Baturyn , is a historic
townA town is a type of settlement ranging from a few hundred to several thousand inhabitants, although it may be applied loosely even to huge metropolitan areas; the precise meaning varies between countries and is not always a matter of legal definition...
in the
Chernihiv OblastChernihiv Oblast is an oblast of northern Ukraine...
(
provinceOblast 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
UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The city of Kiev is both the capital and the largest city of...
. It is located in the Bakhmatskyi Raion (
districtA raion is a type of administrative unit of some post-Soviet states. 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 almost always translated as "district"...
) of the oblast, on the banks of the
Seym RiverSeym is a river in Russia and Ukraine. Its length is 748 km and its basin area about 27,500 km². It is the largest tributary of the Desna.Towns located on the river: Kursk, Rylsk, Putyvl, Kurchatov....
. The current estimated population is 3,066.
Evidence of settlement in the area of present-day Baturyn dates back to the
NeolithicThe Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BCE in the Middle East that is traditionally considered the last part of the Stone Age...
era, with
Bronze AgeThe Bronze Age of a culture is the period when the most advanced metalworking in that culture utilised bronze. This could either have been based on the local smelting of copper and tin from ores, or trading for bronze from production areas elsewhere...
and Scythian remains also having been unearthed. According to some modern writers, the earliest fortress at Baturyn would have been created by the Grand Principality of Chernihiv in the 11th century.
Baturyn , is a historic
townA town is a type of settlement ranging from a few hundred to several thousand inhabitants, although it may be applied loosely even to huge metropolitan areas; the precise meaning varies between countries and is not always a matter of legal definition...
in the
Chernihiv OblastChernihiv Oblast is an oblast of northern Ukraine...
(
provinceOblast 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
UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The city of Kiev is both the capital and the largest city of...
. It is located in the Bakhmatskyi Raion (
districtA raion is a type of administrative unit of some post-Soviet states. 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 almost always translated as "district"...
) of the oblast, on the banks of the
Seym RiverSeym is a river in Russia and Ukraine. Its length is 748 km and its basin area about 27,500 km². It is the largest tributary of the Desna.Towns located on the river: Kursk, Rylsk, Putyvl, Kurchatov....
. The current estimated population is 3,066.
History
Evidence of settlement in the area of present-day Baturyn dates back to the
NeolithicThe Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BCE in the Middle East that is traditionally considered the last part of the Stone Age...
era, with
Bronze AgeThe Bronze Age of a culture is the period when the most advanced metalworking in that culture utilised bronze. This could either have been based on the local smelting of copper and tin from ores, or trading for bronze from production areas elsewhere...
and Scythian remains also having been unearthed. According to some modern writers, the earliest fortress at Baturyn would have been created by the Grand Principality of Chernihiv in the 11th century. The contemporary name for the settlement, however, was first mentioned in the 1625, likely referring to the fortress of
Stefan BatoryStephen Báthory was a Hungarian noble Prince of Transylvania , then King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania . He was a member of the Somlyo branch of the noble Hungarian Báthory family...
, King of Poland, Prince of Transylvania, and Grand Duke of Lithuania, which was built and named in his honor. The area had been part of the
Polish-Lithuanian CommonwealthThe Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was formed by the union of the Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1569. The new Commonwealth was one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th-century Europe....
(in the
Kijów VoivodeshipThe Kiev Voivodeship was a unit of administrative division and local government in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from 1471 until 1569 and of the Kingdom of Poland from 1569 until 1793/1795, part of Lesser Poland. It was the biggest voivodeship of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, covering, among...
of the Crown of Poland) since before the
Union of LublinThe Union of Lublin replaced the personal union of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with a real union and an elective monarchy, since Sigismund II Augustus, the last of the Jagiellons, remained childless after three marriages...
. Control of the town was wrested from the Commonwealth during the
Khmelnytsky UprisingThe Khmelnytsky Uprising was a Cossack rebellion in Ukraine in 1648–1657 which turned into a Ukrainian war of liberation from Poland. Under the command of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the Zaporozhian Cossacks allied with the Crimean Tatars, and the local peasantry, fought several battles...
, after which natives of
RutheniaRuthenia is a geographic and culturo-ethnic name applied to the parts of Eastern Europe populated by Eastern Slavic peoples, as well as to the past various states that existed in these territories. Essentially, the word is a Latin rendering of the ancient place name Rus...
gained some degree of autonomy under
HetmanHetman was the title of the second highest military commander used in 15th to 18th century Poland, Ukraine and Grand Duchy of Lithuania, known from 1569 to 1795 as the Rzeczpospolita....
