Berdychiv ' onMouseout='HidePop("33920")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Polish_language">Polish
Polish is a West Slavic language and the official language of Poland. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet which corresponds basically to the Latin alphabet with a few additions...
: Berdyczów, ,
translit.Romanization of the Russian alphabet is the process of transliterating the Russian language from the Cyrillic alphabet into the Latin alphabet...
Berdichev) is a historic
cityA city is a relatively large and permanent settlement, particularly a large urban settlement. Although there is no agreement on technical definitions distinguishing a city from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status...
in the
Zhytomyr OblastZhytomyr 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...
.
Berdychiv ' onMouseout='HidePop("33920")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Polish_language">Polish
Polish is a West Slavic language and the official language of Poland. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet which corresponds basically to the Latin alphabet with a few additions...
: Berdyczów, ,
translit.Romanization of the Russian alphabet is the process of transliterating the Russian language from the Cyrillic alphabet into the Latin alphabet...
Berdichev) is a historic
cityA city is a relatively large and permanent settlement, particularly a large urban settlement. Although there is no agreement on technical definitions distinguishing a city from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status...
in the
Zhytomyr OblastZhytomyr 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...
. Serving as the
administrative centerCapital 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 Berdychiv 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"...
), the city itself is of direct oblast subordinance, and is located south of the oblast capital,
ZhytomyrZhytomyr is a historic city in the North of the western half of Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Zhytomyr Oblast , as well as the administrative center of the surrounding Zhytomyr Rayon...
, at around .
The current estimated population is around 88,000 (as of 2001).
History
In 1430, Grand Duke of
LithuaniaLithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of...
Vitautas (великий князь литовский Витовт) granted the rights over the area to Kalinik, the procurator (наместник) of
PutyvlPutyvl or Putivl is a picturesque town in north-east Ukraine, in Sumy Oblast. Currently about 20,000 people live in Putyvl.- History :...
and Zvenigorod, and it is believed that his servant named Berdich founded a
khutorKhutor or hutor is usually taken to refer to a single-homestead rural settlement of Eastern Europe. The word originated in Ukraine, but later came to be applied to farmsteads in Russia and Kazakhstan....
(remote settlement) there. However the
etymologyEtymology is the study of the history of words and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages, and texts about the languages, to gather knowledge about how words were used at earlier stages, and...
of the name
Berdychiv is not known.
In 1483,
Crimean TatarCrimean Tatar may refer to:* Crimean Tatars, ethnic group* Crimean Tatar language, language of the Crimean Tatars...
s destroyed the settlement. During the 1546 partition between Lithuania and
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, the region was listed as a property of Lithuanian magnate Tyshkevich (
TyszkiewiczThe Tyszkiewicz family was a wealthy and influential magnate family of Ruthenian/Lithuanian nobility with roots traced into the times of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania...
). According to 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...
(1569),
VolhyniaVolhynia, Volynia, or Volyn is a historic region in western Ukraine located between the rivers Prypiat and Western Bug, to the north of Galicia and Podolia. The area has some of the oldest Slavic settlements in Europe...
formed a province 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....
.
The fortified Carmelite
monasteryMonastery , 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...
(built from 1627-1642 under the sponsorship of Janusz Tyszkiewicz Łohojski), captured and plundered by
Bohdan KhmelnytskyBohdan Zynoviy Mykhailovych Khmelnytsky was a hetman of the Zaporozhian Cossack Hetmanate of Ukraine...
in 1647, was disestablished in 1864.
The town underwent rapid development after king Stanisław August Poniatowski, under pressure from the powerful Radziwiłł family, granted it the unusual right to organize ten
fairA fair is a gathering of people to display or trade produce or other goods, to parade or display animals and often to enjoy associated carnival or funfair entertainment. Activities at fairs vary widely...
s a year. This made Berdichev one of the most important trading and banking centers in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and later, the Russian Empire. At the time, the saying "Pisz na Berdyczów!" ('Send letters to Berdichev!') had a idiomatic meaning; because merchants from all over Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine and the rest of eastern and central Europe were sure to visit the town within two or three months of each other, it became a central
poste restantePoste restante is a service where the post office holds mail until the recipient calls for it. It is a common destination for mail for people who are visiting a particular location and have no need, or no way, of having mail delivered directly to their place of residence at that time.-United...
(post office box) of the region. Later, because of the phrase being used in a popular poem by Juliusz Słowacki, "Pisz na Berdyczów!" acquired a second meaning as a brush-off; "send me a letter to nowhere" or "leave me alone".
The banking industry was moved from Berdichev to
OdessaOdessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .Odessa was founded by Hacı I Giray, the Khan of Crimea, in 1240...
(a major port city) after 1850, and the town became impoverished again in a short period of time.
In 1846, the town had 1893 buildings, 69 of which were brick-made, 11 streets, 80 walkways and 4 squares.
