The Berezhany Castle round which the modern town of Berezhany

Berezhany

Berezhany is a city located in the Ternopil Oblast of western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Berezhanskyi Raion , and rests about 100 km from Lviv and 50 km from the oblast capital, Ternopil. The city has a population of about 20,000, and is about 400 m above sea level...

 has sprung up, was built on an island in the Zolota Lypa River

Zolota Lypa River

Zolota Lypa is a river in western Ukraine. It flows through Berezhany district, forming the large Berezhany lake north of Berezhany. It is a left tributary of Dniester, belonging to the Black Sea basin....

 in the 1530s and 1540s by Mikołaj Sieniawski as the main residence of the Sieniawski magnate family.

In 1630, the castle's fortifications were expanded. It was so well fortified that neither Khmelnitsky

Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine

Khmelnytskyi is a city in Ukraine in the region of Podillia. It is located on the Southern Buh River and about from the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. The town's original name was Płoskirów, later Proskurov, but in 1954 was renamed Khmelnytskyi. It is the center of the Khmelnytskyi Oblast in western...

's Cossacks (in 1648 and 1648) nor the Turks

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 (in 1675) succeeded in taking it. In 1655, it was surrendered to the Swedes without a fight. The local Jewish community

Shtetl

A shtetl was typically a small town with a large Jewish population in Central and Eastern Europe until The Holocaust. Shtetls were mainly found in the areas which constituted the 19th century Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire, the Congress Kingdom of Poland, Galicia and Romania...

 was made responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the walls in 1667.

After Maria Zofia Sieniawska

Maria Zofia Sieniawska

Countess Maria Zofia Czartoryska née Sieniawska was a Polish szlachcianka .She married Stanisław Donhoff in 1724. After her father's death in 1726 Maria Zofia inherited his Ruthenian estates including 35 towns, 235 villages and Berezhany fortress, she was also the only inheritor of her husband's...

's marriage to August Aleksander Czartoryski

August Aleksander Czartoryski

Prince August Aleksander Czartoryski was a Polish-Lithuanian noble , magnate, and founder of the family fortune.August became Major-General of the Polish Army in 1729, voivode of the Ruthenian Voivodship in 1731, General Starost of Podolia in 1750–1758, and a Knight of Malta...

, the castle passed to the Czartoryski

Czartoryski

Czartoryski is the surname of a Polish-Ukrainian-Lithuanian magnate family also known as the Familia. They used the Czartoryski Coat of arms and were the leading noble family of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 18th century.-History:The Czartoryski is a family of a Grand Ducal...

 family (1726), then to the Princes Lubomirski

Lubomirski

Lubomirski family is a Polish szlachta family. The family used the "Szreniawa without a cross" arms and their motto was: Nil conscire sibi ....

 (1778) and to the Counts Potocki

Potocki

Potocki is the surname of a Polish noble family.-History:The Potocki family is a great artistocratic family originated from Potok in the Kraków Voivodeship; their family name derives from that place name. The family is heavily entwined with the cultural development and history of Poland's Eastern...

 (1816). Those new owners allowed it to fall into such disrepair that in 1908 visitors were cautioned not to enter the castle for fear of being smashed by falling masonry.

The castle was further damaged during the First World War, as was the late Gothic church from 1554 which contains a number of elaborate tombs of the Sieniawskis. The Brzeżany tombs were executed by Jan Pfister and other leading Polish artists of the 16th and 17th centuries.