Bohdan KhmelnytskyBohdan Zynoviy Mykhailovych Khmelnytsky was a hetman of the Zaporozhian Cossack Hetmanate of Ukraine...
and his
CossackCossacks were originally members of military communities in the uninhabited borderland areas in the steppe that lies North of Black Sea...
state. In 1648, Baturyn was transformed into a Cossack regional center (
sotniaSotnia was a traditional division of the Cossack regiments from earliest records of the Zaporizhian Sich, and means 'a hundred'. It is equivalent to company ....
), first hosting the Starodub Cossack Regiment, and then the
Nizhyn RegimentThe Nizhyn Regiment was one of ten territorial-administrative subdivisions of the Cossack Hetmanate. The regiment's capital was the city of Nizhyn, now in Chernihiv Oblast of central Ukraine. Other major cities of the regiment were Pryluky, Hlukhiv and Baturyn.The Nizhyn Regiment was founded in...
.
By 1654, Baturyn, home to 486 cossacks and 274 villagers, was granted
Magdeburg RightsMagdeburg Rights or Magdeburg Law were a set of German town laws regulating the degree of internal autonomy within cities and villages granted with it by a local ruler. Modelled and named after the laws of Magdeburg developed during many centuries of the Holy Roman Empire, it was possibly the most...
. As the settlement grew, more merchants flocked to it, and great fairs were held quarterly. The
capitalCapital 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
Cossack HetmanateThe Hetmanate or officially Viysko Zaporozke was the Ukrainian Cossack state in the central and north-eastern regions of Ukraine between 1649 and 1775...
, an autonomous Cossack republic in
Left-bank UkraineLeft-bank Ukraine is a historic name of the part of Ukraine on the left bank of the Dnieper River, comprising the modern-day oblasts of Chernihiv, Poltava and Sumy as well as the eastern parts of the Kiev and Cherkasy....
, was located in Baturyn from 1669–1708, and from 1750-1764. It was in Baturyn that
HetmanHetman was the title of the second highest military commander used in 15th to 18th century Poland, Ukraine and Grand Duchy of Lithuania, known from 1569 to 1795 as the Rzeczpospolita....
Ivan BriukhovetskyIvan Briukhovetsky was a pro-Russian hetman of Left-Bank Ukraine from 1663 to 1668. For background see The Ruin...
signed the Baturyn Statutes in 1663, which further elaborated the treaty with the
Tsardom of RussiaThe Tsardom of Rus was the official type of government and name for the Russian state between Ivan IV's assumption of the title of Tsar in 1547 and Peter the Great's foundation of the Russian Empire in 1721....
which Khmelnytsky had initiated with the
Treaty of PereyaslavThe Treaty of Pereyaslav was concluded in 1654 in the Ukrainian city of Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi , at a meeting between the Cossacks of the Zaporizhian Host and Tsar Alexey I of Tsardom of Russia, during the Khmelnytsky rebellion...
in 1654.
The area prospered under the rule of Hetman
Ivan MazepaIvan Stepanovych Mazepa , Cossack Hetman of the Hetmanate in Left-bank Ukraine, in 1687–1708...
(1687–1708), increasing in size and population (with upwards of 20,000 residents). Baturyn boasted 40 churches and
chapelA chapel is a building used as a place for fellowship and of worship for Christians. It may be attached to an institution such as a large church, a college, a hospital, a palace, a prison or a cemetery, or may be an entirely free-standing building, sometimes with its own grounds...
s, two
monasteriesMonastery , a term derived from the Greek word μοναστήριον, neut. of μοναστήριος - monasterios denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer Monastery (plural: monasteries), a term derived from the Greek word μοναστήριον, neut. of μοναστήριος - monasterios...
and a
collegeCollege is a term most often used today to denote degree awarding tertiary educational institution. More broadly, it can be the name of any group of colleagues, for example, an electoral college, a College of Arms or the College of Cardinals...
for government officials and diplomats (the Kantseliarsky Kurin). In 1708, the
Zaporozhian CossacksThe Zaporozhian Cossacks were Cossacks who lived in Zaporozhia, in Central Ukraine. The Zaporozhian Host grew rapidly in the 15th century by serfs fleeing the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth....
were caught in the midst of the
Great Northern WarThe Great Northern War was a war in which the so-called Northern Alliance composed of Russia, Denmark-Norway, Poland-Lithuania and Saxony engaged Sweden for the supremacy in the Baltic Sea. The war ended with a defeat for Sweden in 1721, leaving Russia as the new major power in the Baltic Sea and...
