Editing Vyazma (section)

== History ==

=== Medieval history and monuments ===
Vyazma was first mentioned in a chronicle under the year of 1230,<ref name="gr">{{cite book|title=Энциклопедия Города России|year=2003|publisher=Большая Российская Энциклопедия|location=Moscow|isbn=5-7107-7399-9|pages=99}}</ref> although it is believed to be much older than that. The town was named after the river, whose name was from Russian word "{{lang|ru|вязь}}" (''vyaz'''), meaning "bog" or "swamp".<ref name="Pospelov">Е. М. Поспелов. "Географические названия мира". Москва, 1998, стр.&nbsp;108.</ref> At the time, the town belonged to a lateral branch of the [[Rurik dynasty|Rurikid]] House of Smolensk, and carried on a lively trade with [[Narva]] on the [[Gulf of Finland]].<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Vyazma|volume=28|page=222}}</ref> In 1403, the local princes were expelled by [[Lithuania]]ns to Moscow, where they took the name of Princes Vyazemsky. The most notable among them were [[Pyotr Vyazemsky]], an intimate friend of the poet [[Alexander Pushkin]] and a poet himself, and [[Sophie Viazemski]], a French writer, for a time married to [[Jean-Luc Godard]].

In 1494, Vyazma was captured by the [[Grand Duchy of Moscow]] and turned into a fortress, of which but a single tower remains. Two important abbeys were embellished with stone churches, including a rare three-[[tented roof|tented church]] dedicated to Our Lady of Smolensk ([[Hodegetria]]) and consecrated in 1638 after Polish occupation between 1611 and 1634. A [[barbican]] church of the same abbey dates back to 1656, and the town's cathedral was completed by 1676. Other churches are designed mostly in [[baroque]] style.
[[File:Spasskaya tower Vyazma2.JPG|thumb|left|Spasskaya tower is the only tower left of the medieval Vyazma Kremlin.]]
[[File:Вязьма, Церковь Одигитрии.JPG|thumb|left|[[Hodegetria]] church is one of three major three-tented churches in the world, the other two being in [[Uglich]] and [[Moscow]].]]

===Napoleonic wars===
{{Main|Battle of Vyazma}}
[[File:Vazma-DSC 0675.JPG|thumb|left|Vyazma monument commemorating the Russian victory over Napoleon.]]
[[File:Наполеон пастернак.jpeg|thumb|An illustration by [[Leonid Pasternak]] for [[War and Peace]], showing Napoleon near Vyazma]]

During the [[French invasion of Russia]] in 1812, there was a battle between the retreating French army (up to 37,000 troops) and the Russian army (25,000 men) near Vyazma on October&nbsp;22, 1812. The vanguard of the Russian army under the command of Lieutenant General [[Mikhail Miloradovich]] and a [[Cossacks|Cossack]] unit of General [[Matvey Platov]] (coordinated by Miloradovich) attacked the rearguard corps of Marshal [[Louis-Nicolas Davout]] east of Vyazma and cut off his retreat. Owing to the intervention of [[Eugène de Beauharnais]] and [[Józef Poniatowski]], Davout managed to break through the Russian army's encirclement.

However, the French army's attempts to hold the heights near Vyazma and the town itself were unsuccessful. By the evening of October&nbsp;22, Russians seized Vyazma, which had been set on fire by the French. The French lost 6,000&nbsp;men during the battle; 2,500&nbsp;soldiers were taken [[prisoner of war|prisoners]]. The Russians lost around 2,000&nbsp;men.
[[File:Открытка начала века, дом 17 первый за Никитской церковью на улице Ленина (Московской).jpg|thumb|Vyazma in 1910]]

===World War II===
In 1941, during [[World War II]], Vyazma was the scene of a battle of [[encirclement]]. The Soviet [[16th Army (Soviet Union)|16th]], [[19th Army (Soviet Union)|19th]], [[20th Army (Soviet Union)|20th]] and [[24th Army (Soviet Union)|24th]] armies were surrounded West of the town by the [[German Third Panzer Army|Third]] and [[Fourth Panzer Army|Fourth]] Panzer Armies.

