In the 12th and 13th centuries Vitebsk was the capital of the Principality of Vitebsk, an appanage principality which thrived at the crossroads of the river routes among the Baltic and Black seas.
In 1919, Vitebsk was proclaimed to be part of the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia, but was soon transferred to the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and later to the short-lived Lithuanian-Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.