, in which Hetman Mazepa supported Sweden and its war with the Russian Empire and for
Ukraine’s independenceIvan Stepanovych Mazepa , Cossack Hetman of the Hetmanate in Left-bank Ukraine, in 1687–1708...
. On Nov.13 1708 Baturyn was sacked and razed by the
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n army of
Alexander MenshikovAleksandr Danilovich Menshikov was a Russian statesman, whose official titles included Generalissimo, Prince of the Russian Empire and Duke of Izhora...
, and all of its inhabitants were slaughtered. Dmytro Chechel, the commanding officer of the Baturin garrison, was broken at the wheel. Historian Serhiy Pavlenko estimates that 6-7.5 thousand civilians and 5-6.5 thousand military personnel were murdered.. The population of the city in 1708 was 20,000. By 1726 the city was a ghost town.
The town was rebuilt in the 1750s, and served as the capital for Hetman Count Kirill Razumovsky, whose palace was designed by
Andrey KvasovFor the Kyrgyz-Kazakhstani swimmer with the same name see Andrey Kvasov Andrey Vasilievich Kvasov was a notable baroque architect who worked in Russia and Ukraine. Very little is known about his life, and its dates are still uncertain.In 1741, Kvasov helped Mikhail Zemtsov to...
in the
BaroqueBaroque architecture, starting in the early 17th century in Italy, took the humanist Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical, theatrical, sculptural fashion, expressing the triumph of absolutist church and state. New architectural concerns for color, light and...
style (later rebuilt in the
Neoclassical styleNeoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, both as a reaction against the Rococo style of anti-tectonic naturalistic ornament, and an outgrowth of some classicizing features of Late Baroque...
by
Charles CameronCharles Cameron was a Scottish architect who made an illustrious career at the court of Catherine II of Russia. Cameron, practitioner of early neoclassical architecture, was the chief architect of Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk palaces and the adjacent new town of Sophia from his arrival in Russia in...
in 1799-1803). The home of the famous cossack
Vasily KochubeyVasily Leontiyovych Kochubey . was a Ukrainian nobleman and statesman, of Tatar descent. His great-grandson was the eminent imperial statesman Viktor Kochubey. The family name is also spelled Kotchoubey and Kotschoubey Between 1687 and 1704 Kochubey was a close associate of the Ukrainian hetman...
, which was constructed some 50 years earlier, is surrounded today by a park in his name (although this building was devastated during
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, it was restored during
SovietThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
times).
Following Hetman Razumovsky's death, the town lost most of its political stature. In 1756, a textile plant was founded with 12 weaving machines, but quickly grew to include 76 machines. When
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n empress Catherine II abolished the Ukrainian Cossack state and incorporated its territories into the
Russian EmpireThe 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...
, Baturyn continued manufacturing textiles, feeding a growing demand for carpets. In 1843,
Taras ShevchenkoTaras Hryhorovych Shevchenko was a Ukrainian poet, artist and humanist. His literary heritage is regarded to be the foundation of modern Ukrainian literature and, to a large extent, the modern Ukrainian language...
stayed in the town, marking his time by painting many of the architectural sights.
In June, 1993, the
Ukrainian governmentThe Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is Ukraine's parliament. The Verkhovna Rada is a unicameral parliament composed of 450 deputies, which is presided over by a chairman...
declared Baturyn the center of a national site of Ukrainian history and culture. In August, 2002, at the prodding of President
Viktor YushchenkoViktor Andriyovych Yushchenko is the third and current President of Ukraine. He took office on January 23, 2005....
, a government program was approved to restore Baturyn to its former glory.
On January 22, 2009, Ukraine's President
Viktor YushchenkoViktor Andriyovych Yushchenko is the third and current President of Ukraine. He took office on January 23, 2005....
officially opened the "Hetmans' Capital" Monumental complex with the newly renovated Razumovsky Palace.
External links
Baturyn at Castles of Ukraine Постанова Кабінету Міністрів України від 14 червня 1993 р. №445 «Про державний історико-культурний заповідник "Гетьманська столиця"» (Decision of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine from June 14, 1993 No. 445 "On the State Historical-Cultural Site 'Hetman Capital'")
Постанова Кабінету Міністрів України від 17 серпня 2002 р. №1123 «Про затвердження Комплексної програми збереження пам'яток Державного історико-культурного заповідника "Гетьманська столиця" і розвитку соціальної та інженерно-транспортної інфраструктури смт Батурина (Decision of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine from August 17, 2002 No. 1123 "On the Approval of the Complex Program of Protecting Monuments from the State Historical-Cultural Site 'Hetman Capital' and the Development of Social and the Engineering-Transportation Infrastructure of the Town of Baturyn)