Chortkiv
Encyclopedia
City
A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...
in the Ternopil oblast
Ternopil Oblast
Ternopil Oblast is an oblast' of Ukraine. Its administrative center is Ternopil, through which flows the Seret River, a tributary of the Dnister.-Geography:...
(province
Oblast
Oblast is a type of administrative division in Slavic countries, including some countries of the former Soviet Union. The word "oblast" is a loanword in English, but it is nevertheless often translated as "area", "zone", "province", or "region"...
) in western Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
. It is the administrative center
Capital City
Capital City was a television show produced by Euston Films which focused on the lives of investment bankers in London living and working on the corporate trading floor for the fictional international bank Shane-Longman....
of the Chortkiv Raion
Chortkiv Raion
Chortkiv Raion is a raion in Ternopil Oblast in western Ukraine. Its administrative center is Chortkiv. It has a population of 80 861.-See also:* Subdivisions of Ukraine* Ternopil Oblast...
(district
Raion
A raion is a type of administrative unit of several post-Soviet countries. The term, which is from French rayon 'honeycomb, department,' describes both a type of a subnational entity and a division of a city, and is commonly translated in English as "district"...
). Population: 29,057 (2001). Located on the Seret River
Seret River
The Seret is a minor river in Ukraine, a tributary of the Tysmenytsia River. The Seret flows through the center of Drohobych, a city located in Lviv Oblast in the west of Ukraine....
, in the northern part of Galician Podilia and is situated in the historic region of Galicia.
History and industries
The first historical mention of Chortkiv dates to 1522, when Polish king Sigismund I the OldSigismund I the Old
Sigismund I of Poland , of the Jagiellon dynasty, reigned as King of Poland and also as the Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1506 until 1548...
granted ownership order for Jerzy Czortkowski over this town and allowed him to name it Czortków (Chortkiv) after himself. The town was also given Magdeburg Law privileges then. Chortkiv declined in the second half of the 17th century, during the Polish-Turkish Wars when the town was taken over by Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
(1673–1683). It was part of the short-lived Turkish Eyalet of Podolia with capital in Kamianets-Podilskyi
Kamianets-Podilskyi
Kamyanets-Podilsky or Kamienets-Podolsky is a city located on the Smotrych River in western Ukraine, to the north-east of Chernivtsi...
which existed in years 1672-1699.
After First Partition of Poland
Partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...
Chortkiv came under Austrian rule (1772–1918) and was the center of the Chortkiv Bezirk
Bezirk
Bezirk means "district" in German and can refer to:* The primary Subdivisions of East Germany from 1952* The districts of Austria* Some of the Districts of Switzerland...
; later it became a county center. On 8 June 1919 the Ukrainian Galician Army
Ukrainian Galician Army
Ukrainian Galician Army , was the Ukrainian military of the West Ukrainian National Republic during and after the Polish-Ukrainian War. -Military equipment:...
broke for couple months through the Polish front at Chortkiv and began the Chortkiv offensive
Chortkiv offensive
The Chortkiv offensive , sometimes also referred to as the June Offensive, was a surprise military operation by the Ukrainian Galician Army in the Polish-Ukrainian War for Eastern Galicia....
. Soon afterwards, the town was seized by the Poles and remained part of the Tarnopol Voivodeship
Tarnopol Voivodeship
Tarnopol Voivodeship was an administrative region of interwar Poland with an area of 16,500 km², 17 counties, and capital in Tarnopol...
of the Second Polish Republic
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
until September 1939.
In 1931 the town had 19,000 inhabitants, 22.8 percent of whom were Ukrainians
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
(Greek Catholics), 46.4 percent Poles
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
(Roman Catholics), and 30 percent Jews. Chortkiv was an important garrison of the Polish Border Defence Corps Brigade "Podole", whose commandant, from 1935 to 1938, was General Stefan Rowecki
Stefan Rowecki
Stefan Paweł Rowecki was a Polish general, journalist and the leader of the Armia Krajowa. He was murdered by the Gestapo in prison, probably on the direct order of Heinrich Himmler.-Life:Rowecki was born in Piotrków Trybunalski...
.
Soviet and Nazi invasions
The town was occupied by the Soviet UnionSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
from September 17 (see: Polish September Campaign), 1939, until June 1941. Its Polish inhabitants, particularly students of the local high school, organized in early 1940 a failed uprising
Czortków Uprising
The Czortków Uprising was a failed attempt by anti-Soviet Poles, most of them teenagers from local high schools, to storm the local Red Army barracks and a prison, in order to release Polish soldiers kept there. It occurred during the night of January 21–22, 1940, in the Soviet-occupied...
, which was the first Polish uprising during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
From 1941-1944 it was annexed to Nazi Germany
General Government
The General Government was an area of Second Republic of Poland under Nazi German rule during World War II; designated as a separate region of the Third Reich between 1939–1945...
. After the defeat of the Nazis by the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
in 1944 it returned to Soviet control until in 1991 it became part of independent Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
. Chortkiv is an administrative, commercial, and small-scale manufacturing center. Today it has some industry: food-processing, garment making, and railway maintenance. Among its architectural monuments are a fortress built in the 16th and 17th centuries and wooden churches of the 17th and 18th centuries. There is also a historical museum.
Jewish history and the Holocaust
Hasidic Judaism
Hasidic Judaism or Hasidism, from the Hebrew —Ḥasidut in Sephardi, Chasidus in Ashkenazi, meaning "piety" , is a branch of Orthodox Judaism that promotes spirituality and joy through the popularisation and internalisation of Jewish mysticism as the fundamental aspects of the Jewish faith...
Jews. It was a notable shtetl
Shtetl
A shtetl was typically a small town with a large Jewish population in Central and Eastern Europe until The Holocaust. Shtetls were mainly found in the areas which constituted the 19th century Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire, the Congress Kingdom of Poland, Galicia and Romania...
and had a significant number of Jews residing there prior to the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
.
Famous people
- Jerzy Czortkowski - founder of Czortków (Chortkiv)
- Leopold Levytskyy (1906–1973) - Ukrainian painter, lived here
- Kateryna Rubchakova (1881–1919) - Ukrainian actress and singer (lyrical soprano), born here
- Karl Emil FranzosKarl Emil FranzosKarl Emil Franzos was a German novelist.Karl Emil Franzos was a popular German author of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. His works, both reportage and fiction, concentrate on the multi-ethnic corner of eastern Europe, now largely in Ukraine, where the Habsburg and Russian empires met...
(1848–1904) - lived there