Izmail
Encyclopedia
- For the class of Russian warships, see Izmail class battlecruiser.
Izmail ' onMouseout='HidePop("68074")' href="/topics/Romanization_of_Ukrainian">translit.
Romanization of Ukrainian
The romanization or Latinization of Ukrainian is the representation of the Ukrainian language using Latin letters. Ukrainian is natively written in its own Ukrainian alphabet, a variation of Cyrillic....
Izmayil; Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
and , translit.
Romanization of Russian
Romanization of the Russian alphabet is the process of transliterating the Russian language from the Cyrillic alphabet into the Latin alphabet...
Izmail; ; ; also referred to as Ismail) is a historic town near the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
river in the Odessa Oblast
Odessa Oblast
Odesa Oblast, also written as Odessa Oblast , is the southernmost and largest oblast of south-western Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Odessa.-History:...
(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"...
) of south-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...
. Serving as 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 Izmail Raion (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"...
), the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast.
Izmail is the largest Ukrainian port
Port
A port is a location on a coast or shore containing one or more harbors where ships can dock and transfer people or cargo to or from land....
on the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
. As such, it is a center of the food processing
Food processing
Food processing is the set of methods and techniques used to transform raw ingredients into food or to transform food into other forms for consumption by humans or animals either in the home or by the food processing industry...
industry and a popular regional tourist destination
Tourist destination
A tourist destination is a city, town, or other area that is dependent to a significant extent on the revenues accruing from tourism. It may contain one or more tourist attractions and possibly some "tourist traps."...
. It is also a base of the Ukrainian Navy
Ukrainian Navy
The Ukrainian Naval Forces is the navy of Ukraine and part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It was established in 1992. It consists of 5 branches: surface forces, submarine forces, Navy aviation, coast rocket-artillery and marines...
and the Ukrainian Sea Guard
Ukrainian Sea Guard
Ukrainian Sea Guard is the coast guard service of Ukraine, subordinated to its Border Guard Service.Sea Guard vessels bear the Морська охорона inscription on their boards....
units operating in Danube. The World Wildlife Fund's Isles of Izmail Regional Landscape Park is located nearby.
The current estimated population is around 85,000, with ethnic Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
forming about 42.7% of that total, 38% being 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...
, 10% Bessarabian Bulgarians
Bessarabian Bulgarians
The Bessarabian Bulgarians are a Bulgarian minority group of the historical region of Bessarabia, inhabiting parts of present-day Ukraine and Moldova.- Location and number :-Modern Ukraine:...
, and 4.3% Moldovans
Moldovans
Moldovans or Moldavians are the largest population group of Moldova...
.
History
The fortress of Izmail was built by GenoeseRepublic of Genoa
The Most Serene Republic of Genoa |Ligurian]]: Repúbrica de Zêna) was an independent state from 1005 to 1797 in Liguria on the northwestern Italian coast, as well as Corsica from 1347 to 1768, and numerous other territories throughout the Mediterranean....
merchants in the 12th century. It belonged for a short period of time to Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
(14th century) - as the territory north of the Danube was one of the possessions of the Basarabs (later the land being named after them, Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
). The town was first mentioned with the name Ismailiye, derived from the name of the Ottoman
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...
Grand Vizier Izmail, the adding of initial i being a feature of Ottoman Turkish
Ottoman Turkish language
The Ottoman Turkish language or Ottoman language is the variety of the Turkish language that was used for administrative and literary purposes in the Ottoman Empire. It borrows extensively from Arabic and Persian, and was written in a variant of the Perso-Arabic script...
.
From the end of the 14th century, Izmail was under the rule of Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
. In 1484, the Ottoman state conquered the territory, which became from that moment an Ottoman protectorate (under direct rule from 1538). Since the early 16th century it was the main Ottoman fortress in the Budjak
Budjak
Budjak or Budzhak is a historical region in the Odessa Oblast of Ukraine. Lying along the Black Sea between the Danube and Dniester rivers this multiethnic region was the southern part of Bessarabia...
region. In 1569 Sultan
Ottoman Dynasty
The Ottoman Dynasty ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1299 to 1922, beginning with Osman I , though the dynasty was not proclaimed until Orhan Bey declared himself sultan...
