Kozelets
Encyclopedia
Kozelets is a historic town
located in Chernihiv Oblast
(province
) of northern Ukraine
. Kozelets is located on the Oster River
, a tributary of the Dnieper
. The city's estimated population is 8,305 (as of 2007).
The town was first mentioned in written documents in 1098, but its status as an urban-type settlement
(a step below that of a city
) was granted in 1924. It serves as the administrative center of the Kozeletskyi Raion
(district
) housing the raion's administrative structure.
Notable attractions in the city includes the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin designed in the Ukrainian Baroque
style by architects Ivan Hryhorovych-Barskyi
and Andrei Kvasov according to a plan by imperial architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli
. Kozelets also houses several local food industries, and a veterinary technicum
.
state of Kievan Rus'
. During times of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
, Kozelets was known by the name Kozlohrad .
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In the beginning of the 17th century, Kozelets was an important regional trade center. The town was also a sotnia
town in the Pereiaslav
and Kiev Regiment of the Cossack Hetmanate
during the 17-18th centuries.
In 1656, the Magdeburg rights
were granted to the town. The Kozelets Cossack Rada
elected Yakym Somko
as the Hetman
of the Cossacks in 1662. After the Tatar invasion of 1669, Kozelets was partially destroyed.
The city also served as a regional center of the Kiev
, Malorossiya
, and Chernigov Governorate
s of the Russian Empire
during the 18-19th centuries. At the end of the 19th century, Kozelets's population was 5,420.
After the breakup of the Russian Empire leading to the Russian Civil War
, Kozelets became a part of the Soviet Union
. In 1924, its status as a city was removed and given that of an urban-type settlement
. During World War II
, the Nazi
Einsatzgruppen
executed 125 of the towns's Jews, a population which numbered 2,000 before the war.
Being a regiment
al Cossack town, Kozelets has some important architectural monuments. This includes the Regimental Chancellery Building (the current town hall), the Darahan Mansion complex, the Saint Michael's Church (built in 1784) and the Ascension Church (1864-66).
The town's main cathedral and architectural attraction is the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin. The cathedral was built in the mid-18th century in the late Ukrainian Baroque
style by architects Ivan Hryhorovych-Barskyi
and Andrei Kvasov, according to a project by imperial architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli
. Funds for the construction of the cathedral were provided by Alexey
and Kyrylo Rozumovsky (the latter was appointed Hetman in 1750).
Urban-type settlement
Urban-type settlement ; , selyshche mis'koho typu ) is an official designation for a type of locality used in some of the countries of the former Soviet Union...
located in Chernihiv Oblast
Chernihiv Oblast
Chernihiv Oblast is an oblast of northern Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Chernihiv.-Geography:The total area of the province is around 31,900 km²....
(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 northern 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...
. Kozelets is located on the Oster River
Oster River
The Oster River is a river in the northern Ukrainian oblast of Chernihiv. The river is the left branch of the Desna River. It is approximately 199 km long and its basin area is 2,950 km². It is connected by canals and streams with the Trubizh River, which flows southwest from Kiev into...
, a tributary of the Dnieper
Dnieper River
The Dnieper River is one of the major rivers of Europe that flows from Russia, through Belarus and Ukraine, to the Black Sea.The total length is and has a drainage basin of .The river is noted for its dams and hydroelectric stations...
. The city's estimated population is 8,305 (as of 2007).
The town was first mentioned in written documents in 1098, but its status as an urban-type settlement
Urban-type settlement
Urban-type settlement ; , selyshche mis'koho typu ) is an official designation for a type of locality used in some of the countries of the former Soviet Union...
(a step below that of a city
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...
) was granted in 1924. It serves as the administrative center of the Kozeletskyi Raion
Kozeletskyi Raion
Kozeletskyi Raion is a raion of Chernihiv Oblast, northern Ukraine. Its administrative centre is located at Kozelets....
(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"...
) housing the raion's administrative structure.
Notable attractions in the city includes the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin designed in the Ukrainian Baroque
Ukrainian Baroque
Ukrainian Baroque or Cossack Baroque is an architectural style that emerged in Ukraine during the Hetmanate era, in the 17th and 18th centuries....
style by architects Ivan Hryhorovych-Barskyi
Ivan Hryhorovych-Barskyi
Ivan Hryhorovych-Barskyi or Ivan Grigorovich-Barsky is a Ukrainian architect who worked in the Late Cossack Baroque style...
and Andrei Kvasov according to a plan by imperial architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli
Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli
Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli was an Italian architect naturalized Russian. He developed an easily recognizable style of Late Baroque, both sumptuous and majestic...
. Kozelets also houses several local food industries, and a veterinary technicum
Technicum
Technicum was a Soviet institute of vocational education. A mass-education facility of "special middle education" category 1 step higher than PTU, but aimed to train low-level industrial managers or specializing in occupations that require skills more advanced than purely manual...
.
History
Kozelets was first mentioned in 1098 as a fortified town in the East SlavicEast Slavs
The East Slavs are Slavic peoples speaking East Slavic languages. Formerly the main population of the medieval state of Kievan Rus, by the seventeenth century they evolved into the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian peoples.-Sources:...
state of Kievan Rus'
Kievan Rus'
Kievan Rus was a medieval polity in Eastern Europe, from the late 9th to the mid 13th century, when it disintegrated under the pressure of the Mongol invasion of 1237–1240....
. During times of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...
