GRODNO  , a

town of Russia, capital of the government of the same name in 53° 40' N. and 23° 50' E., on the right bank of the Niemen, ,6o m. by rail N.E. of Warsaw and 98 m . S.W. of Vilna on the main line to St Petersburg . Pop . (1901.) 41,736, nearly two-thirds Jews . It is an episcopal see of the Orthodox Greek church and the headquarters of the II . Army Corps . It has two old castles, now converted to other uses, and two churches (16th and 17th centuries) . Tobacco. factories and distilleries are important; machinery, soap, candles, vehicles and firearms are also made . Built in the 12th century, Grodno was almost entirely destroyed by the Mongols (1241) and Teutonic knights (1284 and 1391) . Stephen Bathory, king of Poland, made it his capital, and died there in 1586 . The Polish Estates frequentlymet at Grodno after 1673, and there in 1793 they signed the second partition of Poland . It was at Grodno that Stanislaus Poniatowski resigned the Polish crown in 1795 .