In 1465 Casimir Jagiellon gave Rakaw as a gift to the chancellor of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Mykolas Kęsgaila.

In 1794, Russian Empress Catherine the Great seized Rakaw from the Sanguszko family and gave it to General Saltykov, who, however, sold it to Wawrzyniec Zdziechowski in 1804.

[4] After the unsuccessful Polish January Uprising, the stone castle was turned into an Orthodox church, which still exists to this day.

This period marked a time of prosperity for Rakaw: in 1843, they opened factories to produce agricultural machines.

In 1915, the local citizen Nevah-Girsha Haimov Pozdnyakov organized automobile shipping between Rakaw and Zaslawye, a nearby town.

[5] During the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland at the start of World War II, launched in accordance to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, on 17 September 1939, it was the site of fierce Polish defense against the much more numerous Soviet invaders.

[7] Princess Drucka-Lubecka, wife of Polish colonel Konstanty Drucki-Lubecki, who himself was murdered in the Katyn massacre, took refuge in the town, and was aided by the local population.

[9] The Polish resistance movement was active, including the Związek Młodych Orląt organization and the Home Army.