Lutsk

Castle gate

St. Peter and Paul Cathedral

Great Synagogue in Lutsk

Holy Trinity Cathedral

Lutheran church

Lutsk Old Town

In 1432 Volhynia became a fief of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and Lutsk became the seat of the governors, and later the Marshalls of the Land of Volhynia. That same year, the city was granted Magdeburg rights. In 1569 Volhynia was fully incorporated into the Polish kingdom and the town became the capital of the Volhynian Voivodeship and the Łuck powiat (Polish administrative unit). After the Union of Lublin the local Orthodox bishop converted to Eastern Catholicism.

The town continued to prosper as an important economic centre of the region. By the mid-17th century Łuck had approximately 50,000 inhabitants and was one of the largest towns in the area. During the Khmelnytskyi Uprising the town was seized by the forces of Colonel Kolodko. Up to 4,000 people were slaughtered, approximately 35,000 fled, and the town was looted and partially burnt. It never fully recovered. In 1781 the city was struck by a fire which destroyed 440 houses, both cathedrals, and several other churches.

In 1795, as a result of the Partitions of Poland, the Russian Empire annexed Lutsk. The Voivodeship was liquidated and the town lost its significance as the capital of the province (which was moved to Zhytomyr). After the November Uprising (1830–1831) efforts increased to remove Polish influence and Russian became the dominant language in official circles, though the population continued to speak Ukrainian, the Polish population Polish, and the Jewish population Yiddish, if only in private circles. The Greek Catholic churches were turned into Orthodox Christian ones, which led to the self-liquidation of the Uniates here. In 1845 another great fire struck the city, resulting in a further depopulation.

In 1850 three major forts were built around Lutsk, and the town became a small fortress called Mikhailogorod. During the First World War the town was seized by Austria-Hungary on August 29, 1915. The town sustained a small amount of damage. During more than a year of Austro-Hungarian occupation Lutsk became an important military centre with the headquarters of the IV Army under Archduke Josef Ferdinand stationed there. A plague of epidemic typhus decimated the city's inhabitants.

On June 4, 1916 four Russian armies under general Aleksei Brusilov started what later became known as the Brusilov Offensive. After up to three days of heavy artillery barrage, the Battle of Lutsk began. On June 7, 1916 the Russian forces reconquered the city. After the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1917, the city was seized by Germany on February 7, 1918. On February 22, 1918 the town was transferred by the withdrawing German army to the forces loyal to Symon Petlura.

During the Polish-Bolshevik War, on May 16, 1919 Lutsk was taken over by the forces of Poland's Blue Army after a heavy battle with the Red Army. The city was devastated and largely depopulated. It witnessed the Soviet counter-offensive of 1920 and was taken on 12 July 1920. It was recaptured by Poland's 45th Rifles regiment and field artillery on September 15, 1920.[2] According to American sociologist Alexander Gella "the Polish victory [over the Red Army] had gained twenty years of independence not only for Poland, but at least for an entire central part of Europe.[3] Łuck was designated by the newly-reborn nation of Poland as the capital of the Wołyń Voivodeship.

The city was connected by railroad to Lviv (then Lwów) and Przemyśl. Several brand new factories were built both in Łuck and on its outskirts producing farming equipment, wood, and leather products among other consumer goods. New mills and breweries opened. An orphanage was built, and a big new bursary. The first high-school was soon inaugurated. In 1937, an airport was established in Łuck with an area of 69 hectares (170 acres).[2] The 13th Kresowy Light Artillery Regiment was stationed in the city, together with a Łuck National Defense (Poland) Battalion. In 1938, construction of a large modern radio transmitter began in the city (see Polish Radio Łuck). As of January 1, 1939 Łuck had 39,000 inhabitants (approximately 17,500 Jews and 13,500 Poles). The powiat formed around the town had 316,970 inhabitants, including 59% Ukrainians, 19.5% Poles, 14% Jews and approximately 23,000 Czechs and Germans.

On Thursday, September 7, 1939 at app. 5 p.m., the Polish government, which had left Warsaw the day before, arrived at Łuck. German intelligence quickly found out about it, and the city was twice bombed by the Luftwaffe: on Sept. 11, and Sept. 14. After panzer units of the Wehrmacht had crossed the Bug river, on September 14, the government of Poland left Łuck and headed southwards, to Kosow Huculski, which at that time was located near the Polish–Romanian border.

As a result of the invasion of Poland from both sides and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Łuck, along with the rest of western Volyn, was annexed by the Soviet Union. Most of the factories (including the almost-finished radio station) were dismantled and sent east to Russia. Approximately 10,000 of the city's Polish inhabitants (chiefly ethnic Poles, but also Polish Jews) were deported in cattle trucks to Kazakhstan and 1,550 were arrested by the NKVD.[4][5]

After the start of Operation Barbarossa the city was captured by the Wehrmacht on 25 June 1941, but not before thousands of Polish and Ukrainian prisoners were shot by the retreating NKVD responsible for political prisons. The inmates were offered amnesty and in the morning of June 23 ordered to exit the building en masse. They were gunned down from Soviet tanks.[6] Some 4,000 captives including Poles, Jews and Ukrainians were massacred.[7] Upon Nazi occupation most of the Jewish inhabitants of the city were forced into a new Łuck Ghetto (German: Ghetto Luzk) and then murdered at the execution site on Górka Połonka hill not far from the city.[8] In total, more than 25,000 Jews were executed there at point-blank range,[9] men, women and children.[10] The Łuck Ghetto was liquidated entirely through the Holocaust by bullets.[11] During the massacres of Poles in Volhynia approximately 10,000 Poles were murdered by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in the area. It was captured by the Red Army on 2 February 1944.

Following the end of the war the remaining Polish inhabitants of the city were expelled, mostly to the areas sometimes referred to as the Polish Regained Territories. The city became an industrial centre in the Ukrainian SSR. The major changes in the city's demographics had the final result that by the end of the war the city was almost entirely Ukrainian. During the Cold War, the city hosted the Lutsk air base.

As one of the largest cities in Western Ukraine, Lutsk became the seat of a General Consulate of Poland in 2003.[12]

On 21 July 2020, a hostage crisis took place, involving a man armed with a firearm and explosives who stormed a bus and took 16 people hostage at about 9:25 a.m. Police said they identified the hostage-taker and that he had expressed a dissatisfaction with "Ukraine's system" on social media. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that shots were heard and the bus had been damaged. The incident led to police blocking off the city centre. The standoff was eventually resolved after several hours, with all of the hostages being freed and the hostage-taker being arrested.[13][14][15]