Lubart's Castle

A fortified settlement on the Styr existed on the site by the tenth century. Its wooden ramparts withstood a six-month siege by Bolesław II the Bold of Poland during his campaign against Kyiv — dated variously to 1069, 1073 and 1075 across different accounts — and in 1149 Yury Dolgoruky failed to take the town after besieging it for six weeks. The walls fell to Kuremsa, a grandson of Khan Jochi, dated 1255 by one account and 1259 by another, and two years later Prince Vasylko Romanovych was ordered by the Tatar commander Burundai to dismantle its fortifications, leaving Lutsk without defences for a time.

In 1331 Liubartas, son of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas, married Ahrypina, daughter of the Galician-Volhynian Grand Duke Andrew II; by 1340 he ruled the united principality of Galicia-Volhynia, the last man to do so. The stone castle standing on the site today, above the Styr, was built mostly from the mid-14th century, incorporating parts of the earlier walls, and in 1366, after losing his capital at Volodymyr, Liubartas made Lutsk his seat. It repelled a siege by Casimir the Great of Poland in 1349, and building at the castle continued until Liubartas's death in 1385.

Vytautas settled in Lutsk in 1387 with his family, princes and boyars; from 1392, when he became Grand Duke of Lithuania, the principality of Lutsk was permanently his, and under his long rule the town served as Lithuania's unofficial southern capital while the castle was further fortified to guard against artillery and gunfire. In 1429 a congress of European rulers gathered in the ducal palace within the walls, bringing together the Supreme Duke of Lithuania Władysław II Jagiełło, the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, Grand Prince Vasily II of Moscow and Voivode Dan II of Wallachia around Vytautas; among the matters raised was Vytautas's possible coronation as king of Lithuania, which strained relations with Poland. He died soon afterwards without ever being crowned.

In 1431, two years after the congress, a Polish crown army besieged the castle for several weeks during the Lutsk War; its defender, Voivode Yursha, held out, and the besiegers withdrew having suffered heavy losses. Lithuania split into two principalities, Sigismund Kęstutaitis's Lithuania and Švitrigaila's Rus' faction at Lutsk, and in 1436 the castle withstood a further siege by Sigismund's forces.

The main entrance, now bricked up, faced west and once carried a bridge over the outer moat. The castle's three towers — Lubart's, Švitrigaila's and the Bishop's — were raised to their present height over the course of the 16th and 17th centuries. Within the walls stood St John's Cathedral, a palace of the grand dukes and an episcopal palace; of these, only the bishop's Neoclassical palace still stands. A second castle in the city, the Lower Castle, was built by the Czartoryski family from the 14th century and survives today only as a ruin.

During the 1940s Lubart's Castle became a Nazi execution site where more than 4,000 Jews were killed. A photograph taken on 18 June 1941 shows a large group of Jewish men held under German guard in front of the castle. On 2 July 1941, 1,160 Jews were murdered within the castle walls; on 4 July, a further 3,000 were shot dead there. According to published accounts of the site, the castle carries no monument or marker to the killings.

The Upper Castle was restored over the course of the 20th century and is open to visitors. It is the principal monument of the Old Lutsk historical-cultural reserve, registered as a monument of architecture and history of national significance.