Derazhnia
Encyclopedia
Derazhnia is a city and railway station in the Khmelnytskyi Oblast
Khmelnytskyi Oblast
Khmelnytskyi Oblast is an oblast of western Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Khmelnytskyi.The current estimated population is around 1,401,140 .-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"...

) of 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...

. Derazhnia is situated along the banks of the Vovk River
Vovk River
The Vovk River is river in Ukraine. If translated into English, the river name means wolf. It flows through Khmelnytskyi Oblast of western Ukraine and is tributary of Southern Buh of Black Sea basin. Vovk flows through Derazhnya and enters Southern Buh in Letychiv....

 (meaning wolf in Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....

), 42 km east from the regional center Khmelnytskyi
Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine
Khmelnytskyi is a city in Ukraine in the region of Podillia. It is located on the Southern Buh River and about from the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. The town's original name was Płoskirów, later Proskurov, but in 1954 was renamed Khmelnytskyi. It is the center of the Khmelnytskyi Oblast in western...

. An important railway junction on the line Lviv
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...

-Khmelnytskyi
Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine
Khmelnytskyi is a city in Ukraine in the region of Podillia. It is located on the Southern Buh River and about from the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. The town's original name was Płoskirów, later Proskurov, but in 1954 was renamed Khmelnytskyi. It is the center of the Khmelnytskyi Oblast in western...

-Zhmerynka
Zhmerynka
Zhmerynka [ʒ’mærınkɑ:] is a town in the Vinnytska Oblast of central Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Zhmerynsky Raion , the town itself is also designated as a separate community within the oblast, and is located at around .The current estimated population is around 37.000...

. Derazhnia has 10,500 inhabitants (2001 census
Ukrainian Census (2001)
The first Ukrainian Census was carried out by State Statistics Committee of Ukraine on 5 December 2001, twelve years after the last Soviet Union census in 1989....

). Derazhnia is the administrative center of Derazhnianskyi Raion. Postal code for Derazhnia is 32200. In terms of religious affiliation, local Ukrainian inhabitants belong mainly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church
Ukrainian Orthodox Church
Ukrainian Orthodox Church may refer to:*Ukrainian Orthodox Church , established in 1990*Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate, established in 1992*Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, established in 1921...

. Derazhnia Milk Plant is one of key enterprises in the city. Local Sugar Factory was 5th largest in 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...

, defunct from the late 1990s - early 21st century. There are also chemical and brickworks industries.

History

Derazhnia was founded in 1431. Turkish records from 1542-3 report that the town site had a small Cossack
Cossack
Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...

 detachment consisting of no more than a few huts. In 1552 there were only eleven persons living in Derazhnia, four of whom later died in an epidemic. Tatars
Tatars
Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...

 attacked the town in 1567. Derazhnia was attacked by Bogdan Khmelnitsky's
Bohdan Khmelnytsky
Bohdan Zynoviy Mykhailovych Khmelnytsky was a hetman of the Zaporozhian Cossack Hetmanate of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . He led an uprising against the Commonwealth and its magnates which resulted in the creation of a Cossack state...

 cossacks in 1648. Derazhnia was occupied by Turkey in 1672, becoming part of the Turkish Ejalet of Kamieniecki. In 1682, Derazhnia was recaptured by the Poles under Jan Sobiesky. A small castle was built here that lasted into the early 20th century but is now destroyed.
The first Jews in Derazhnia are reported in stories within Shivhei haBesht (stories about the Baal Shem Tov) that probably date from about 1750. The well-preserved Jewish Cemetery has burials from at least the late 18th century and maybe earlier. Derazhnia passed into Russian hands during the second partition of Poland
Second Partition of Poland
The 1793 Second Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was the second of three partitions that ended the existence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by 1795. The second partition occurred in the aftermath of the War in Defense of the Constitution and the Targowica Confederation of 1792...

 in 1792. Starting in the 1840s, special Jewish agricultural colonies
Jewish agricultural colonies in the Russian Empire
Jewish agricultural colonies in the Russian Empire were first established in Kherson Governorate in 1806. The Ukase of December 9, 1804 allowed Jews for the first time in Russia to purchase land for farming settlements . Jews were provided exemption from military service, tax abatements, and...

 were granted close to Derazhnia. The largest and most prosperous was Staro Zakrevsky Meidan
Staro Zakrevsky Meidan
Starozakrevsky Maidan , located between Derazhnia and Volkovintzi, near Kalnaya in the Podolia region of Ukraine was a Jewish agricultural colony established in 1844. It was the largest and most prosperous agricultural colony near Derazhnia, at one point in the late 19th century it had a...

, founded 1844. It continued until it was turned into a kolkhoz
Kolkhoz
A kolkhoz , plural kolkhozy, was a form of collective farming in the Soviet Union that existed along with state farms . The word is a contraction of коллекти́вное хозя́йство, or "collective farm", while sovkhoz is a contraction of советское хозяйство...

 Staro Meidan by the Soviets in 1928.

Historically, Derazhnia was a tiny, impoverished village in the middle of nowhere until the Southern-Western Railroad was built in 1871-1876. Due to the railroad, the population of Derazhnia swelled from 1,201 people in 1873 to 6,118 people in 1897 and of this 5,230 were the Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

.

The large crowded halls of the Derazhnia train station served as a kind of international marketplace and clubhouse. It became possible for local merchants to interact with banking figures and merchants from all over Europe. The economy of Derazhnia thrived. Ukrainian Jewish writer Sholom Aleichem
Sholom Aleichem
Sholem Aleichem was the pen name of Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich, a leading Yiddish author and playwright...

 wrote the fictional humorous short story "The German" taking place in Derazhnia. The train station figures prominently in the story.

During World War I
World War I
World 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...

 the railroad served a different purpose. The train station and embankments were fortified and military supply trains passed through every 10 to 15 minutes. The train station served as a vector of communications and news. After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...

, Derazhnia saw numerous pogroms, due both to the communications and the strategic importance of the rail station.

Under Soviet rule starting 1922, the region's economy improved. Electricity, schools, roads and other infrastructure were built. Several kolkhoz
Kolkhoz
A kolkhoz , plural kolkhozy, was a form of collective farming in the Soviet Union that existed along with state farms . The word is a contraction of коллекти́вное хозя́йство, or "collective farm", while sovkhoz is a contraction of советское хозяйство...

i (collective farms) were established nearby. In the early 1930s, pressure from the government to collectivize and the needs of private peasants resulted in severe food shortages that resulted in famines throughout Ukraine.

In 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...

, Derazhnia fell to Nazi forces during 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...

 on July 11, 1941 after heavy fighting. It remained in Nazi hands until it was liberated by Soviet troops on March 25, 1944. The rail station was fortified by the Nazis while the railway was used to help supply the front. Jews from Derazhnia and nearby towns were concentrated into Derazhnia Ghetto
Ghetto
A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...

. Included were about 200 Roma (Gypsies) from nearby Volkovintsi. On September 20, 1942, about 4,000 people were shot - the entire Jewish community perished.

During the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

, Derazhnia was the location of a secret nuclear missile base.

Famous people

  • Rose Pesotta
    Rose Pesotta
    Rose Pesotta was an anarchist, feminist labor organizer and vice president within the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.-Biography:...

    (1896–1965), born Rakhel Peisoty, immigrated to the US in 1913, became an important American labor leader
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