Charles XII took it in 1706 , and burned the town with its suburbs . In spite of all the wars the city recovered and the town developed with the existence of a printing workshop in Pinsk from 1729 to 1744 . Pinsk fell to the Russian Empire in 1793 in the Second Partition of Poland . It was an uyezd center in Minsk Governorate except brief occupation by Napoleon in 1812 . Pinsk was occupied by the German Empire on 15 September 1915 during the First World War . After the German defeat , Pinsk became the subject of dispute between the short-lived Belarusian People 's Republic and Ukrainian People 's Republic . Pinsk was taken over by the advancing Red Army on 25 January 1919 during the Soviet westward offensive of 1918 – 19 . It was retaken by the Polish troops on 5 March 1919 during the Polish – Soviet War , than regained by the Red Army on 23 July 1920 , and finally taken over by Polish Army on 26 September 1920 . Pińsk became part of the reborn sovereign Poland in 1920 at the time when the Polish-Soviet War was coming to an end with the Peace of Riga signed in March 1921 . Like many cities in Eastern Europe , Pinsk had a significant Jewish population before World War II and the Holocaust . According to the Russian census of 1897 , out of the total number of 28,400 inhabitants , Jews constituted approximately 74 percent of the population ( or 21,100 persons ) , making it one of the most Jewish cities under the Tsarist rule . During the Polish-Soviet War of liberation , in April 1919 , thirty-five Jews from Pinsk were executed by the Polish Army under the charge of being the Bolshevik collaborators who fired at the Polish soldiers . The incident , known as the Pinsk massacre , created a diplomatic crisis noted at the Versailles Conference
Pinsk massacre
Pinsk massacre
Pinsk