The Citadel in Smolensk is a forgotten borderland fortress. It was erected by Prince Ladislaus in honour of his father, King Sigismund III. The citadel was called the greater rampart, and the Russians referred to it as the Royal Bastion.

Polish citadel in Russia
The Citadel of Smolensk (Fortalitium Sigismundanum, Sigismund Fortification, Russian: Korolevskiy Bastion) was constructed in 1626-1632 as an earth fort independent of the city walls with the so-called Old Dutch outline. It filled a break in the fortification of the city of Smolensk made in 1609-1611 during the siege by the Polish-Lithuanian army. Due to the defensive weakness of the site, reconstruction in its original form was abandoned.

Smolensk Citadel - designed by Wilhelm Appelman
. Prince Ladislaus, the founder of the citadel, and its designer, Wilhelm Appelman, modelled their design on the famous citadel in Antwerp. The construction of a five-bastion fortification, modern for the time, made it possible to solve the problem of covering with flanking fire the deep ravine of the Czurylowka River running along the walls, as well as the section of walls and towers of the northern part of the fortifications. This was ensured by artillery and musket fire from three bastions protruding outside the walls. The shelling from the other two bastions facing inwards allowed the possible revolt of the Orthodox inhabitants of Smolensk to be kept in check.

A Dutchman, also referred to in period sources as Belgian, Wilhelm Appelman (after 1585-1636), captain of the royal guard and military engineer to Sigismund III (who directed the fortification work of the Polish camp at the Battle of Chocim in 1621), drew up plans for the citadel. Upon its completion, Prince Ladislaus named it Fortalitium Sigismundanum (Sigismund Citadel) in honour of his father.

Smolensk Citadel - a rich borderland fort ress
. Construction work began in 1626 under the supervision of Appelman, who brought in a couple of hundred professionals and foremen from Royal Prussia and Gdansk. The simplest earthworks were probably carried out by free burghers or peasants from Smolensk and the surrounding area. The cost of the works is estimated at nearly 200,000 Polish zlotys at the time. The work was not completed until 1632, just before the Moscow siege of the city (1632-1633).

Sigismund Citadel - architecture and function
The surviving citadel is a pentagonal (pentagonal), large earth fort with five bastions. The length of the sides between the tops of the bastions is 170 x 160 x 130 x 160 x 170 m, the height of the pentagon between the shortest curtain (the wall between adjacent bastions) and the top of the longest bastion is 235 m.

Unlike the Dutch models, the fortress is characterised by its considerable height of 18 m, i.e. reaching the level of the height of the city walls. At the time of its belonging to the Republic of Poland, the Smolensk citadel was equipped with a wet moat 19 m wide and 3 m deep.

The citadel could only be accessed from the side of the city via a drawbridge across the moat and then through a brick gate-tunnel in the curtain into the citadel. On either side of the curtain entrance, brick casemates were built to house the gunpowder store and arsenal. The courtyard surrounded by ramparts housed the barracks of the Smolensk garrison, a cordegarden, the commandant's house (called the palace of Sigismund III) and a tall watchtower with an alarm bell. A couple of dozen cannons of various calibres were placed on the bastion ramparts.

Citadel and Siege of Smolensk
The Citadel served its purpose well during both Moscow sieges of the city. During the first siege of Smolensk (1632-1633), the enemy did not even attempt to storm the citadel due to its inaccessibility. The artillery fire placed in the fortress caused the attack of the Muscovite dragoons to collapse in a skirmish with the relief detachment of King Vladislav IV. The attempted assault during the second siege (1654) was repulsed by the artillery and musket fire of the Polish and German infantry of Colonel Nikolai Korff, , as a result of which the Moscow forces suffered significant losses.

Polish-Lithuanian Smolensk capitulated in 1654 and passed into Russian hands again. It was then called the Royal Bastion (Korolevskiy Bastion) and was connected to the city walls.

Forgotten borderland fortress - prison and park on the territory of the Smolensk citadel
. By the end of the 18th century, the Smolensk citadel and walls had fallen into neglect. The ruined barracks were replaced by a staging prison, where those sentenced to exile in Siberia were imprisoned - and in the preserved casemates. It was also used to temporarily detain, among others, prisoners of war from the Bar Confederation, participants in the Kosciuszko Uprising and November 1830 insurgents. It is estimated that up to 10,000 repressed Poles may have passed through the staging prison in the Smolensk citadel.

In 1874, the citadel courtyard was transformed into a city park with a restaurant on the site of the former prison. On the centenary of the victory over Napoleon, in 1912, Smolensk was personally visited by Tsar Nicholas II, who viewed the city suburbs from the height of the citadel ramparts. After the Bolshevik Revolution, the fortress fell into a state of complete disrepair, being used partly as a dumping ground and partly as a place for wild storerooms and garages.

It was only in 2012, in connection with the 1150th anniversary of Smolensk, that the Russian authorities set aside federal funds for the renovation of the city walls and towers, including the restoration of the citadel. A large information board in Russian, Polish and English was erected in front of the entrance to the renovated fort.

1626-1632

Wilhelm Appelman (kapitan gwardii, inżynier; Holandia, Polska)(aperçu)

Jerzy Czajewski