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Château de Miedzybozh, photo Panchuk Valentyn, 2020\
Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0, Source: Wikimedia Commons, Conditions d\'autorisation
Photo montrant Miedzybozh Castle
Château de Miedzybozh, photo Kminfo, 2020
Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0, Source: Wikimedia Commons, Conditions d\'autorisation
Photo montrant Miedzybozh Castle
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ID: POL-002006-P

Miedzybozh Castle

Międzybóż | Ukraine
ukr. Medżybiż (Меджибіж)
ID: POL-002006-P

Miedzybozh Castle

Międzybóż | Ukraine
ukr. Medżybiż (Меджибіж)

The castle of Miedzyboż (ukr.: Меджибіж) is located in the Khmelnytskyi region, in the Lathiv region of Ukraine. The defensive nature of the castle was enhanced by its location at the forks of the Buzhka and Bohu rivers (hence the name of the village). Miedzybozh was first mentioned in the 12th century, and in the first half of the 13th century it belonged to the Prince of Halych, Daniel I. It is likely that there was already a town there at that time. It is likely that a wooden and earth castle already existed there at that time. After the death of the last Duke of Halich-Vlodimier, Boleslav George II, Międzybóż, like the whole of western Podolia, was subject to rivalry between Poland, Hungary and Lithuania. In 1366, Casimir III the Great granted it to the Lithuanian Duke Lubart Gediminas, but Międzybóż soon passed into the hands of the Dukes of Koriatovich, also descended from Gediminas and dependent on Poland. They are credited with erecting the first brick buildings on the castle. In 1434, Władysław Jagiełło finally incorporated Podolia into Poland, and Międzybóż became a royal estate. In the 16th century, the Sieniawski family became the owners of the estate, and they remained in Międzybóż for the next 200 years, contributing to the flourishing of the town and the castle.

The appearance and layout of the castle in the Middle Ages has not yet been fully recognised. Its fortifications were probably wooden and earth ramparts, and nothing certain can be said about the internal buildings. It is generally assumed that the oldest masonry part of the complex is the quadrilateral stone tower with a cylindrical annex, situated in the eastern corner of the castle complex, which was later walled in the 16th century with a strong bastion defence system on a quadrilateral ground plan. Its dating is uncertain, and researchers usually associate its construction with the Koriatovich family which ruled Międzybóż in the last quarter of the 14th century. The subsequent construction history of the castle is also not entirely clear. Nonetheless, the greatest influence on its present form came with the reconstruction of the 16th century. It is likely that the process of modernisation of the medieval foundation was started by the first owner of Międzybóż from the Sieniawski family, Great Hetman of the Crown, Voivode of Bełsk and Ruthenia, the rotmistrz of the cavalry defence, Mikołaj. This excellent commander and experienced soldier, skilled in fighting the Tartars, was undoubtedly aware of the importance of fixed points of resistance in the defence of the south-eastern frontiers of the state. This was all the more so as Miedzybóż lay close to two traditional routes of Tartar incursions: the Black and the Kuczmansky. The defensive qualities of the foundation were positively verified in 1566, when Mikolaj and a small crew repulsed a Tartar attack on the castle. This was probably the result of construction work carried out on the initiative of the hetman. The results of source research by Igor Zapadenko seem to indicate that before Mikołaj Sieniawski's death in 1569, the castle, although not fully completed, already had a walled precinct and a "bastion" - probably the beluard located by the gate. According to Zapadenko, the work was carried out by Jan Bąk, a citizen of Ternopil. Further work on the castle after the Hetman's death was to be continued by Krzysztof Bozzano (Bodzan), also from Ternopil. At this point, however, it should be noted that in Aleksander Gwagnin's work Z kroniki Sarmacyi europejskiej (Z kroniki Sarmacyi europejskiej), first published in 1578, the castle was described as completely wooden. Although a narrative source such as Gwagnin's chronicle may contain errors and misrepresentations, the above information about the construction of the castle walls during the reign of Mikołaj Sieniawski still requires confirmation.

