Vidzy

Urban-type settlement in Vitebsk Region, Belarus

Vidzy Відзы (Belarusian)
Urban-type settlement
Catholic church of the Holy Trinity in Vidzy
Flag Coat of arms
55°24′N 26°38′E / 55.400°N 26.633°E / 55.400; 26.633
Country	Belarus
Region	Vitebsk Region
District	Braslaw District
Population (2024)^[1]	1,563
Time zone	UTC+3 (MSK)

Vidzy^[a] is an urban-type settlement in Braslaw District, Vitebsk Region, Belarus.^[1]^[2] In 2014, its population was 1,684.^[3] As of 2024, it has a population of 1,563.^[1]

History

The name Vidzy is of Finno-Ugric origin and is associated with the word vidze, which refers to a "meadow, hayfield".^[4] The Finno-Ugric peoples named their settlements after the landscape or after vegetation, animals or fish if it was predominant in that location.^[4]

Vidzy is known in historical records since the 15th-century, when Grand Duke Sigismund Kęstutaitis transferred the estates of Vidzy to three families at once.^[4] Part of Vidzy was also in the permanent possession of the bishops.^[4]

In the early 16th-century, the prince Albertas Goštautas, owner of the Hieraniony Castle, ruled in Vidzy after the estate was sold to him and his wife in 1524.^[4] The estate then passed to the Pac family, and in 1685, Michał Kazimierz Pac transferred the estate to the Canons regular.^[4] Stanisław Naruszewicz, procurator of Vilnius, maintained a Calvinist prayer house in Vidzy.^[4] The Wawrzecki family in the 18th-century became owners of much of the land around Vidzy.^[4]

During the French invasion of Russia, a skirmish took place in the center of Vidzy on 28 November 1812 between the retreating French and the Cossacks, leading to 116 houses to be destroyed by fire.^[4]

In 1875, The Jewish World reported that the city was badly burned in a fire: many buildings were destroyed, and up to 3,000 people were made homeless.^[5]^{[better source needed]}

During World War II, Vidzy was occupied by Nazi Germany from 27 June 1941 until 8 July 1944, and administered as part of Generalbezirk Litauen of Reichskommissariat Ostland.^[6]

Notable people

Iosif Bleikhman (1868–1921), revolutionary
Cecilia Berdichevsky (1925–2010), computer scientist

Notes

^ Belarusian: Відзы; Russian: Видзы; Lithuanian: Vidžiai; Polish: Widze; Yiddish: ווידזש, romanized: Vidzh.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c "Численность населения на 1 января 2024 г. и среднегодовая численность населения за 2023 год по Республике Беларусь в разрезе областей, районов, городов, поселков городского типа". belsat.gov.by. Archived from the original on 2 April 2024. Retrieved 13 September 2024.
^ Gaponenko, Irina Olegovna (2009). Назвы населеных пунктаў Рэспублікі Беларусь: Віцебская вобласць. Minsk: Тэхналогія. p. 97. ISBN 978-985-458-192-7.
^ Official estimation of the population on 1 January 2014, see pop-stat.mashke.org.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ Tatarinov 2006, ВИДЗЫ.
^ "RUSSIA.; DESTRUCTIVE FIRE IN RUSSIAN POLAND SEVERAL LIVES LOST AND 3,000 PERSONS MADE HOMELESS". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 10 September 2024.
^ Megargee, Geoffrey P.; Dean, Martin (4 May 2012). The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933 –1945: Volume II: Ghettos in German-Occupied Eastern Europe. Indiana University Press. p. 1156. ISBN 978-0-253-00202-0.

Bibliography

Tatarinov, Yury (2006). Города Беларуси в некоторых интересных исторических сведениях. Витебщина (in Russian). Minsk: Энциклопедикс. ISBN 9856742366.