Lyepyel Лепель | |
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 Flag  Coat of arms | |
  Lyepyel | |
| Coordinates:54°52′30″N28°41′40″E / 54.87500°N 28.69444°E /54.87500; 28.69444 | |
| Country | Belarus |
| Region | Vitebsk Region |
| District | Lyepyel District |
| First mentioned | 1439 |
| Population (2025)[1] | |
• Total | 16,895 |
| Time zone | UTC+3 (MSK) |
| Postal code | 211174 |
| Area code | +375 2132 |
| License plate | 2 |
| Website | http://lepel.vitebsk-region.gov.by/ |
Lyepyel orLepel[a] is a town inVitebsk Region,Belarus, located nearLyepyel Lake on theVula River. It serves as the administrative center ofLyepyel District. Its population in the 1998 census was 19,400. As of 2025, it has a population of 16,895.[1]
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There are three theories about the origin of the nameLepel. The first is that the name 'Lepel' come from the word "lepene" which means "lake between the lime-groves". The second is that the name comes from the Belarusian word "лепей" meaning "the best place to live in". The third theory for the nameLepel is that it derives from the Belarusian word "ляпiць" meaning "well-developed pottery".[2]
The first known mention of Lepel dates back to 1439. In the 15th century, the town belonged to theGrand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1439, thanks to efforts of a Roman Catholic priest, Kucharski, Grand Lithuanian DukeSigismund Kestutaitis' son Michael gave Lepel to theVitebsk Roman Catholic church. In 1503, it the donation was confirmed by KingAlexander Jagiellon.[3] In 1541 KingSigismund I the Old included the possessions of the Vitebsk Catholic parish, including Lepel, into theDiocese of Wilno with the approval of the Pope.[3]
AfterPolatsk was captured by theMuscovite army in 1563, the Diocese of Wilno was no longer able to protect its property from Muscovite attacks.[3] The decision was made to donate Lepel to KingSigismund II Augustus on the erroneous assumption that the king would return the gift by awarding the diocese with other property of the same value. Instead, the king gave the property by way of life tenure to Yury Zenovich, thecastellan ofSmolensk. After Yury Zenovich died, Sigismund gave the town to voivode of Połock Mikołaj Dorohostajski.[3] After the liberation of Polatsk from Russian occupation, Lepel returned to Polish KingStephen Báthory, who restored it to the Diocese of Wilno.[3] Within thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth it was administratively located in thePołock Voivodeship.
It remained difficult for the diocese to protect Lepel from foreign invasions and thus the decision was made in 1586 to sell it toLew Sapieha, a leading politician.[3] Sapieha eventually donated Lepel in 1609 toBernardine nuns inVilnius (Wilno) who lived next to St. Michael's Church, a donation confirmed in 1617.[4]
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The town was annexed byRussia in theSecond Partition of Poland in 1793. In 1802 Lepel became a county seat of theVitebsk Governorate. The town suffered greatly in the 1812French invasion of Russia due to the passing troops razing many buildings to the ground. On 9 September 1852 Lepel was awarded its own coat of arms. PoetJan Czeczot, friend ofAdam Mickiewicz, worked as an engineer on theBerezina Canal in Lepel between 1833 and 1839. In 1880, the population of Lepel consisted of 5,284 people, including 2,458 Jews, 2,281 Orthodox, and 536 Roman Catholics.
By 1913 Lepel had lost its strategic and economic importance and was a quiet regional town center.
On November 10, 1919 in the neighbourhood of Lepel there was a clash between the company of the13th Infantry Regiment of the Polish Army sitting in an ambush and the Soviet troops advancing into the region. The fighting was successful for the Poles though their commanding officer, lieutenant Stanisław Jacheć, was the only Polish victim of the clash. Heavy fighting between the Bolshevik troops and the Polish Army's 30th regiment of the Rifles of Kaniów of the XX brigade continued through November 1919 and the Polish-Soviet frontline was established there until spring 1920.
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The headquarters of the Soviet11th Army was based in Lepel shortly before the Sovietinvasion of Poland at the start ofWorld War II in September 1939.[5] The 11th Army attacked towards the southernWilno Region andGrodno.[5]
On 22 June 1941,Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, began. Lepiel was captured by the rapidly advancing German troops on 3 July. While the Lepel's Jewish population had once been as high as 3,379 (53.7%) in 1897,[6] by 1941 this had dwindled to only 1,919, or 13.6 percent of the townspeople. The German occupation authorities created aghetto and appointed a Jewish elder. On February 28, 1942, almost all of the 1,000 residents remaining in the ghetto were shot[6] by anEinsatzgruppe. The Germans also operated a Nazi prison and briefly the AGSSt 8 assembly center forSoviet prisoners of war in the town.[7][8] DuringOperation Bagration, the summer 1944 Soviet strategic offensive in Belarus, Lepiel was liberated on 3 July.[9]
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Lepel has:
Lepel is situated on a highway connectingMinsk andVitebsk, and is 115 km from Vitebsk and 155 km from Minsk. The town is connected by road toPolatsk and by rail toOrsha.
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