Honoré de BalzacHonoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of almost 100 novels and plays collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the fall of Napoléon Bonaparte in 1815.Due to his keen observation of detail...
visited it in 1850 and noted that its unplanned development made it resemble the dance of a
polkaThe polka is a lively Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in the Czech lands and is still a common genre in Lithuanian, Czech, Croatian, Slovenian, Polish, German, Hungarian, Austrian,...
as some buildings leaned left while others leaned right.
Jewish history
According to the
censusA "census" is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population.In other words every 10 years...next one would be in 2010 The term is used mostly in connection with...
of 1789, the Jews constituted 75% of Berdychiv's population (1,951 out of 2,640, of whom 246 were liquor-dealers, 452 houseowners, 134 merchants, 188 artisans, 150 clerks and 56 idlers). In 1797, Prince
RadziwillThe Radziwiłł family is an international family of Lithuanian origin and of high nobility who were highly prominent for centuries, first in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The family has produced many individuals notable in Lithuanian, Belarusian,...
granted seven Jewish families the
monopolyIn economics, a monopoly exists when a specific individual or an enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it...
privilegeA privilege—etymologically "private law" or law relating to a specific individual—is a special entitlement or immunity granted by a government or other authority to a restricted group, either by birth or on a conditional basis. A privilege can be revoked in some cases. In modern...
of the cloth trade in the town. Jews were a major driving force of the town's commerce in the first half of the 19th century, founding a number of trading companies (some traded internationally), banking establishments, and serving as agents of the neighboring estates of Polish nobility (
szlachtaSzlachta is the noble class in the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the increasingly polonized territories under their control . The nobility arose in the late Middle Ages and existed through the 18th century and into the 20th century...
).
By the end of the 18th century, Berdychiv became an important center of Hasidism. As the town grew, a number of noted scholars served as
rabbiRabbi is the term in Judaism for a religious teacher. The word rabbi derives from the Hebrew root word , rav, which in biblical Hebrew means ‘great’ in many senses, including "revered." The word comes from the Semitic root R-B-B, and is cognate to Arabic ربّ rabb, meaning "lord" Rabbi ' onMouseout='HidePop("40383")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Tzadik">Tzadik
Tzadik is a title which is generally given to those who are considered to be righteous such as a spiritual master or rebbe. The root of the word tzadik, is tzedek , which means justice or righteousness. This term thus refers to one who acts righteously.In Arabic the word/name "saadiq" , has a...
Levi Yosef Yitzhak of Berdichev (the author of
Kedushat Levi), who lived and taught there until his death in 1809. See also
Berditchev (Hasidic dynasty)Berditchev Hasidim, also known in Yiddish as Berditchiver Hasidim, originated in the town of Berdychiv, which over the years was under the control of Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine....
.
In its heyday, Berdychiv accounted some eighty
synagogueA synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer....
s and
batei midrash, and was famous for its
cantorA hazzan or chazzan is a Jewish cantor, a musician trained in the vocal arts who helps lead the congregation in songful prayer....
s.
Berdychiv was also one of the centers of the conflict between
HasidimHasidim is the plural of Hasid , meaning "pious" or "righteous". The word Hasid was frequently used as a term of exceptional respect in the Talmudic and early medieval periods...
and Mitnagdim. As the ideas of
HaskalahHaskalah , the Jewish Enlightenment, was a movement among European Jews in the late 18th century that advocated adopting enlightenment values, pressing for better integration into European society, and increasing education in secular studies, Hebrew language, and Jewish history...
influenced parts of the Jewish communities, a large group of Maskilim formed in Berdychiv in the 1820s.
In 1847, 23,160 Jews resided in Berdychiv and by 1861 the number doubled to 46,683, constituting the second largest Jewish community in 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...
. The
May LawsThe May Laws were anti-Jewish regulations enacted on May 15 , 1882, by Czar Alexander III of Russia that were described as "temporary" but remained in effect for more than thirty years.-History:...
of 1882 and other government persecutions affected Jewish population and in 1897, out of the town's population of 53,728, 41,617 (about 80%) were Jewish. 58% of Jewish males and 32% of Jewish females were literate.
Until
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
, the natural growth was balanced by the emigration. During the 1917
October RevolutionTheOctober Revolution , also known as the Soviet Revolution or Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution. It began with an armed insurrection in Petrograd traditionally dated to 25 October 1917 Julian calendar...
and
Russian Civil WarThe Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed and the Soviets under the domination of the Bolshevik party assumed power, first in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a multi-party war that...
, the mayor of the town was the Bundist leader D. Lipets. In early 1919, the Jews of Berdychiv became victims of a
pogromA pogrom is a form of riot directed against a particular group, whether ethnic, religious, or other, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes, businesses, and religious centers...
perpetrated by the Ukrainian army (See Symon Petliura).
The Soviet authorities closed or destroyed most of the town's synagogues. (See
YevsektsiyaYevsektsiya , Russian: ЕвСекция, the abbreviation of the phrase "Еврейская секция" was the Jewish section of the Soviet Communist party. Yevsektsiya was established to popularize Marxism and encourage loyalty to the Soviet regime among Russian Jews. The founding conference of Yevsektsiya took...
