Medzybozh Castle

The first ancient fortifications here were erected before the Mongol invasion, but in the middle of the XIII century they were ransacked by the order of the Mongols as well as in the rest of the territory of Podillia.

In 1240, when the city was owned by Prince Galitsky Danil Romanovich, Medzhibozh was captured and destroyed by the Tatars. From the ruins the fortress was restored by its princes wodzimierscy, after which the restoration was completed by the kind of Koryatovichi, to which Olgerd gave these lands.

After the Lithuanians in 1362 recaptured Podillya from the Tatars, in place of the former fortifications a fortified castle was built. In 1540, Hetman Nikolai Seniavsky reconstructed the castle. A new system of fortifications was created, which has reached our times.

The stone castle became part of the Polish Crown in the time of Casimir the Great. As a royal castle in 1366, he was used by Lubart of the Gedeminovich family. Later they were owned by the Polish elders or military commanders, who guarded the borders from the raids of the Tatars. The Horde raided the Podol border zone until the times when in 1507 the Tartar detachments were destroyed by the Castellan of Lviv, Jan Kamenetsky. After this event, the heyday of Mezhibozh came. Beginning in 1648, for several years the castle was in the hands of the Cossacks of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, Khmelnitsky himself often visited the castle.

In the fortress history, there is also an episode associated with Prince Gyorgy II Rakoczi, who took refuge in him after the defeat in 1656 from Hetman Stefan Chernetsky. Another episode relates to the Cossack hetman Peter Doroshenko. In 1666, he made an offer to the Turkish sultan under his protectorate to create an independent Ukraine from Ukraine. Then the Poles managed to stand Medzhibozh from the Turkish-Tatar-Cossack siege. After the conclusion of the truce in 1671, when Poland was to give the Turks Kamenets-Podolsky and some of the lands on the left bank of the Dniester for 29 years, the Tatar horde of Khan Mengli II Giray along with Doroshenko's Cossacks took Mezhibozh in the summer of 1672. The Turks, who owned the castle, managed to build a mosque on its territory, and also expanded the castle and designed the appearance of the castle in the oriental style.

The Vienna victory Jan III Sobieski changed the situation on the Polish borders. The Senyavsky family returned to the castle, which inherited Medzhibozh in 1684. Currently, the castle is being reconstructed, the local history museum is located in the service rooms of the castle.