Vyazma was occupied by German forces between 7 October 1941 and 12 March 1943. In October 1941, 11 Jews were shot in the town and two were hanged. In December 1941, 117 Jews were killed in a mass execution perpetrated by the [[Einsatzgruppe]] B.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.yahadmap.org/#village/vyazma-smolensk-russia.546|title=Vyazma {{!}} Smolensk - YAHAD - IN UNUM}}</ref>

The town was heavily damaged in the fighting, then rebuilt after the war.  U.S. journalist [[Quentin Reynolds]], of ''[[Collier's Weekly]]'', visited Vyazma shortly after the German withdrawal in 1943 and gave an account of the destruction in his book ''The Curtain Rises'' (1944), in which he stated that the town's population was reduced from 60,000 to 716, with only three buildings remaining. The Nazis also established two [[concentration camp]]s in the town, Dulag 184 and Dulag 230. About 80,000 people died there and were buried in mass graves. The victims included Jews, political officers, and POWs.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://jhistory.nfurman.com/shoa/grossman020.htm|title=И.Эренбург, В.Гроссман, ЧЕРНАЯ КНИГА|language=ru}}</ref>

The transfer camp (Dulag No. 184) was established in October 1941 and lasted until March 1943, when the city was liberated by Soviet troops. The camp housed prisoners who had been captured by German soldiers, in particular, conscripted from [[Zubtsovsky District|Zubtsovsky]], [[Rzhevsky District|Rzhevsky]], [[Nelidovsky District|Nelidovsky]] and other districts of the [[Tver Oblast|Tver]] region, natives of the Smolensk and Arkhangelsk regions, who were reported missing, as well as volunteer militias from Moscow. Prisoners were often not fed or given water. In the winter of 1941–1942, the death rate in the camp was up to 300 people per day. According to [[SMERSH]], there are 5,500 people on the list of dead from wounds in the camp. There are 40 (according to other data, 45) ditches measuring 4×100 meters, in an area equal to about four football fields, where, according to various data, 70 to 80,000 people are buried. As of 2009, the graves house gardens, garages of local residents, a machine-building plant and the Vyazemsky meat-processing plant, in the building of which the camp was housed.

In another transit prison in Vyazma (Dulag No. 230) in October 1941, during an inspection conducted by an officer, Abver found 200 Jews and 50 to 60 [[Political commissar|politruks]], a few days later another 40 Jews and 6–8 politruks were found there. They were all shot. In December, 117 Jews were identified and executed at a POW camp in Vyazma.

According to the memoirs of the future Soviet historian, Mikhail Markovich Sheinman, who was in German captivity at the time:

{{Blockquote|In early October 1941, near Vyazma, the sector in which I served was surrounded. We immediately found ourselves in the Germans' rear. On 12 October, I was shot in the leg while attacking. From November 1941 to 12 February 1942, I was in the Vyazma "hospital" for prisoners of war. People were placed in dilapidated buildings without roofs, windows, or doors. Often many of those who went to bed did not wake up – they froze. In Vyazma, exhausted, ragged, barely clad people – Soviet prisoners of war – the Germans drove to unbearably hard work. Few people got into the "hospital" – most of them died in the camp.}}
{{Blockquote|In Vyazma, the hospital was housed in dilapidated, abandoned houses, on the outskirts of the city in the ruins of the oil factory buildings. The cabins were always cold and dark. The wounded lay on the bare floor. There wasn't even straw for bedding. It was not until the end of my stay in Vyazma that bunks were built in the houses, but on them the sick lay without straw, on bare boards. There were no medicines. The lice in the hospital was incredible. I never had a bath in the three and a half months of my stay in Vyazma.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://sivokoz-kuzma.narod.ru/osvencim_sheinman.html |title=Освенцим. Рассказ бывшего военнопленного М. Шейнмана. &#124; Сивокоз Кузьма Захарович. Сайт памяти Auschwitz |language=ru |trans-title=The story of former prisoner of war M. Sheinman; Sivokoz Kuzma Zakharovich. Auschwitz Memorial site}}</ref>}}
In honor of the Soviet defenders, a memorial complex has been erected on the Moscow–Minsk highway outside the city. In 2009, in the vicinity of Vyazma, a memorial named "The Virgin Field" was opened. The burial ground, where tens of thousands of people died in the death camp, is buried in the territory of the existing meat-processing plant, now marked chapel in memory of the dead prisoners of war.