Dzyatlava

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Dzyatlava (Belarusian: Дзятлава, Russian: Дятлово, Dyatlovo, Lithuanian: Zietela, Polish: Zdzięcioł, Yiddish: זשעטל Zhetl) is a town in Belarus in the Hrodna voblast, about 165 km southeast of Hrodna. It is a railway station on the line between Baranavičy and Lida. The population is 8,900 (1995).

Dzyatlovo was first referenced in documents from 1498, when it was granted to Prince Konstantin Ostrogski, who later built a wooden castle there. In the 17th century the settlement was owned by Lew Sapieha, who ordered a Catholic church to be erected on the main city square. The church was consecrated in 1646, renovated after a fire in 1743 and still stands (photographs). In January 1708 Peter I of Russia visited Dzyatlava during the Great Northern War and stayed there for a week. In the 18th century, the town was owned by Stanislaw Soltyk, who built a Baroque residence for himself in 1751.

Until World War II, the population was predominantly Jewish. The old Jewish cemetery is considered a minor landmark. About 1500 Jews were killed near the town during the Dzyatlava massacre in 1942.

1 Lithuanian heritage
2 People
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Lithuanian heritage

Environs of Dzyatlava had been known by linguists as the outermost indigenous Lithuanian speaking "island" apart from the contiguous Lithuanian language territory. The Lithuanian-speakers spoke a unique dialect, known as "Zietela dialect"; it has been speculated that the ancestors of its speakers might have been Lituanized Jotvingians. It drew the attention by many prominent linguists, such as Christian Schweigaard Stang, Vladimir Toporov, Kazimieras Būga and Juozas Balčikonis. In 1886, 1156 people in nearby villages signed as Lithuanians, however the real number might have been much greater.^[1] Until WW2 it was a Lithuanian minority in surrounding villages. Only one woman (Kotryna Žukelytė-Jodienė) identified herself as Lithuanian in 1959 and at present the Lithuanian population is virtually extinct. The Vocabulary of Zietela Dialect has been published in Lithuania.