Pinsk Jesuit collegium is situated on a main square of the city (today – Square of Lenin and before 1939 – Commercial Square) – one of not numerous buildings of educational institutions of the Society of Jesus which remained in Belarus.

Pinsk Jesuit collegium is a three-storied hooked in plan building. Planning of the ground floor is gallery-corridor. Here there were classes, dining room, office accommodation. First and second floors are planed according to corridor system with three-bay scheme of coverings. Thickness of walls in lower flours is one and a half - two metres. Here there were dwelling and work rooms. There are dungeons under the building. The collegium, a former Catholic educational institution, was built in the middle of the XVII century on funds of a Pinsk head of the prince Albrecht Stanislau Radzivil. An architectural decision in terms of which the collegium was built is the Baroque taste connected with traits of Renaissance. It was a typical tendency for Belarusian architecture as a whole. Theological disciplines, foreign languages, literature, logic, history, geography, physics were taught in the collegium. Also a musical bursa (a musical boarding school), a printing office, a library, a hospital for poor, a chemist’s shop were working attached to the educational institution. After prohibition on the Society of Jesus by the Pope in 1773 the building of the Jesuit collegium was handed over members of Uniat Church and after the joining of Pinsk to Russia – to Orthodox believers. At the beginning of the XX century the building was returned to Catholic Church but not for long. During the Second World War the building of the collegium was noticeably damaged. During the Soviet time the building was being used for administrative, public institutions, cultural institutions. Its restoration began only in 1980. Archival documents and historical investigations allowed renewing original state of this architectural monument. Today there is Museum of Belarusian Paliesye and a choreography school in the building of the collegium.

Publication date: 08.08.2017.

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