Dubno

Dubno is one of the oldest towns in Rivne Oblast. The first written mention of it dates back to 1100. Since the late 14th century, the rural settlement of Dubno belonged to the Ostrogski princely family. In 1498, at the request of Prince Konstanty Ostrogski, the owner of Dubno, Grand Duke Aleksander of Lithuania granted the town free settlement privileges. At that time, the castle was modernised and its wooden structure was replaced by a masonry one. According to the 1616 register, the castle had the largest treasury in the entire estate of the Ostrogski princes – an irresistible lure for enemy armies. In the first half of the 16th century, Dubno was circumscribed by walls and ramparts and thus trans- formed into a fortress-town. Thanks to these fortifications, it has gone down in history as a town that was never seized during Tatar or Cossacks raids. Even Jews of Dubno called the town Dubna rabbati – the great and mighty Dubno.

In 1774, Dubno became an important trade centre thanks to the establishment of wholesale contract fairs, which were held until 1795. After this date, it had the biggest Jewish community in Volhynia. Profits generated by contracts allowed the owners of the town – Princes Lubomirski – to develop the municipal infrastructure. The town streets were paved, and many stone buildings were erected. The increasing significance of Dubno as a trade and cultural centre made it the largest city in Volhynia in the late 18th and at the beginning of the 19th centuries.

When the wholesale contract fairs were moved to other towns, the economic life of Dubno went into decline. From the second half of the 18th century, it gradually acquired features of a military town due to the 41st Selenginsk Infantry Regiment and the 11th Chuguev Uhlan Regiment that were quartered there. In the late 19th century, a fort was built near Dubno, which became a strategically important Russian military facility on the border with Austria-Hungary