Kremenets

Kremenets (Polish, Krzemieniec), a town of south-west Russia, in the government of Volhynia, 130 m. W. of Zhitomir, and 25 m. E. of Brody railway station (Austrian Galicia). Pop. (1900), 16,534. It is situated in a gorge of the Kremenets Hills. The Jews, who are numerous, carry on a brisk trade in tobacco and grain exported to Galicia and Odessa. The picturesque ruins of an old castle on a crag close by the town are usually known as the castle of Queen Bona, i.e. Bona Sforza (wife of Sigismund I. of Poland); it was built, however, in the 8th or 9th century. The Mongols vainly besieged it in 1241 and 1255. From that time Kremenets was under the dominion alternately of Lithuania and Poland, till 1648, when it was taken by the Zaporogian Cossacks. From 1805 to 1832 its Polish lyceum was the centre of superior instruction for the western provinces of Little Russia; but after the Polish insurrection of 1831 the lyceum was transferred to Kiev, and is now the university of that town.