[1] It was first mentioned in the 16th century as the village of Yelnya in the Novogrudok povet of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

In 1733, Count Antoni Tyzenhauz, a political and public figure of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, one of the most talented financiers of his time, was born here.

As a result of the third partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1795), Yelnya became part of the Russian Empire, in the Novogrudsky Uyezd.

In 1939, as part of the BSSR, since 1945 - an urban settlement, until 1954 it was the center of the Dyatlovsky district.

[3] A mass grave was discovered during the construction of a warehouse for a flax export base, and on June 25, 2005, a monument to the victims of the Jewish genocide was erected at this site.