Polesia, Polesie, or Polesye, uk, Полісся (Polissia), pl, Polesie, russian: Полесье (Polesye) is a natural and historical region that starts from the farthest edge of Central Europe and encompasses Eastern Europe, including Eastern Poland, the Belarus– Ukraine border region and Southwestern Russia.

Extent

One of the largest forest areas on the continent, Polesia is located in the southwestern part of the Eastern-European Lowland, the Polesian Lowland. On the western side, Polesia originates at the crossing of the Bug River valley in Poland and the Pripyat River valley of Western Ukraine. The swampy areas of central Polesia are known as the Pinsk Marshes (after the major local city of Pinsk). Large parts of the region were contaminated after the

Chernobyl disaster The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two nuc ...

and the region now includes the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and Polesie State Radioecological Reserve, named after the region.

Name

The names ''Polesia/Polissia/Polesye'', etc. may reflect the Slavic root ''les'' 'forest', and the Slavic prefix ''po-'' 'on, in, along'.Compare Inhabitants of Polesia are called Polishchuks. The term is not related to '' Poland'', '' Polish'', '' Pole'', etc., which is ultimately derived from

Old Slavic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic () was the first Slavic literary language. Historians credit the 9th-century Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with standardizing the language and using it in translating the Bible and other ...

'' pole'' 'field'.

History

In ancient times, the areas of today's western and west-central Polesia were inhabited by the people of the Milograd culture, the Neuri. In the late Middle Ages Polesia became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, following it into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569). Polesia was largely part of Poland from 1921 to 1939, when the country's largest provinces bore that name.'' Polesia has rarely been a separate administrative unit. However, there was a Polesie Voivodeship during the

Second Polish Republic The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of ...

, as well as a

Polesia Voblast Polesia region ( be, Палеская вобласць - Paleskaja voblasć, russian: Полесская область) was an administrative division in the Soviet Belarus. It was created on January 15, 1938. It included the territories of easte ...

Byelorussian SSR The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR, or Byelorussian SSR; be, Беларуская Савецкая Сацыялістычная Рэспубліка, Bielaruskaja Savieckaja Sacyjalistyčnaja Respublika; russian: Белор� ...

. From 1931 to 1944, it was explicitly mentioned as constituent part of the short-lived (

Byzantine Rite The Byzantine Rite, also known as the Greek Rite or the Rite of Constantinople, identifies the wide range of cultural, liturgical, and canonical practices that developed in the Eastern Christianity, Eastern Christian Church of Constantinople. Th ...

) Ukrainian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Volhynia, Polesia and Pidliashia. Since the end of World War II, the region of Polesie or Polesia has encompassed areas in eastern Poland, southern Belarus, northwestern Ukraine, and southwestern Russia.

Geography

Polesia is a marshy region lining the Pripyat River ( Pripyat Marshes) in Southern Belarus ( Brest, Pinsk, Kalinkavichy, Gomel), Northern Ukraine (in the Volyn, Rivne,

Zhytomyr Zhytomyr ( uk, Жито́мир, translit=Zhytomyr ; russian: Жито́мир, Zhitomir ; pl, Żytomierz ; yi, זשיטאָמיר, Zhitomir; german: Schytomyr ) is a city in the north of the western half of Ukraine. It is the Capital city, a ...

, Kyiv and

Chernihiv Oblast Chernihiv Oblast ( uk, Черні́гівська о́бласть, translit=Chernihivska oblast; also referred to as Chernihivshchyna, uk, Черні́гівщина, translit=Chernihivshchyna) is an oblast (province) of northern Ukraine. T ...

s), and partly in Poland (

Lublin Lublin is the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the center of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin is the largest Polish city east of t ...

) and Russia ( Bryansk). It is a flatland within the drainage basins of the

Western Bug uk, Західний Буг be, Захо́дні Буг , name_etymology = , image = Wyszkow_Bug.jpg , image_size = 250 , image_caption = Bug River in the vicinity of Wyszków, Poland , map = Vi ...

and Prypyat rivers. The two rivers are connected by the Dnieper-Bug Canal, built during the reign of Stanislaus II of Poland, the last king of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Notable tributaries of the Pripyat are the

Horyn The Horyn or Haryn ( uk, Горинь ; be, Гарынь ; russian: Горы́нь; pl, Horyń) is a tributary of the Pripyat, which flows through Ukraine and Belarus. The Horyn is long, and has a drainage basin of .Stokhid,

Styr The Styr (; ; ) is a right tributary of the Pripyat, with a length of 494 km. Its basin area is 13,100 km2 located in historical region of Volhynia. The Styr begins near Brody, in the Ukrainian Oblast of Lviv, then flows into Rivne Ob ...

, Ptsich, and Yaselda rivers. The largest towns in the Pripyat basin are Pinsk,

Stolin Stolin ( be, Сто́лін; uk, Сто́лін; russian: Сто́лин; pl, Stolin; Yiddish/Hebrew: סטולין) is a town in the Stolin District in Brest Region of Belarus. It is the centre of the largest district in Brest Region. The popu ...

, Davyd-Haradok. Huge marshes were reclaimed from the 1960s to the 1980s for farmland. The reclamation is believed to have harmed the environment along the course of the Pripyat. This region suffered severely from the

. Huge areas were polluted by radioactive elements. The most polluted part includes the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and the adjacent Polesie State Radioecological Reserve. Some other areas in the region are considered unsuitable for living as well.

Tourism

The Polish part of the region includes the Polesie National Park (''Poleski Park Narodowy''), established 1990, which covers an area of . This and a wider area adjoining it (up to the Ukrainian border) make up the UNESCO-designated West Polesie Biosphere Reserve, which borders a similar reserve (the Shatskiy Biosphere Reserve) on the Ukrainian side. There is also a

protected area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the ena ...

called Pribuzhskoye-Polesie in the Belarusian part of the region. The wooden architecture structures in the region were added to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List on 30 January 2004 in the Cultural category.

Notes

References

External links

The Official Site of Radomysl Castle

at the Encyclopedia of Ukraine
Origin of Polesie lakes and parabolic dunes
{{coord missing, Ukraine Divided regions Historical regions in Belarus Historical regions in Poland Historical regions in Russia Historical regions in Ukraine Belarus–Ukraine border