Polesia in the context of "Dziady"

The early Slavs were an Indo-European peoples and speakers of the Indo-European dialectswho lived during the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages (approximately from the 5th to the 10th centuries AD) in Central, Eastern and Southeast Europe and established the foundations for the Slavic nations through the Slavic states of the Early and High Middle Ages. The Slavs' original homeland is still a matter of debate due to a lack of historical records; however, scholars generally place it in Eastern Europe, with Polesia being the most commonly accepted location.

It is generally agreed that ancient Roman writers referred to the ancestors of Slavs as Venedi. The proto-Slavic term Slav shares roots with Slavic terms for speech, word, and perhaps was used by early Slavic people themselves to denote other people, who spoke languages similar to theirs. The first written use of the name "Slavs" dates to the 6th century, when the Slavic tribes inhabited a large portion of Central and Eastern Europe. By then, the nomadic Iranian-speaking peoples living in the European Pontic Steppe (the Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, etc.) had been absorbed by the region's Slavic-speaking population. Over the next two centuries, the Slavs expanded westwards (to the Elbe river and in the Alps), and southwards (into the Balkans, absorbing Illyrian and Thracian peoples in the process), and also moved eastwards (in the direction of the Volga River). Between the sixth and seventh centuries, large parts of Europe came to be controlled or occupied by Slavs, a process less understood and documented than that of the Germanic ethnogenesis in the west. Yet the effects of Slavicization were far more profound.

The Right-bank Ukraine is a historical and territorial name for a part of modern Ukraine on the right (west) bank of the Dnieper River, corresponding to the modern-day oblasts of Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Kirovohrad, as well as the western parts of Kyiv and Cherkasy. It was separated from the left bank during the Ruin.

Right-bank Ukraine is bordered by the historical regions of Volhynia and Podolia to the west, Moldavia to the southwest, Yedisan and Zaporizhzhia to the south, left-bank Ukraine to the east, and Polesia to the north.

Pinsk (Belarusian: Пінск; Russian: Пинск, IPA: [pʲinsk]; Polish: Pińsk; Ukrainian: Пінськ; Yiddish: פינסק) is a city in Brest Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Pinsk District, though it is administratively separated from the district. It is located in the historical region of Polesia, at the confluence of the Pina River and the Pripyat River. The region was known as the Pinsk Marshes and is southwest of Minsk. As of 2025, it has a population of 124,008.

The historic city has a restored city centre, with two-storey buildings from the 19th and early 20th centuries. The centre has become an active place for youths of all ages with summer theme parks and an association football stadium, which houses the city's football club, FC Volna Pinsk.

The Polesian Lowland is a lowland in the southwestern portion of the East European Plain in the drainage basins of several rivers including the Dnieper, Pripyat and Desna. It stretches along the Belarus–Ukraine border. It basically defines the historical region of Polesia.

It is politically split into the Belarusian Polesia [be] in the south of Belarus, Ukrainian Polissya [uk] in the north of Ukraine (where Волинське, Рівненське, Житомирське, Київське Полісся are distinguished), the eastern part of the lowland extends into Bryansk Oblast in the Russian Federation, and the western part extends into Poland.
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The Pripet Marshes, or Pripyat Marshes (Belarusian: Прыпяцкія балоты, romanized: Prypiackija baloty), also known as Pinsk Marshes (Belarusian: Пінскія балоты, romanized: Pinskiya baloty), the Polesie Marshes, and the Rokitno Marshes, are a vast natural region of wetlands in Polesia, along the forested basin of the Pripyat River and its tributaries from Brest to the west, Mogilev in the northeast, and Kyiv to the southeast. Most of the region is in Belarus, and part is in Ukraine. The Pripet Marshes are the largest wetland area in Europe.

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrainian: Українська повстанська армія, УПА, romanized: Ukrainska Povstanska Armiia, abbreviated UPA) was a Ukrainian nationalist partisan formation founded by the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) on 14 October 1942. The UPA launched guerrilla warfare against Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and both the Polish Underground State and Polish Communists. The UPA carried out massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, which are recognized by Poland as a genocide. The goal of the OUN was to establish an independent Ukrainian state. This goal, according to the OUN founding declaration, "was to be achieved by a national revolution led by a dictatorship" that would drive out occupying powers and then establish a "government representing all regions and social groups"; OUN accepted violence as a political tool against enemies of their cause. In order to achieve this goal, a number of partisan units were formed, merged into a single structure in the form of the UPA, which was created on 14 October 1942. From February 1943, the organization fought against the Germans in Volhynia and Polesia. At the same time, its forces fought against the Polish resistance, during which the UPA carried out massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, resulting in the deaths of up to 100,000 Polish civilians. In 1944, as the German army was retreating, the UPA continued its war against them by attacking its rear and seizing its equipment, but at the end of July 1944 the UPA formed a united front with Nazi Germany, ceasing attacks on the withdrawing Wehrmacht and defending against the Soviets in exchange for military aid. Soviet NKVD units fought against the UPA, which engaged in armed resistance against Soviets until 1949. On the territory of Communist Poland, the UPA tried to prevent the forced deportation of Ukrainians from western Galicia to the Soviet Union until 1947.

The UPA was a decentralized movement widespread throughout Ukraine, divided into three operational regions; each region followed a somewhat different agenda, given the circumstances of a constantly moving front line and a double threat from both Soviet and Nazi forces. Not all UPA soldiers were members of the OUN or shared OUN's ideology.

The Teteriv (Ukrainian: Тетерiв) is a right tributary of the Dnieper River in Ukraine. It has a length of 365 kilometres (227 mi) and a drainage basin of 15,300 square kilometres (5,900 sq mi).

The Teteriv flows generally in northeastern direction through geographic regions of Podolian Upland, Dnieper Upland, and Polesia. The river starts near a populated place of Nosivky (previously Nosivka) near administrative border with Vinnytsia Oblast at 299 m (981 ft) over the sea level. Flowing through Podolian Upland in some areas it has characteristics of mountainous stream. In the underflow the valley of the Teteriv in Polissia on up to 4 kilometres (2.5 mi), the width of the river widens up to 40-90 meter, before it flows into the Dnieper. The midstream of Teteriv from Zhytomyr to Radomyshl has predominantly rocky banks. Few kilometers east of Radomyshl turns into fully flatland river within Kyiv Oblast. Further east of Ivankiv turns into a swampy wetland. The river drains into the Dnieper in the Kyiv Reservoir just south of the Prypiat river estuary and the Chernobyl exclusion zone.