Dubno Castle is one of the most impregnable, wealthiest and most legendary European castles. Emperors, hetmans and kings visited this aristocratic residence. The defenders of the impregnable fortress repelled enemy raids, and the stronghold never once submitted — not to the Tatars, nor the Cossacks, nor the Swedes.
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| Dubno. The castle. The gatehouse |
The building of the Dubno stronghold dates to 1492, when Prince Kostiantyn Ostrozky raised a stone fortress that protected the residents of Dubno for centuries.
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| The gatehouse. The coat of arms of the Ostrozky princes |
Before it there had stood a wooden hillfort, built in the 10th century, which had lost its fighting strength. The castle was reinforced with bastions and watchtowers.
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| The castle. The northern bastion and the fortress moats |
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| The Beatka Tower, named after Ostrozky's niece, who stepped out onto the bastion before a Tatar onslaught. A cannonball, to which Beata set the fuse, tore away the khan's tent, and the siege of the castle was lifted. |
The defensive structure, about 330 metres long, was linked to the surrounding country by underground passages, through which its inhabitants would move to shelter in case of danger.
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| Dubno. The castle. The fortress walls |
The bastions had a large area, on which a carriage could turn around. The moats, 18 metres wide and 14 metres deep, their walls laid of sandstone and limestone, were filled with the waters of the Ikva.
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| The fortress walls of the fortification |
On the fort's grounds cannonballs and cannon were cast in its own foundry, and the arsenal was constantly renewed.
Attempts to seize the fortress over the course of five centuries stood no chance of success.
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| The castle. The gatehouse |
The castle's owners were eminent aristocrats, and they all loved luxury, amusements and games of chance. In the second half of the 18th century the Lubomirski princes built, on the foundation of the old castle, a new palazzo with ballroom and banquet halls, where noble grandees discussed historic events and made fateful decisions.
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| The Lubomirski Palace |
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| The Lubomirski Palace. The museum |
On the walls of the dancing salon the work of the celebrated Italian master Domenico Merlini has survived — decor with bas-relief depictions of dancing bacchantes and satyrs.
During the annual fairs up to 30 thousand guests would gather in Dubno, and lavish receptions and brilliant balls were arranged for them in the palace.
After the fairs were moved to Novohrad-Volynskyi, and then to Kyiv, the castle gradually lost its grandeur and importance.
The Lubomirskis gambled away the splendid mansion at cards, and its masters changed one after another, until the castle passed into state ownership.
Like every palace, the Dubno one keeps its legends. The tragic tale of the death of the sons of Otaman Taras Bulba, from the novella of the same name by M. V. Gogol, took place by the walls of the Dubno stronghold.
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| The gatehouse and the bridge to it |
Today the structures of the fortification and the palaces of the Lubomirskis and the Ostrozkys are part of the Dubno State Historical and Cultural Reserve.
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| Dubno. The castle. The museum |
A museum is open in the Lubomirski Palace, and various expositions are presented in several halls. There are no attendants in the halls, and a visitor may examine the exhibits on their own. The money collections may not be photographed.
Part of the reserve is under restoration, and the Ostrozky Palace is closed to visitors. The two-storey building of the 16th century can be viewed only from the outside.
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| The castle. The Ostrozky Palace |
In recent years medieval torture chambers with a display of instruments of torture have been opened in the casemates of some castles in Ukraine. At Dubno Castle they outdid them all. Here, as in the museum halls of the palace, there is no attendant, and I descended alone into the gloomy dungeon.
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| The castle. The entrance to the medieval torture chamber |
According to the museum specialists' intent, visiting the cell of life imprisonment and contemplating the rack, the Chair of Moses and the guillotine is meant to stir in people a feeling of mercy and a reckoning with historical realities.
The guillotine was a mass instrument of execution from the days of the French Revolution, beneath whose blade about 15 thousand living souls perished.
The device for stretching the body was used on women and children and was considered a humane means of punishment. A physician was present at the procedure, one who could ease the suffering and set the bones of a criminal who had repented.
Pugachov's rebels were executed by hanging from a rib in Russia. In this manner, which was reckoned ordinary in the Zaporozhian Sich, Ostap, the son of Taras Bulba, was put to death.
Unbearable torments were brought upon victims by the breaking wheel, widely used under Peter I.
I will note that there is no age limit on visiting the torture chambers, and schoolchildren, in large groups one after another, acquaint themselves with the dungeon's collection. Before children visit this ambiguous exhibition, their parents and teachers ought to consider whether, perhaps, other galleries and panopticons might be found for the cultural education of the rising generation.
The address of the architectural monument: Rivne region, the town of Dubno, 7 Zamkova Street.
Coordinates: 50°25'10"N 25°44'52"E
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