A history of Chernobyl and other Ukrainian towns

[Zbyszek]

Chernobyl, see CZARNOBYL. A small town on the River Pripet in Ukraine. 20 verst from the confluence of the Dnieper, and 120 from Kiev. Inhabitants 6,483 - Orthodox: 2,160, Old Believers: 566, Catholics: 84, 'Israelites': 3683. The castle of the estate, which is the property of Count Wladyslaw Chodkiewicz, is charmingly set on a hill overlooking three rivers. The town lives from river-trade, from fishing, and from growing onions" Polish Geographical dictionary 1880.
This dictionary had a misleading title designed to beat the tsarist censorship. It contains EVERY town and village that had ever belonged to the Polish Commonwealth. The Polish landowners, the Jewish townsfolk, and the Ruthenian peasantry had lived there side by side for centuries.

The dates:

1193 -Chernobyl appears in a charter for the first time, as a hunting-lodge of the Ruthenian Prince Rostislavitch
XIVth cent. Ch. become a crown village within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. A castle for defense against marauding Tartars is built.
1566 - Filon Kmita, a captain of the Royal (Polish) Cavalry, styling himself as Kmita Czarnobylski is granted Ch. 'in perpetuity'.
1703 √ Ch. passed by marriage to Sapieha and then to Chodkiewicz family
1793 √ Ch. is annexed by the Russian empire after the second partition of Poland in 1793.

Chernobyl had a very rich religious story: Jewish (this community formed an absolute majority), Greek Catholic religion practised largely by the Ruthenian peasantry - they were forcibly converted to Russian Orthodoxy by the Tsars. The Dominican church and monastery was founded in 1626 by Lukasz Sapieha, at the height of Counter-Reformation. In those days Chernobyl was clearly a haven of toleration.
There was a group of Old Catholics who opposed the decrees of the Council of Trent, just as the XVIIth cent. saw the arrival of a group of raskolniki or Old Believers from Russia.
They all escaped the worst horrors of Hmyelnitzky's rising of 1648-54 and that of 1768-9. The Dominican monastery was sequestrated by the Tsar authorities in 1832, the church of Raskolniki in 1852.
1915 Ch. is occupied by Germans
1920 Ch. is taken first by the Polish Army, then by the Red Army
1921 Ch. is incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR
1920-33 Ch. experienced mass killings of Stalin's collectivization and Terror-Famine.
1936 - Polish population is deported during the frontier clearances of 1936.
1941-44 Jewish community is killed by the Nazis.
1961 Ch. is chosen as a site of one of the first nuclear power stations
1991 Ch. is within independent Republic of Ukraine.


A Great Soviet Encyclopaedia (about 50 thick volumes) mentions none of these facts. A six line entry talks only of iron foundry, a cheese plant, a ship-repair yard, an artistic workshop, and a medical school.

Etymology: the name of Chernobyl/Czarnobyl is taken from the wormwood plant (artemisia) which flourishes in the surrounding marshes. In the Bible, wormwood is used as a synomym for bitterness and hence the wrath of God:

And there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers and upon the fountains of water. And the name of the star is called Wormwood... And many died of the waters because they were made bitter.
(all facts compiled by the reputed Welsh/reputable European historian)


26 April 1986 √ the GREAT EXPLOSION

Actually, there is a voting for the best Ukarinian town on the Open Board.
Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, I would have voted for Chernobyl, but a day before April 26, 1986.
I know that some people posting here do not look up the other threads so I decided to copy the following information here.
I hope some of you can provide more town stories.