Podlachia

 ( Historical Regions In Belarus ) 

In the late 14th century the area passed to Mazovian Piast rule. In 1446, Podlachia became part of the Grand Duchy again, but from 1496 southwestern parts of Podlachia (Drohiczyn Land and Mielnik Land) and from 1501 the northern part (Bielsk Land) used Polish law instead of Lithuanian. A renewal of the Polish–Lithuanian union was concluded in Mielnik in 1501. In 1513 King Sigismund I the Old formed the Podlaskie Voivodeship (adjective of Podlasie). In 1566, the southeastern part of the Voivodeship became part of the newly formed Brest Litovsk Voivodeship as Brest Litovsk County.

In 1569, shortly before the Union of Lublin which formally united Poland and Lithuania as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Podlasie was returned to the Kingdom of Poland by the Privilege of restoration of Podlasie land to the Polish Crown. It was the northernmost part of the Lesser Poland Province of Poland. The voivodeship was divided into three lands (ziemie): Drohiczyn, Mielnik and Bielsk. Knyszyn was the favorite residence of King Sigismund II Augustus, who died there in 1572, ending the reign of the Jagiellonian dynasty in Poland. Polish Renaissance writer Łukasz Górnicki, after his appointment as starost of Tykocin in 1572, resided and wrote many of his works in Lipniki in Podlachia.

Podlachia was subtracted by extensive royal estates, numerous small estates of the nobility (with the exception of the eastern and southern outskirts) and a dense network of small towns. Petty nobility often cultivated their land on their own, and there were many places where the nobility had no serfs, making certain parts of Podlachia, according to Polish historian, geographer and ethnographer Zygmunt Gloger, the place with the highest percentage of free agricultural population in Europe in the Feudalism. Polish nobles in Podlachia became so numerous that from the 16th century some migrated to other regions, including Lesser Poland and Lithuania, where they often made significant fortunes.

In the 17th and early 18th century, the chief regional royal residence in Podlachia was Tykocin. In December 1630, King Sigismund III Vasa and his family took shelter there from an epidemic, and in 1633 Władysław IV Vasa also stopped there. In 1653, Podlachia itself was hit by an epidemic. The region was invaded by Swedish Empire during the Deluge, but in 1657, Poles recaptured Tykocin. In 1661, renowned Polish military commander Stefan Czarniecki was granted the Tykocin starostwo with the towns of Tykocin and Białystok as a reward for his military service during the Swedish invasion of Poland of 1655–1660. Two Polish Protestant were held in Podlachia, a Calvinist one in Orla in 1644 and a Lutheran one in Węgrów in 1780. Tykocin was the place where the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's oldest and highest order, was established.

During the Swedish invasion of Poland of 1701–1706, in 1702, Tykocin was the place of talks between delegates of Poland and Sweden. In 1704, Podlachia protested against the election of Stanisław Leszczyński as King of Poland. Swedish and Russian troops often passed through the region during the war.

In the 18th and 19th century the private town of Białystok became the main center of the region, thanks to the patronage of the Branicki family and the development of the textile industry. Due to the city's palace, parks and edifices, Białystok was dubbed the "Versailles of Podlachia". At that time, Polish kings traveling through Podlachia mainly resided in Białystok, i.e. Augustus II the Strong in 1726 and 1729 and Augustus III of Poland in 1744, 1752 and 1755. The School of Civil and Military Engineering, Poland's first military technical college, and Komedialnia, one of the oldest theaters in Poland, were founded in Białystok in 1745 and 1748, respectively. Białystok was a regional brewing center with 33 breweries as of 1771, with the Podlachian Beer now listed as a protected traditional beverage by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Poland.

In 1733, during the War of the Polish Succession, supporters of Augustus III retreated from Warsaw to Węgrów. In 1767, Jan Klemens Branicki and Wacław Rzewuski protested against the Radom Confederation in Brańsk.