Selim II
Selim II
Selim II Sarkhosh Hashoink , also known as "Selim the Sot " or "Selim the Drunkard"; and as "Sarı Selim" or "Selim the Blond", was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1566 until his death in 1574.-Early years:He was born in Constantinople a son of Suleiman the...
settled Izmail with his Nogai
Nogais
The Nogai people are a Turkic ethnic group in Southern Russia: northern Dagestan and Stavropol Krai, as well as in Karachay-Cherkessia and the Astrakhan Oblast; undefined number live in Chechnya...
subjects, originally from the North Caucasus
North Caucasus
The North Caucasus is the northern part of the Caucasus region between the Black and Caspian Seas and within European Russia. The term is also used as a synonym for the North Caucasus economic region of Russia....
.
After Russian
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
general Nicholas Repnin
Nicholas Repnin
Prince Nikolai Vasilyevich Repnin was an Imperial Russian statesman and general from the Repnin princely family who played a key role in the dissolution of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.- Rule of Poland :...
took the fortress of Izmail in 1770, it was heavily refortified, so as never to be captured again. The Sultan boasted that the fortress was impregnable, but during the Russo-Turkish War of 1787-1792 the Russian Army
Military history of Imperial Russia
The Military history of the Russian Empire encompasses the history of armed conflict in which the Empire participated. This history stretches from its creation in 1721 by Peter the Great, until the Russian Revolution , which led to the establishment of the Soviet Union...
commander Alexander Suvorov
Alexander Suvorov
Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov , Count Suvorov of Rymnik, Prince in Italy, Count of the Holy Roman Empire , was the fourth and last generalissimo of the Russian Empire.One of the few great generals in history who never lost a battle along with the likes of Alexander...
successfully stormed it on December 22, 1790. Ottoman forces inside the fortress had the orders to stand their ground to the end, haughtily declining the Russian ultimatum
Ultimatum
An ultimatum is a demand whose fulfillment is requested in a specified period of time and which is backed up by a threat to be followed through in case of noncompliance. An ultimatum is generally the final demand in a series of requests...
. The defeat was seen as a catastrophe in the Ottoman Empire, while in Russia it was glorified in the country's first national anthem
National anthem
A national anthem is a generally patriotic musical composition that evokes and eulogizes the history, traditions and struggles of its people, recognized either by a nation's government as the official national song, or by convention through use by the people.- History :Anthems rose to prominence...
, Let the thunder of victory sound!.
Suvorov
Alexander Suvorov
Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov , Count Suvorov of Rymnik, Prince in Italy, Count of the Holy Roman Empire , was the fourth and last generalissimo of the Russian Empire.One of the few great generals in history who never lost a battle along with the likes of Alexander...
announced the capture of Ismail in 1791 to the Tsarina Catherine in a doggerel couplet, after the assault had been pressed from house to house, room to room, and nearly every Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
man, woman, and child in the city had been killed in three days of uncontrolled massacre, 40,000 Turks
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...
dead, a few hundred taken into captivity. For all his bluffness, Suvorov later told an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
traveller that when the massacre was over he went back to his tent and wept.
At the end of the war, Izmail was returned to the Ottoman Empire, but Russian forces took it for the third time on September 14, 1809. After it was ceded to Russia with the rest of Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
by the 1812 Treaty of Bucharest, the town was rebuilt thoroughly. The Intercession Cathedral (1822–36), the churches of Nativity (1823), St. Nicholas
Saint Nicholas
Saint Nicholas , also called Nikolaos of Myra, was a historic 4th-century saint and Greek Bishop of Myra . Because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as Nikolaos the Wonderworker...
(1833) and several others date back to that time. Izmail's oldest building is the small Turkish mosque
Mosque
A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...
, erected either in the 15th or 16th centuries, converted into a church in 1810 and currently housing a museum dedicated to the 1790 storm of Izmail.
After Russia lost the Crimean War
Crimean War
The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...
, the town returned to the Principality of Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
, which soon will become part of the Romanian Principalities
United Principalities
The United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, also known as the Romanian Principalities, was the official name of Romania following the 1859 election of Alexandru Ioan Cuza as prince or domnitor of both territories...
. Russia gained control of Izmail again after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. Region had been occupied by Romanian army amid breakup of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
in 1918 and, between 1918 and 1940, Izmail once again became, with the rest of Bessarabia, part of the Kingdom of Romania
Kingdom of Romania
The Kingdom of Romania was the Romanian state based on a form of parliamentary monarchy between 13 March 1881 and 30 December 1947, specified by the first three Constitutions of Romania...
.
In 1940, and again 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...
