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Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest city and municipality in Ukraine. Located in the northeast of the country, it is the largest city of the historic Slobozhanshchyna region. Kharkiv is the administrative centre of Kharkiv Oblast and of the surrounding Kharkiv Raion. The latest population is Kharkiv was founded in 1654 as Kharkiv fortress, and after these humble beginnings, it grew to be a major centre of industry, trade and Ukrainian culture in the Russian Empire. At the beginning of the 20th century, the city was predominantly Russian in population, but after the Soviet government's policy of Ukrainization the city became populated mainly by Ukrainians with a significant number of Russians. Kharkiv was the first capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, from December 1919 to January 1934, after which the capital relocated to Kyiv. Kharkiv is a major cultural, scientific, educational, transport and industrial centre of Ukraine, with numerous museums, theatres and libraries, including the Annunciation and Dormition Cathedrals, the Derzhprom building in Freedom Square, and the National University of Kharkiv. Kharkiv was a host city for UEFA Euro 2012. Industry plays a significant role in Kharkiv's economy, specialized primarily in machinery and electronics. There are hundreds of industrial facilities throughout the city, including the Morozov Design Bureau and the Malyshev Tank Factory (leaders in world tank production from the 1930s to the 1980s); Khartron (aerospace, nuclear power plants and automation electronics); Turboatom (turbines for hydro-, thermal- and nuclear-power plants); and Antonov (the multipurpose aircraft manufacturing plant). Kharkiv was a major target of the Northeastern Ukraine offensive in Russia's invasion of Ukraine that began in February 2022. During the Battle of Kharkiv, the city was designated as a Hero City of Ukraine.
[edit] History
[edit] Early historyCultural artifacts date back to the Bronze Age, as well as those of later Scythian and Sarmatian settlers. The site was part of the Chernyakhov culture during the 2nd to the 6th centuries. The Khazar fortress of Verkhneye Saltovo (8th to 10th centuries) was about east of the modern city, near Staryi Saltiv. During the 12th century, it was part of the territory of the Cumans. The fortress was founded by re-settlers fleeing the war that engulfed Right-bank Ukraine in 1654 (see Khmelnytsky Uprising).[1] Before that the region was a sparsely populated and part of the Cossack Hetmanate. The group of people came onto the banks of Lopan and Kharkiv rivers where an abandoned settlement stood. According to archive documents, the leader of the re-settlers was otaman Ivan Kryvoshlyk.[1] The fortress was named for the Kharkiv River. There is a folk etymology that connects the name of both the city and the river to a legendary cossack founder named Kharko (a diminutive form of the name Chariton, ,[1] or Zechariah). J. B. Rudnyckyj in the 1950s established that the river name is attested earlier than the foundation of the fortress, in the late 16th century.
The first Kharkiv voivode was replaced in two years after constantly complaining that the locals refused to cooperate in building the fort.[2] Kharkiv also became the centre of the local sloboda cossack regiment, as the area surrounding the Belgorod fortress was being heavily militarized. With the resettlement of the area by Ukrainians it came to be known as Sloboda Ukraine, most of which was included under the jurisdiction of the Razryad Prikaz (Military Appointment) headed by a district official from Belgorod. By 1657 the Kharkiv settlement had a fortress[2] with underground passageways. In 1658 Ivan Ofrosimov was appointed as the new voivode, who worked on forcing locals to kiss the cross to show loyalty to Russian tsar.[2] The locals, led by their otaman Ivan Kryvoshlyk refused.[2] However, with the election of a new otaman, Tymish Lavrynov, the community (hromada) sent a request to the tsar to establish a local Assumption market, signed by the deans of Kharkiv churches (the Assumption Cathedral and parish churches of Annunciation and Trinity).[2] Relationships with the neighboring Chuhuiv sometimes were non-friendly and often their arguments were pacified by force.[2] With the appointment of the third voivode Vasiliy Sukhotin was completely finished the construction of the city fort.[2] Meanwhile, Kharkiv had become the centre of Sloboda Ukraine.[3] [edit] Kharkiv FortressThe Kharkiv Fortress was erected around the Assumption Cathedral and its castle was at University Hill.[2] It was between today's streets: vulytsia Kvitky-Osnovianenko, Constitution Square, Rose Luxemburg Square, Proletarian Square, and Cathedral Descent.