In 1807, by the Treaties of Tilsit, Prussia ceded all of its gains in the second and third partitions, as well as part of the first. Most of this territory, including the western and northern parts of Prussian Podlachia, became part of the Duchy of Warsaw, a Polish client state of the First French Empire, while the east-central part including Białystok fell under Russian rule as the Belostok Oblast. The Podlachian territory within the Belostok Oblast corresponded with the Bielsk and Drohiczyn (roughly "counties") and the western part of Belostoksky Uyezd. The small amounts of Podlachian territory in the Duchy of Warsaw lay within the Łomża Department, itself based on the territory of the Prussian Białystok Departement after the removal of the Belostock Oblast. The Habsburg part of Podlachia became part of the Duchy of Warsaw by the 1809 Treaty of Schönbrunn, forming much of the Siedlce Department. Although Prussian and Austrian rule was brief, it has remained administratively divided by the Bug ever since.

In 1842 the Belostok Oblast was dissolved and merged into Grodno Governorate, and the Drohiczyn Uyezd was merged into Bielsk Uyezd. In 1844 the Podlachian Governorate was merged into the Lublin Governorate.

In the second half of the 19th century, Białystok grew into a significant center of the textile industry, the largest after Łódź in then-partitioned Poland. Białystok was the largest industrial center between Warsaw and Łódź in the west, Saint Petersburg in the north and Moscow in the east, and was nicknamed "Manchester of the North".

In the 19th century the region was a stronghold of Polish resistance against Russian rule. The battles of Węgrów and Siemiatycze, both fought in Podlachia in 1863, were among the largest battles of the January Uprising. Stanisław Brzóska, the last partisan of the January Uprising, operated there until 1865. He was hanged publicly by the Russians in Sokołów Podlaski in May 1865. As a result of the uprising, in 1867 Congress Poland was formally absorbed into Russia as the Vistula Land (Privislinsky Krai), although the Kingdom still nominally existed. The Podlachian Governorate was also restored under the name Siedlce Governorate, and the Augustów Governorate was split between the Łomża and Suwałki Governorates; Augustów itself went to Suwałki Governorate while the rest of the Podlachian territory went to the Łomża Governorate.

According to the Russian Imperial Census of 1897, the most spoken languages in the Siedlce Governorate were Polish (66.13%), Yiddish (15.56%) and Ukrainian (13.95%). At the same time the most spoken languages in Bielsk Uyezd were Ukrainian (39.1%), Polish (34.9%), Yiddish (14.9%), Russian (5.9%) and Belarusian (4.9%); those in the Białystok Uyezd were Polish (33.95%), Yiddish (28.34%), Belarusian (26.13%), Russian (6.68%) and German (3.59%).

In 1912 Siedlce Governorate was once again abolished and divided between the Lublin, Łomża and Kholm Governorates, with all three gaining some parts of the former Podlachia; Kholm Governorate was also removed administratively from the Vistula Land, instead being made part of the Kiev General Governorate.

In the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Revolution, parts of the region, particularly Białystok, were contested by several states but ultimately became part of the Second Polish Republic following the Polish–Soviet War. During the interwar period the northern part fell entirely within the Białystok Voivodeship while the southern part belonged to the Lublin Voivodeship; the April 1938 reforms transferred Węgrów and Sokołów from Lublin to the Warsaw Voivodeship.

Under German occupation, the population was subjected to mass arrests, executions and deportations to forced labour, concentration camps and Nazi ghettos, whereas under Soviet occupation the population was subjected to mass arrests, executions, deportations to Gulag in Siberia, Central Asia and the Far North. Sites of German massacres of either Polish or Jewish civilians include Mień, Olszewo (also Polish prisoners of war), Moskwin, Grabarka, Białystok, Tykocin, Rajsk, Paulinów, Krasowo-Częstki, Wnory-Wandy, Jabłoń-Dobki (see Nazi crimes against the Polish nation). Choroszcz was the site of a massacre of hundreds of patients of a psychiatric hospital as part of Aktion T4. German forces also committed crimes against Italian and French POWs at subcamps of the Stalag 366 POW camp with executions and massacres of Italians and French in Międzyrzec Podlaski and Hola, respectively, with the Italians also subjected to mass starvation, epidemics, beatings and killings at Biała Podlaska. Many Poles from Podlachia were among the victims of the Soviet-perpetrated Katyn massacre.

