolished and partly used as barracks. At the end of the 19th century, due to the importance of the monument as a national monument, the demolition of the building was stopped and the ruins were secured and opened to the public. On 11 November 1900, a monument to Anna Dorota Chrzanowska, designed by local sculptor Jan Bochenek, was unveiled next to the ruins of the fortress. In 1923, it was reconstructed after being destroyed in the war. During and after the Second World War, the castle was subject to devastation and acts of vandalism (e.g. the Chrzanowska monument was destroyed in 1944). Research and conservation work was not undertaken until the 1980s. At present, the castle is kept in a state of permanent ruin and is open to the public. In 2012, the pedestal was renovated and a new monument to the heroic commandress was erected (designed by Roman Wilhuszynśkyj).