Undoubtedly, as a result of the work carried out on the Sieniawski's initiative, the castle in Międzyboż was given a characteristic layout of an irregular quadrangle, adapted to the layout of the promontory in the forks of the Bużka and Bohu. The building absorbed elements of the older fortress, which probably resulted in numerous irregularities in the layout of the walls of the eastern part of the castle. The castle was built of limestone and brick. The defensive walls were equipped with ranges for small arms. The entrance led from the west across a drawbridge, and the gate was defended by a massive five-sided beluard, equipped with artillery battlements. In the northern corner there was a cylindrical bastion, while to the east the castle was defended by the aforementioned defensive work on a quadrilateral plan, with an angulet on the foreground side, equipped with three defence tiers with rifles. From the south, on the river side, the castle was defended only by a curtain wall. Adjacent to the eastern part of the southern curtain wall was a quadrilateral, basement, two-storey palace. It was topped, like the castle walls, with a 'dovetail' attic. Igor Zapadenko noted its resemblance to analogous realisations in Central Europe from the 1660s, including in particular the attic of the castellum in Betlanovce (now in Slovakia). This may confirm that the castle's assumption in its basic form was still created during the lifetime of Mikołaj Sieniawski. Around the remaining curtain walls there were auxiliary residential and economic buildings. In 1586, on the initiative of Rafał Sieniawski, a quadrilateral chapel with a polygonal closed chancel was erected in the middle of the castle courtyard.

Shaped in this way, the castle, in tandem with the nearby town, also possessing bastion-type fortifications, was a strong and relatively modern point of resistance. Despite this, it fell into Cossack hands during the Khmelnytsky uprising. In 1657, the surrender of the army of Transylvanian Prince George II Rakoczy, an ally of Charles X Gustav, took place near Międzybóż. In 1666, the castle withstood a siege by Turkish-Tatar-Cossack troops, but in 1672, under the Treaty of Bucharest, it fell into Turkish hands. After the Vienna campaign of John III Sobieski, it returned to the Sieniawski family. The results of Rafał Nestorov's research show that during the reign of Adam Mikołaj Sieniawski, field hetman and later grand hetman of the Crown, extensive restoration and construction work was carried out on the castle. These were led by Jan Baptysta Dessieur, a military engineer, castle commandant and governor of the Interbork estate. In 1702, he defended the fortress during the peasant-Cossack uprising of Semen Palej. At the same time as the renovation and construction work at the castle, the establishment of an "Italian" garden was started at that time, the work being directed by Jan Baptysta Kendel. It is not known whether this project was completed, although the work must have been advanced, as a brick, stove-heated room for warm-trees was built before 1713.

In 1730, as a result of the marriage between August Aleksander Czartoryski and Zofia née Sieniawska, Międzybóż became the property of the Czartoryski family. The town and the castle became the administrative centre of their Podolia estate. After 1831 Miêdzybóż was confiscated by the tsarist authorities for the Czartoryskis' participation in the November Uprising. The castle became the property of the tsarist army and was used, among other things, as the tsar's residence during annual military manoeuvres in Podolia. During the 19th century, the building was kept in good condition, and in 1848 it was rebuilt in neo-Gothic style, including the walls receiving a brick pseudo-crenellation, and the window openings in some of the residential buildings were transformed to receive ogival closures, also made in brick. The castle, damaged during World War I, found itself outside the borders of a reborn Poland after 1920. During its time as part of Soviet Russia, it housed, among other things, a butter production plant. The building was systematically deteriorating, both as a result of the lack of proper repairs and the deliberate dismantling of the walls for material. The first conservation work was not carried out until the early 1970s. These and subsequent (in the 1990s) measures did not, however, stop the further destruction of the foundation. The situation was only improved by the work of the State Historical and Cultural Reserve "Międzybóż", which has been taking care of the monument since 2004. Among other things, work was carried out between 2017 and 2020 to secure the palace, including the construction of its roof. Unfortunately, restoration and preservation work on the castle was interrupted by the invasion of Ukraine, launched by the Russian Federation on 24 February 2022. On 19 August 2023, as a result of a Russian drone attack, the castle, once again in its history, suffered damage, including a shock wave damaging the windows and doors of the castle museum and the roof of one of the towers.

Time of origin:
1366
Creator:
Jan Bąk (architekt), Krzysztof Bozzano/Bodzan (architekt), Jan Baptysta Dessieur (inżynier wojskowy)
Author:
Piotr Lasek
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