[2] The fortress had 10 towers: Chuhuivska Tower, Moskovska Tower, Vestovska Tower, Tainytska Tower, Lopanska Corner Tower, Kharkivska Corner Tower and others.[2] The tallest was Vestovska, some tall,[2] while the shortest one was Tainytska which had a secret well deep.[2] The fortress had the Lopanski Gates.[2] In 1689 the fortress was expanded to include the Intercession Cathedral and Monastery, which became a seat of a local church hierarch, the Protopope.[2] Coincidentally in the same year in the vicinity of Kharkiv in Kolomak, Ivan Mazepa was announced the Hetman of Ukraine.[2] Kharkiv leading educational institution, the Collegium, was located next to the Intercession Cathedral. It was transferred from Bilhorod to Kharkiv in 1726.[2] [edit] In the Russian EmpireIn the course of the administrative reform carried out in 1708 by Peter the Great, the area was included into Kyiv Governorate. Kharkiv is specifically mentioned as one of the towns making up a part of the governorate. In 1727, Belgorod Governorate was split off, and Kharkiv moved to Belgorod Governorate. It was the center of a separate administrative unit, Kharkiv Sloboda Cossack regiment. The regiment at some point was detached from Belgorod Governorate, then attached to it again, until in 1765, Sloboda Ukraine Governorate was established with the seat in Kharkiv. Kharkiv University was established in 1805 in the Palace of Governorate-General.[2] Alexander Mikolajewicz Mickiewicz, brother of Adam Mickiewicz was a professor of law in the university, another celebrity Goethe searched for instructors for the school.[2] In 1906 Ivan Franko received a doctorate in Russian linguistics here.[2]
Kharkiv became a major industrial centre and with it a centre of Ukrainian culture. In 1812, the first Ukrainian newspaper was published there. One of the first Prosvitas in Eastern Ukraine was also established in Kharkiv. A powerful nationally aware political movement was also established there and the concept of an Independent Ukraine was first declared there by the lawyer Mykola Mikhnovsky in 1900. Soon after the Crimean War, in 1860–61 number of hromada societies sprung up across the Ukrainian cities including Kharkiv. Among the most prominent hromada members in Kharkiv was Oleksandr Potebnia, a native of Sloboda Ukraine.[4] Beside the old hromada, in Kharkiv also existed several student hromadas members of which were future political leaders of Ukraine such as Borys Martos, Dmytro Antonovych and many others.[4] One of the University of Kharkiv graduates Oleksandr Kovalenko was one of initiators of the mutiny on Russian battleship Potemkin being the only officer who supported the in-rank sailors. Since April 1780 it was an administrative centre of Kharkov uyezd. [edit] The Red October and the Soviet periodBolshevik Baltin in the "Chronicle of the Revolution" noted that during the World War I in December 1914 Kharkiv experienced the most eerie Russian chauvinism (see, Great Russian chauvinism) which knew no limits when Russian ultra-nationalist Black Hundreds were assisted by a local police. Baltin also stated that at that time the Kharkiv Locomotive Factory (employing 6,000 workers) was considered a "citadel of revolutionary movement"[5] yet due to pressure of the local police and the Russian nationalists the revolutionary life was completely suppressed.[5] In January 1915 the Kharkiv Bolshevik organization was accounted of no more than 10 people.[5] The Bolshevik organization in Kharkiv was revived after arrival of Aleksei Medvedev, Nikolay Lyakhin (Petrograd Bolsheviks) and Maksimov and Maria Skobeeva (Moscow Bolsheviks).[5] Following the Russian defeat during Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive and start of the Great Retreat, to Kharkiv from Riga was evacuated a plant of the Public Company of Electricity with 4,000 workers.[5]
In February 1918 Kharkiv became the capital of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic; but this entity was disbanded six weeks later. In April 1918 the German army occupied Kharkiv.[7] And according to the February 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between the Ukrainian People's Republic and the Central Powers it became part of the Ukrainian People's Republic. Early January 1919 Bolshevik forces captured Kharkiv. Mid-June 1919 Anton Denikin's White movement Volunteer Army captured the city. In December 1919 the Bolshevik Red Army recaptured Kharkiv. Prior to the formation of the Soviet Union, Bolsheviks established Kharkiv as the capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (from 1919 to 1934) in opposition to the Ukrainian People's Republic with its capital of Kyiv.
