[citation needed] It was located in the Pinsk County in the Brześć Litewski Voivodeship of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth until the Third Partition of Poland in 1795, when it was annexed by Russia.

At the time the town was also known as Drohiczyn Poleski, after the region of Polesie within which it is located, in order to distinguish it from the more historically significant town of Drohiczyn in Podlachia.

Following the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939, the town was first occupied by the Soviet Union until 1941, and then by Nazi Germany until 1944.

The German occupiers established and operated a Nazi prison, a forced labour battalion for Jews,[2][3] and the Drahichyn Ghetto for local Jews during the Holocaust.

In 1944 it was re-occupied by the Soviet Union, which eventually annexed it from Poland in 1945.