The region once again returned to Polish control in 1945.

In 1999 the modern Podlaskie Voivodeship was established which encompasses the northern part of historic Podlachia, including Białystok and Drohiczyn, as well as surrounding areas, including Łomża and Suwałki. Its southern border lies along the Bug.

Orthodox autochthonous inhabitants are known as Khokhol (without any negative connotations, though today in Ukraine it is known as an ethnic slur for Ukrainians). According to Mykhailo Lesiv, this name appeared after it was used to denote locals in the Russian Imperial Army. Many scientific researches prove that the orthodox population in Podlachia have Ukrainian origin (19th century censuses, historical and linguistic researches), though today the number of people with the Ukrainian identity is very small.

Until the 19th century, Podlachia was populated by the Polish-speaking yeomanry ( drobna szlachta), (primarily in towns), and Ruthenians Greek-Catholics speaking a dialect related to modern Ukrainian – the so-called Khakhlak ( Chachlak) dialect, which derived its name from a derogatory term for Ukrainians ( khakhol or khokhol being the name of the traditional haircut of Ukrainian Cossacks).

In the 19th century, the inhabitants of Podlachia were under the rule of the Imperial Russia, with southern Podlachia constituting a part of Russian-controlled Congress Poland. After 1831, Russian authorities forbade the Greek-Catholic faith in northern Podlachia and it disappeared from the area. In 1875, Russians forbade this rite in the southern portion as well, and all Greek-Catholic inhabitants were forced to accept the Eastern Orthodox faith. However, the resistance of the local people was surprisingly strong and Ruthenian speakers from this area rejected the separation from the Pope. In 1874, blessed Wincenty Lewoniuk and 12 companions were killed by Russian soldiers in Pratulin. In reaction to these measures, the Ruthenians of southern Podlachia began to identify themselves with the national movement of the Roman Catholic Poles. To preserve the full communion with the Pope, they changed their rite from Eastern to Latin before the compulsory conversion of Greek Catholics into Orthodox. In 1912, Russian authorities issued a tolerance edict that made it possible to change confession from Orthodox to Roman Catholic (but not to Greek-Catholic, which had been completely deleted). A majority of the inhabitants of southern Podlachia changed their faith from Orthodox to Roman Catholic. At present, very few people in this area speak Ruthenian and nearly all consider themselves Poles. Meanwhile, the eastern part of northern Podlachia is still populated by Belarusians.

Podlachia is also the cultural center of Poland's small Lipka Tatars minority as well. After the annexation of Kresy into the Soviet Union following World War II, Poland was left with only two Tatar villages, Bohoniki and Kruszyniany (both outside the historical borders of Podlachia). Some Tatars from the territories annexed to the USSR have been repatriated to Poland and clustered in cities, particularly Białystok. In 1925 the Muslim Religious Union (Muzułmański Związek Religijny) was formed in Białystok. In 1992, the Union of Tatars of the Republic of Poland (Związek Tatarów Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej) with autonomous branches in Białystok and Gdańsk began operating.

Since the locals are known as Khokhol, the local language is also called Khakhlatska mova (, "khokhols' language"). S. Zhelekhov wrote in 1884 that the people call their language "Polesian, but those, who were in the army (in the soldiers) call it Khakhlatska".

• Górczyk, Wojciech Jerzy (2020), The Former Reformati Order’s Monasteries Route Węgrów.
• Górczyk, Wojciech Jerzy (2018), Reformaci w Węgrowie. Architektura kościoła i miejsce fundacji węgrowskiej na tle działalności fundacyjnej Krasińskich Drohiczyński Przeglad Naukowy. Drohiczyńskie Towarzystwo Naukowe: 307–326.

• Journey in Wooden Podlachia