As the country's capital, it underwent intense expansion with the construction of buildings to house the newly established Ukrainian Soviet government and administration. Derzhprom was the second tallest building in Europe and the tallest in the Soviet Union at the time with a height of . In the 1920s, a wooden radio tower was built on top of the building. The Roentgen Institute was established in 1931. During the interwar period the city saw the spread of architectural constructivism.[2] One of the best representatives of it was the already mentioned Derzhprom, the Building of the Red Army, the Ukrainian Polytechnic Institute of Distance Learning (UZPI), the City Council building, with its massive asymmetric tower, the central department store that was opened on the 15th Anniversary of the October Revolution.[2] The same year on 7 November 1932, the building of Noblemen Assembly was transformed into the building of All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee.[2] In 1928, the SVU (Union for the Freedom of Ukraine) process was initiated and court sessions were staged in the Kharkiv Opera (now the Philharmonia) building. Hundreds of Ukrainian intellectuals were arrested and deported. In the early 1930s, the Holodomor famine drove many people off the land into the cities, and to Kharkiv in particular, in search of food. Many people died and were secretly buried in mass graves in the cemeteries surrounding the city. In 1934 hundreds of Ukrainian writers, intellectuals and cultural workers were arrested and executed in the attempt to eradicate all vestiges of Ukrainian nationalism in Art. The purges continued into 1938. Blind Ukrainian street musicians Kobzars were also gathered in Kharkiv and murdered by the NKVD. In January 1934 the capital of the Ukrainian SSR was moved from Kharkiv to Kyiv.[8] During April and May 1940 about 3,900 Polish prisoners of Starobelsk camp were executed in the Kharkiv NKVD building, later secretly buried on the grounds of an NKVD pansionat in Pyatykhatky forest (part of the Katyn massacre) on the outskirts of Kharkiv. The site also contains the numerous bodies of Ukrainian cultural workers who were arrested and shot in the 1937–38 Stalinist purges. [edit] German occupationDuring World War II, Kharkiv was the site of several military engagements (see below). The city was captured by Nazi Germany on 24 October 1941. A disastrous Red Army offensive that failed to capture the city in May 1942. The city was successfully retaken by the Soviets on 16 February 1943. It was captured for a second time by the Germans on 15 March 1943. It was then finally retaken on 23 August 1943. Seventy percent of the city was destroyed and tens of thousands of the inhabitants were killed. Kharkiv, the third largest city in the Soviet Union, was the most populous city in the Soviet Union captured by the Germans, since in the years preceding World War II, Kyiv was by population the smaller of the two.
During World War II, four battles took place for control of the city:
Before the occupation, Kharkiv's tank industries were evacuated to the Urals with all their equipment, and became the heart of Red Army's tank programs (particularly, producing the T-34 tank earlier designed in Kharkiv). These enterprises returned to Kharkiv after the war, and continued to produce tanks. Of the population of 700,000 that Kharkiv had before the start of World War II, 120,000 became Ost-Arbeiter (slave worker) in Germany, 30,000 were executed and 80,000 starved to death during the war.[3] [edit] Post-World War II Soviet periodIn the post-World War II period, many of the destroyed homes and factories were rebuilt. The city was planned to be rebuilt in the style of Stalinist Classicism.[2] From 1961 to 1975, the Kharkov Highest Artillery School of Engineering existed for the RVSN (Strategic Rocket Forces). An airport was built in 1954. Following the war, Kharkiv was the third largest scientific and industrial centre in the former USSR (after Moscow and Leningrad). In 1975, the Kharkiv subway was opened. [edit] In independent UkraineBy its territorial expansion on 6 September 2012, the city increased its area from about . A well-known landmark of Kharkiv is the Freedom Square (Ploshcha Svobody formerly known as Dzerzhinsky Square), which is the ninth largest city square in Europe, and the 28th largest square in the world. The underground rapid-transit system (metro) has about of track and 30 stations. The newest underground station, Peremoha, was opened on 19 August 2016. All the underground stations have very distinctive architecture. Kharkiv was a host city for UEFA Euro 2012, and hosted three group soccer matches at the reconstructed Metalist Stadium. Many orthodox churches were built in Kharkiv in the 1990s and 2000s. For example, Church of Myrrh-bearing Women, Church of St. Vladimir, Church of St. Tamara, etc. In 2006 an improvised explosive device exploded near a supermarket. In 2007, the city's Vietnamese minority built the largest Buddhist temple in Europe on a one-hectare plot, with a monument to Ho Chi Minh. Gorky Park was fully renovated in the 2000s, with many modern attractions, a lake with lilies and sport facilities to play tennis, football, beach volleyball, and basketball. Feldman Park was created in recent years, containing a big collection of animals, horses, etc. A judge and his family were decapitated in 2012 in the Kharkiv beheadings.