Petrovichi () is a

rural locality In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry are typically describ ...

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

) in

Shumyachsky District Shumyachsky District () is an administrativeResolution #261 and municipalLaw #138-z district (raion), one of the twenty-five in Smolensk Oblast, Russia. It is located in the southwest of the oblast and borders with Khislavichsky District in the no ...

Smolensk Oblast Smolensk Oblast (), informally also called Smolenshchina (), is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative centre is the types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Smolensk. As of the 2021 Russ ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

, located about ''

In Memory Yet Green Isaac Asimov (–1992) wrote three volumes of autobiography. ''In Memory Yet Green'' (1979) and ''In Joy Still Felt'' (1980) were a two-volume work, covering his life up to 1978. The third volume, ''I. Asimov: A Memoir'' (1994), published after his ...

'' by

Isaac Asimov Isaac Asimov ( ; – April 6, 1992) was an Russian-born American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. H ...

, 1979, p.4 southwest of

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

, south of

St Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

, south of

Smolensk Smolensk is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River, west-southwest of Moscow. First mentioned in 863, it is one of the oldest cities in Russia. It has been a regional capital for most of ...

, and east of the border between Belarus and Russia. Its population in 1998 was 215.''Encyclopedia of the Smolensk Region'' (translated from Russian by Google Translate)
/ref> The village is the birthplace of

. Asimov left it at the age of three, with his parents and sister, emigrating to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. There is a stone memorial at the site of his birth.

History

The earliest recorded mention of Petrovichi is from 1403. In the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

, Petrovichi was a ''

shtetl or ( ; , ; Grammatical number#Overview, pl. ''shtetelekh'') is a Yiddish term for small towns with predominantly Ashkenazi Jews, Ashkenazi Jewish populations which Eastern European Jewry, existed in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust. The t ...

'' in

Klimovichskiy Uyezd Klimovichskiy Uyezd () was an administrative unit of the Mogilev Governorate, Russian Empire, which existed between the years of 1777 and 1927. Klimavichy was the uyezd town of the administrative unit. The town is located in modern-day Belarus. ...

. The governorate, historically

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

ian land, was a part of the Empire's

Northwestern Krai Northwestern Krai () was a ''krai'' of the Russian Empire (unofficial subdivision) in the territories of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (present-day Belarus and Lithuania). The administrative center was in Vilna (now Vilnius). Northwestern ...

. Petrovichi's population was half

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

, half

Belarusian Belarusian may refer to: * Something of, or related to Belarus * Belarusians, people from Belarus, or of Belarusian descent * A citizen of Belarus, see Demographics of Belarus * Belarusian language * Belarusian culture * Belarusian cuisine * Byelor ...

. It had both a church and a

synagogue A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It is a place for prayer (the main sanctuary and sometimes smaller chapels) where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as wed ...

, each one with a school attached to it. According to Asimov's memoirs, the place had never known of

pogrom A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of Massacre, massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century Anti-Jewis ...

s. There were amicable business connections and even friendships between the two communities. Asimov even reports non-Jews paying friendly visits to the local synagogue.

Tsar Tsar (; also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar''; ; ; sr-Cyrl-Latn, цар, car) is a title historically used by Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word '' caesar'', which was intended to mean ''emperor'' in the Euro ...

Nicholas I (who ruled from 1825 to 1855) at one point ordered the expulsion of all Jewish people who resided in

Great Russia Great Russia, sometimes Great Rus' ( , ; , ; , ), is a name formerly applied to the territories of "Russia proper", the land that formed the core of the Grand Duchy of Moscow and later the Tsardom of Russia. This was the land to which the e ...

, or Russia proper, outside of the

Pale of Settlement The Pale of Settlement was a western region of the Russian Empire with varying borders that existed from 1791 to 1917 (''de facto'' until 1915) in which permanent settlement by Jews was allowed and beyond which the creation of new Jewish settlem ...

. However, a rich and powerful Russian landlord, who owned much land on both sides of the border, saved the Jewish community of Petrovichi from "

ethnic cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it ...

" by illegally moving the border marker from the west to the east of the ''shtetl''. During the Soviet times, restrictions were no longer imposed on the settlement of Jewish people. The village became a part of the

Russian SFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...

and briefly belonged to

Gomel Governorate Gomel Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit ('' guberniya'') of the Russian SFSR from 1919 to 1926 with its capital in Gomel.http://www.jewishgen.org/belarus/borders_timeline.htm It was formed from nine uyezds of the abolished Mogi ...

before being transferred to

. The population dwindled significantly. In 1921,

and 16 other children in Petrovichi developed

double pneumonia Pneumonia can be classified in several ways, most commonly by where it was acquired (hospital versus community), but may also by the area of lung affected or by the causative organism. There is also a combined clinical classification, which combi ...

. Only Asimov survived. In July 1941, Petrovichi was occupied by the German armies. 416 Jewish inhabitants who did not flee in time were massacred. It was liberated by the Red Army in September 1943.Asimov, I. (1979) ''In Memory Yet Green'', pp.308, 394

References

Notes

Sources

External links

Photo of monument to Asimov
at Asimovonline.com

*[https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&nv=1&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=ru&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=https://rg.ru/2015/07/09/reg-cfo/shkola.html&xid=17259,15700019,15700186,15700191,15700256,15700259,15700262,15700265,15700271,15700283&usg=ALkJrhj64PCU42AkAWoizYP5GbcF6LqdHQ Russian news article (2015) at Google Translate] {{Authority control Rural localities in Smolensk Oblast Isaac Asimov Holocaust locations in Russia