Smarhon or Smorgon (Belarusian: Смаргонь, [smarˈɣonʲ]; Russian: Сморгонь; Lithuanian: Smurgainys; Polish: Smorgonie; Yiddish: סמאָרגאָן) is a town in Grodno Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Smarhon District.[1][2] It was the site of Smarhon air base, now mostly abandoned. Smarhon is located 107 kilometres (66 mi) from the capital, Minsk. As of 2024, it has a population of 35,422.[1]
Amid the disastrous retreat from Russia in 1812, Napoleon left the remnants of the Grande Armée at Smorgon on December 5 to return to Paris.[3]
From 1921 until 1939, Smarhon (Smorgonie) was part of the Second Polish Republic. In September 1939, the town was occupied by the Red Army and, on 14 November 1939, incorporated into the Byelorussian SSR.
Smorgon is known as the place where a school of bear training, the so-called "Bear Academy", was founded.
Smarhon baranki
Up until World War II, Smarhon was widely known for its baranki,[4] traditional Eastern European ring-shaped bread rolls, similar to bagels and bubliki. Russian food historian William Pokhlyobkin considered Smarhon to be the birthplace of baranki.[5] Baranki were supposedly used to feed bears in the Bear Academy. Written accounts of Smarhon baranki appeared in the 19th century. Polish-Lithuanian journalist Adam Kirkor wrote in the encyclopedia Picturesque Russia: "In Smorgon, Oshmyany district, Vilna province, almost all the petty bourgeois population is busy baking small bubliki, or kringles, which are widely known as Smorgon obvaranki. Each traveller would definitely buy several bundles of these bubliki; besides, they are transported to Vilna and other cities."[6]Władysław Syrokomla mentioned Smarhon as "the capital of obwarzanki famous in all Lithuania".[7] Smarhon obwarzanki were a traditional treat at Saint Casimir's Fair in Vilnius.[8][9]
David Raziel (1910–1941), fighter for the emancipation of Jews in Palestine, commander of the Irgun Tzvai Leumi nationalist resistance organization, killed in Iraq on an anti-Nazi mission
Nahum Slouschz (1872–1966), Israeli writer, translator and archaeologist
Abraham Sutzkever (1913–2010), Yiddish and Polish poet and Second World War partisan
The Gordin brothers, Abba (1887–1964) and Wolf (1885–1974), anarchist educators, militants, and theorists
References and notes
^ 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 11 May 2024.
^Gaponenko, Irina Olegovna (2004). Назвы населеных пунктаў Рэспублікі Беларусь: Гродзенская вобласць. Minsk: Тэхналогія. p. 334. ISBN 985-458-098-9.
^Баранки. In: В. В. Похлёбкин, Кулинарный словарь от А до Я. Москва, Центрполиграф, 2000, ISBN 5-227-00460-9 (William Pokhlyobkin, Culinary Dictionary. Moscow, Centrpoligraf publishing house, 2000; Russian)
^Адам Киркор (1881). Живописная Россия. Vol. 1. p. 217. (Adam Kirkor (1881). Picturesque Russia (in Russian). Vol. 1. p. 217.)
^Уладзіслаў Сыракомля (1993). "З дарожнага дзённіка 1856 года". Добрыя весці: паэзія, проза, крытыка (in Belarusian). Маст. літ. pp. 425–433.