Smolensko

Title

Smolensko

Description

Magnificent view of Smolensk on the river Dnieper, city in the Smolensk oblast in the west of the country near the border with Belarus.

dated 1814

Artist

Bowyer (1758-1834)

Robert Bowyer (1758 Portsmouth - 1834 Byfleet). English watercolor and miniature painter and publisher. Probably a pupil of the miniature painter John Smart. Exhibited first works at the Society of Artists in 1782 and at the Royal Academy in 1783. In 1789 he was appointed miniature painter to Queen Sophie Charlotte. In the 1790s he began to publish his own prints.

Historical Description

Smolensk is a Russian city in the west of the country near the border with Belarus. Smolensk was first mentioned in 863. Its location on the Dnieper River on the way from the Varangians to the Greeks to the Byzantine Empire established its special importance. With the expansion of the Hanseatic League to Eastern Europe, itinerant merchants reached Smolensk via Riga, founded in 1201, and the Duna River, which had one of the main Russian markets connected with Novgorod and the Black Sea. In Smolensk, the German merchants formed a cooperative, established a German settlement, bought houses and built St. Mary's Church. In 1229 a trade treaty, which regulated the rights of the Germans in trade with the Russians. In 1238 the principality was plundered by the Mongols. In 1404 the Smolensk region fell to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and was conquered by the Grand Duchy of Moscow in 1514. In the following years the Smolensk Kremlin was built, one of the largest fortified complexes in the Moscow Empire. During the Polish-Russian War, the city was captured by Polish-Lithuanian troops in 1611 after an almost two-year siege. In 1812 Napoleon, on his way to Moscow, captured the city after the Battle of Smolensk. With the onset of the Russian Civil War, Smolensk became part of the Western Oblast in 1917, occupying most of present-day Belarus. In January 1919 the Soviet Socialist Republic of Belarus/Belarus (SSRB) was proclaimed in Smolensk, but its administrative seat had already moved to Minsk. In February 1919, this first independent Belarusian Soviet Republic was dissolved again, and Smolensk and the surrounding area, until 1929 as the Smolensk Governorate, became part of the Russian SFSR, while the more western parts were temporarily united with Lithuania. When the Belarusian SSR was finally reestablished in July 1920, Smolensk remained with the RSFSR. After the dissolution of Smolensk Governorate in 1929, Smolensk was the capital of the Western Oblast. Its territory proved to be administratively too large. In 1937 it was dissolved and Smolensk became the capital of the much smaller Smolensk Oblast, which still exists today.