Editing Smolensk (section)

=== Modern history ===
[[File:Battle of Smolensk on 18 August 1812.jpg|thumb|left|French and Polish soldiers assault the burning city of Smolensk, 1812.]]
Smolensk has been a special place to Russians for many reasons, not least for the fact that the local [[Assumption Cathedral in Smolensk|cathedral]] housed one of the most venerated [[Russian Orthodox Church|Orthodox]] icons, attributed to [[Luke the Evangelist|St.&nbsp;Luke]]. Building the new Cathedral of the Assumption was a great project which took more than a century to complete. Despite slowly sinking into an economic backwater, Smolensk was still valued by the Tsars as a key fortress defending the route to [[Moscow]]. It was made the seat of [[Smolensk Governorate]] in 1708.

In August 1812, two of the largest [[Grande Armée|armies]] ever assembled clashed in Smolensk. During the [[Battle of Smolensk (1812)|hard-fought battle]], described by [[Leo Tolstoy]] in ''[[War and Peace]]'' (Book Three Part Two Chapter 4), [[Napoleon I|Napoleon]] entered the city. Total losses were estimated at 30,000 men. Apart from other military monuments, central Smolensk features the Eagles monument, unveiled in 1912 to mark the centenary of [[French invasion of Russia|Napoleon's Russian campaign]].

[[File:Smolensk 1912.jpg|thumb|View of Smolensk in 1912. Early colour photograph by [[Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky|Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii]]]]
At the beginning of [[World War I]], the 56th Smolensk Infantry Division was first assigned to the [[1st Army (Russian Empire)|First Army]] of the [[Imperial Russian Army]]. They fought at the [[Battle of Tannenberg (1914)|Battle of Tannenberg]]. It was subsequently transferred to the [[10th Army (Russian Empire)|10th Army]] and fought at the [[Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes]]. [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk|In March 1918]], the [[Belarusian People's Republic]], proclaimed in [[Minsk]] under the German occupation, declared Smolensk part of it. In February–December 1918, Smolensk was home to the headquarters of the Western Front, North-West Oblast Bolshevik Committee and [[Western Oblast (1917–1918)|Western Oblast]] Executive Committee. On 1&nbsp;January 1919, the [[Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic]] was proclaimed in Smolensk,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Marples|first1=D.|title=Belarus: From Soviet Rule to Nuclear Catastrophe|date=2016|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-0-230-37831-5|page=11|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=evVZCwAAQBAJ&q=1+january+1919+belorussian+soviet+republic+smolensk|access-date=4 December 2020|archive-date=22 March 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230322152348/https://books.google.com/books?id=evVZCwAAQBAJ&q=1+january+1919+belorussian+soviet+republic+smolensk|url-status=live}}</ref> but its government moved to Minsk as soon as the German forces had been driven out of the city several days later.