, Kozelets was known by the name Kozlohrad .
Sotnia
Sotnia was a traditional division of the Cossack regiments. For example from earliest records of the Zaporizhian Sich, and means 'a hundred'. It is equivalent to company ....
town in the Pereiaslav
Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi
Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi is a town located where Alta River flows into Trubizh River in the Kiev Oblast in central Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi Raion , the town itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast...
and Kiev Regiment of the Cossack Hetmanate
Cossack Hetmanate
The Hetmanate or Zaporizhian Host was the Ruthenian Cossack state in the Central Ukraine between 1649 and 1782.The Hetmanate was founded by first Ukrainian hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky during the Khmelnytsky Uprising . In 1654 it pledged its allegiance to Muscovy during the Council of Pereyaslav,...
during the 17-18th centuries.
In 1656, the Magdeburg rights
Magdeburg rights
Magdeburg Rights or Magdeburg Law were a set of German town laws regulating the degree of internal autonomy within cities and villages granted by a local ruler. Modelled and named after the laws of the German city of Magdeburg and developed during many centuries of the Holy Roman Empire, it was...
were granted to the town. The Kozelets Cossack Rada
Rada
Rada is the term for "council" or "assembly"borrowed by Polish from the Low Franconian "Rad" and later passed into the Czech, Ukrainian, and Belarusian languages....
elected Yakym Somko
Yakym Somko
Yakym Somko , was a Ukrainian Cossack military leader of the Pereyaslav regiment and was the Acting Hetman of Left-bank Ukraine in 1660-1663, during The Ruin....
as the Hetman
Hetman
Hetman was the title of the second-highest military commander in 15th- to 18th-century Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which together, from 1569 to 1795, comprised the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, or Rzeczpospolita....
of the Cossacks in 1662. After the Tatar invasion of 1669, Kozelets was partially destroyed.
The city also served as a regional center of the Kiev
Kiev Governorate
Kiev Governorate , or Government of Kiev, was an administrative division of the Russian Empire.The governorate was established in 1708 along with seven other governorates and was transformed into a viceroyalty in 1781...
, Malorossiya
Little Russia
Little Russia , sometimes Little or Lesser Rus’ , is a historical political and geographical term in the Russian language referring to most of the territory of modern-day Ukraine before the 20th century. It is similar to the Polish term Małopolska of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth...
, and Chernigov Governorate
Chernigov Governorate
The Chernigov Governorate , also known as the Government of Chernigov, was a guberniya in the historical Left-bank Ukraine region of the Russian Empire, which was officially created in 1802 from the disbanded Malorossiya Governorate with an administrative centre of Chernigov...
s 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...
during the 18-19th centuries. At the end of the 19th century, Kozelets's population was 5,420.
After the breakup of the Russian Empire leading to the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
, Kozelets became a part of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. In 1924, its status as a city was removed and given that of an urban-type settlement
Urban-type settlement
Urban-type settlement ; , selyshche mis'koho typu ) is an official designation for a type of locality used in some of the countries of the former Soviet Union...
. 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...
, the Nazi
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
Einsatzgruppen
Einsatzgruppen
Einsatzgruppen were SS paramilitary death squads that were responsible for mass killings, typically by shooting, of Jews in particular, but also significant numbers of other population groups and political categories...
executed 125 of the towns's Jews, a population which numbered 2,000 before the war.
Attractions
Regiment
A regiment is a major tactical military unit, composed of variable numbers of batteries, squadrons or battalions, commanded by a colonel or lieutenant colonel...
al Cossack town, Kozelets has some important architectural monuments. This includes the Regimental Chancellery Building (the current town hall), the Darahan Mansion complex, the Saint Michael's Church (built in 1784) and the Ascension Church (1864-66).
The town's main cathedral and architectural attraction is the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin. The cathedral was built in the mid-18th century in the late Ukrainian Baroque
Ukrainian Baroque
Ukrainian Baroque or Cossack Baroque is an architectural style that emerged in Ukraine during the Hetmanate era, in the 17th and 18th centuries....
style by architects Ivan Hryhorovych-Barskyi
Ivan Hryhorovych-Barskyi
Ivan Hryhorovych-Barskyi or Ivan Grigorovich-Barsky is a Ukrainian architect who worked in the Late Cossack Baroque style...
and Andrei Kvasov, according to a project by imperial architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli
Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli
Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli was an Italian architect naturalized Russian. He developed an easily recognizable style of Late Baroque, both sumptuous and majestic...
. Funds for the construction of the cathedral were provided by Alexey
Alexey Razumovsky
Count Alexei Grigorievich Razumovsky , was a Ukrainian Cossack who rose to become lover and, the morganatic spouse of the Russian Empress Elizaveta Petrovna.- Early life :...
and Kyrylo Rozumovsky (the latter was appointed Hetman in 1750).
People from Kozelets
List of famous people from Kozelets:- Boris Mankevsky (1883-1962), Ukrainian neurologistNeurologistA neurologist is a physician who specializes in neurology, and is trained to investigate, or diagnose and treat neurological disorders.Neurology is the medical specialty related to the human nervous system. The nervous system encompasses the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves. A specialist...
; - Vladimir Negovsky (1909-2003), Russian pathophysiologistPathophysiologyPathophysiology is the study of the changes of normal mechanical, physical, and biochemical functions, either caused by a disease, or resulting from an abnormal syndrome...
; - Yuriy Levitansky (1922-1996), Russian poet.