, it was occupied by the Soviet 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...
and included (August 1940) in the Ukrainian SSR
Ukrainian SSR
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic or in short, the Ukrainian SSR was a sovereign Soviet Socialist state and one of the fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union lasting from its inception in 1922 to the breakup in 1991...
; the region was occupied in 1941-1944 by the Romanian Army participating in Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
. During the Soviet period many Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
and 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...
migrated to the town, gradually changing its ethnic composition. The Izmail Oblast
Izmail Oblast
Izmail Oblast was an oblast in the Ukrainian SSR. It had a territory of 12.4 thousand km².The oblast was organized on August 7, 1940 on the territory, known as Budjak or southern Bessarabia, occupied by the Soviet Union from Romania. It was originally known as Akkerman Oblast until December 1,...
was formed in 1940 and the town remained its administrative centre until the oblast was merged to the Odessa Oblast
Odessa Oblast
Odesa Oblast, also written as Odessa Oblast , is the southernmost and largest oblast of south-western Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Odessa.-History:...
in 1954. Since August 24, 1991, Izmail has been part of independent Ukraine.
Natives
- Alexandru AverescuAlexandru AverescuAlexandru Averescu was a Romanian marshal and populist politician. A Romanian Armed Forces Commander during World War I, he served as Prime Minister of three separate cabinets . He first rose to prominence during the peasant's revolt of 1907, which he helped repress in violence...
, Romanian Marshal, Army Commander during World War IWorld War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
; Prime Minister (in fact, born near Izmail, in the village of Ozerne) - Ioan Chirilă, Romanian writer and sports journalist
- Galina ChistyakovaGalina ChistyakovaGalina Valentinovna Chistyakova is a retired athlete who represented the USSR and later Slovakia.She trained at Burevestnik in Moscow. Competing in long jump, Galina Chistyakova won the 1985 European Indoor Championships and a silver medal at the European Championships one year later...
, Ukrainian athlete, winner of the long jumpLong jumpThe long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength, and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a take off point...
bronze medal at the 1988 Summer Olympics1988 Summer OlympicsThe 1988 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIV Olympiad, were an all international multi-sport events celebrated from September 17 to October 2, 1988 in Seoul, South Korea. They were the second summer Olympic Games to be held in Asia and the first since the 1964 Summer Olympics... - Leonid DimovLeonid DimovLeonid Dimov was a Romanian postmodernist poet and translator....
, Romanian poet (1926, Ismail - 1987, Bucharest) - Olena HovorovaOlena HovorovaOlena Ivanivna Hovorova , also known as Yelena Govorova, is a former Ukrainian track and field athlete who specialised in triple jump competitions. She won the triple jump bronze medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics with her personal best jump of 14.96 metres...
, Ukrainian athlete, winner of the triple jumpTriple jumpThe triple jump is a track and field sport, similar to the long jump, but involving a “hop, bound and jump” routine, whereby the competitor runs down the track and performs a hop, a bound and then a jump into the sand pit.The triple jump has its origins in the Ancient Olympics and has been a...
bronze medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics2000 Summer OlympicsThe Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games or the Millennium Games/Games of the New Millennium, officially known as the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated between 15 September and 1 October 2000 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia... - Vitali Konstantinov, German artist and illustrator
- Ruslan MaynovRuslan MaynovRuslan Maynov is a Bulgarian actor and pop folk singer of Bessarabian Bulgarian origin.Maynov was born in Izmail in the region of Bessarabia, Ukrainian SSR to a Bulgarian family. He moved to Bulgaria in 1994; he graduated from NATFIZ in 1998 and started working with Slavi Trifonov on his TV...
, BulgariaBulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
n actor and musician - Gavril MusicescuGavril MusicescuGavriil Musicescu was a Romanian composer, conductor and musicologist, father of the Romanian pianist and musical pedagogue Florica Musicescu....
, Romanian composer - Sergiu Sarchizov, Romanian composer and conductor
- Sholom SchwartzbardSholom SchwartzbardSholem Schwarzbard was a Bessarabian-born Jewish poet and anarchist, known primarily for the assassination of the Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petliura...
, Jewish anarchist, assassin of Symon Petliura - Ivan Shishman, Bulgarian artist
- Tsarev, Vadim Yuryevich - Russian philosopher, publicist, author of television films, Member of the Union of writers of Russia
- Artur VăitoianuArtur VaitoianuArtur or Arthur Văitoianu was a Romanian general who served as a Prime Minister of Romania for about two months in 1919...
, Romanian general, Army commander during World War I; Prime Minister