[9] [edit] 2014 pro-Russian unrestThe Euromaidan protests in the winter of 2013–2014 against then president Viktor Yanukovych consisted of daily gatherings of about 200 protestors near the statue of Taras Shevchenko end were predominantly peaceful.[10] Pro-Yanukovych demonstrations, held near the statue of Lenin, were similarly small.[10] The 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine affected Kharkiv but to a lesser extent than in neighbouring Donbass, where tensions led to armed conflict. On 2 March 2014, a Russian "tourist" from Moscow replaced the Ukrainian flag with a Russian flag on the Kharkiv regional state administration building.[11] On 6 April 2014 pro-Russian protestors occupied the building and unilaterally declared independence from Ukraine as the "Kharkiv People's Republic".[10] The uprising was quelled in less than two days due to rapid reaction of the Ukrainian security forces under then Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and Stepan Poltorak the then acting commander of the Ukrainian Internal Forces.[10] A special forces unit from Vinnytsia was sent to the city to crush the separatists.[10] Doubts arose about the local origin of the protestors after they initially stormed an opera and ballet theatre believing it was the city hall. On 13 April, some pro-Russian protesters again made it inside the Kharkiv regional state administration building. Later on 13 April, the building permanently returned to full Ukrainian control.[12][13][14] Violent clashes resulted in the severe beating of at least 50 pro-Ukrainian protesters in attacks by pro-Russian protesters.[14][15] The mayor of the city, Hennadiy Kernes, who supported the Orange Revolution but later joined the Party of Regions, decided to side with the Ukrainian government.[10] Kharkiv returned to relative calm by 30 April. Relatively peaceful demonstrations continued to be held, with "pro-Russian" rallies gradually diminishing and "pro-Ukrainian unity" demonstrations growing in numbers. On 28 September, activists dismantled Ukraine's largest monument to Lenin at a pro-Ukrainian rally in the central square. Polls conducted from September to December 2014 found little support in Kharkiv for joining Russia. From early November until mid-December, Kharkiv was struck by seven non-lethal bomb blasts. Targets of these attacks included a rock pub known for raising money for Ukrainian forces, a hospital for Ukrainian forces, a military recruiting centre, and a National Guard base.[16] According to SBU investigator Vasyliy Vovk, Russian covert forces were behind the attacks, and had intended to destabilize the otherwise calm city of Kharkiv. On 8 January 2015 five men wearing balaclavas broke into an office of Station Kharkiv, a volunteer group aiding refugees from Donbass.[17] Simultaneously with physical threats the men demanded to hear the political position of Station Kharkiv.[17] After having been given an answer, the men apologized and left. On Sunday 22 February 2015, an improvised explosive device in 2015 killed four people and wounded nine during a march commemorating the Euromaidan victims.[10] The authorities launched an 'anti-terrorist operation'.[18] Kharkiv has experienced more non-lethal small bombings since 22 February 2015 targeting army fuel tanks, an unoccupied passenger train and a Ukrainian flag in the city centre.[19] On 23 September 2015, 200 people in balaclavas and camouflage picketed the house of former governor Mykhailo Dobkin, and then went to Kharkiv town hall, where they tried to force their way through the police cordon. At least one tear gas grenade was used. The rioters asked the mayor, Hennadiy Kernes, to come out. [edit] 2020sUntil 18 July 2020, Kharkiv was incorporated as a city of oblast significance and served as the administrative center of Kharkiv Raion though it did not belong to the raion. In July 2020, as part of the administrative reform of Ukraine, which reduced the number of raions of Kharkiv Oblast to seven, the city of Kharkiv was merged into Kharkiv Raion. A nursing home fire in 2021 killed 15 people.[20] Kharkiv's Mayor for ten years, Hennadiy Kernes, died on 17 December 2020 in Berlin of COVID-19.[21] Ihor Terekhov of Kernes's party Kernes Bloc — Successful Kharkiv succeeded him in November 2021.[22][23] [edit] Russian invasionDuring the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Kharkiv was the site of heavy fighting between the Ukrainian and Russian forces. On 27 February, the governor of Kharkiv Oblast Oleh Synyehubov claimed that Russian troops were repelled from Kharkiv. According to a 28 February 2022, report from Agroportal 24h, the Kharkiv Tractor Plant (KhTZ), in the south east of the city, was destroyed and “engulfed in fire” by “massive shelling” from Russian forces. Video purported to record explosions and fire at the plant on 25 and 27 February 2022. On 4 March 2022, Human Rights Watch reported that on the fourth day of the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation, 28 February 2022, Federation forces used cluster munitions in the KhTZ district, the Moskovskyi district and Shevchenkivskyi district of the city. The rights group—which noted the "inherently indiscriminate nature of cluster munitions and their foreseeable effects on civilians"—based its assessment on interviews and an analysis of 40 videos and photographs. The battle for the city has been described as one of the deadliest battles in the invasion, with a Ukrainian presidential advisor describing it as the "Stalingrad of the 21st century." [edit] Research Tips
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