)
In the 1920s,
Yiddish languageYiddish is a non-territorial High German language of Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world...
was officially recognized and in 1924, the first in Ukraine official law court to conduct its affairs in Yiddish was established in the city, but in the 1930s, the use of Yiddish was curtailed and all Jewish cultural activities were suspended before
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...
.
Most civilians from areas near the border did not have a chance to evacuate when the
NaziNazism, known officially in German as National Socialism , is the totalitarian ideology and practices of the Nazi Party or National Socialist German Workers’ Party under Adolf Hitler, and the policies adopted by the dictatorial government of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945.Nazism is often considered...
s began their invasion on June 22, 1941. An "extermination" unit was established in Berdychiv in early July 1941 and a Jewish
ghettoOriginally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live, a ghetto is now described as a "portion of a city in which members of a minority group live; especially because of social, legal, or economic pressure." - Etymology :...
was set up. It was liquidated on October 5, 1941, after all the inhabitants were murdered.
The Nazis killed about 20,000 to 30,000 Jews who had not evacuated Berdychiv. A 1973 Ukrainian-language article about the history of Bedichev says:"Гестапівці стратили 38 536 чоловік." (
GestapoThe was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning in April 1934, it was under the overall administration of the Schutzstaffel under Heinrich Himmler in his position as leader of the SS and Chief of German Police...
killed 38,536 persons.) In line with the official Soviet policy regarding the Jews and
the HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as The Shoah is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany,...
, the article does not mention the word "Jew" and did not acknowledge the
genocideGenocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.While precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of...
of the Jews.
Demographics
| Year | | Total population | Jewish population |
|---|
| 1789 |
2,640 |
1,951 (75%) |
| 1847 |
? |
23,160 |
| 1861 |
? |
46,683 |
| 1867 |
52,563 |
41,617 (80%) |
| 1926 |
55,417 |
30,812 (55.6%) |
| 1941 |
? |
0 |
| 1946 |
? |
6,000 |
| 1972 |
77,000 |
15,000 (est) |
| 1989 |
92,000 |
? |
| 2001 |
88,000 |
1000 |
People
- Boris Sidis
Boris Sidis, Ph.D., M.D. was a Russian Jewish psychologist, physician, psychiatrist, and philosopher of education. Sidis founded the New York State Psychopathic Institute and the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. He was the father of the child prodigy William James Sidis...
(Born in 1867)
- Jacob Pavlovitch Adler
Jacob Pavlovitch Adler , born Yankev P. Adler, was a Russian actor and star of Yiddish theater, first in Odessa, and later in London and New York City....
(mother Hessye Halperin was born)
- Valeriy Skvortsov
Valeriy Sergeyevich Skvortsov is a former high jumper who represented the USSR in the 1964 and 1968 Summer Olympics....
(born in 1945; Soviet high jumper; European champion)
- Sholom Aleichem
Sholem Aleichem was the pen name of Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich, the popular humorist and Jewish author of Yiddish literature, including novels, short stories, and plays. He did much to promote Yiddish writers, and was the first to pen children's literature in Yiddish.His work has been widely...
(lived)
- Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of almost 100 novels and plays collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the fall of Napoléon Bonaparte in 1815.Due to his keen observation of detail...
(married in)
- Isaac Fridman Lutzkaya (Born in 1926, Mexican actor) d. 2007.
- Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-born British novelist, who in 1886 became a British subject....
, writer (Born in 1857, Polish nobility)
- Abraham Firkovich
Abraham ben Samuel Firkovich was a famous leader of the Qarays . He was born in Lutsk, Volhynia, then lived in Lithuania, and finally settled in Çufut Qale, Crimea. Firkovich was a communal leader and hakham...
, Karaim hakham (lived)
- Abraham Goldfaden
Abraham Goldfaden ; was an Ukrainian-born Jewish poet, playwright...
(lived)
- Israel Grodner
Israel Grodner was one of the founding performers in Yiddish theater. A Lithuanian Jew who moved at the age of 16 to Berdichev, Ukraine, the Broder singer and actor was in Iaşi, Romania in 1876 when Abraham Goldfaden recruited him as the first actor for what became the first professional Yiddish...
(lived)
- Vasily Grossman
Vasily Semyonovich Grossman , December 12 1905 – September 14 1964, was a prominent Soviet-era writer and journalist.-Early life and career:...
- Felix Lembersky
Felix Lembersky was a Russian/Soviet/Jewish painter.Felix Lembersky was born in Lublin at a time and place where a sequence of historic events put him at an epicenter of violent turmoil. He was still an infant in Lublin, Poland when World War I began and spread to that region. His family ran to...
, fine arts, painter (1913-1970), born and raised in Berdichev, worked as theater stage designer
- Der Nister
Der Nister was the penname of Pinchus Kahanovich , a Yiddish author, philosopher, translator, and critic.Der Nister was born in Berdychiv to a Hasidic family of merchants...
- Antoni Protazy Potocki
Antoni Protazy Potocki , aka Prot, was a Polish noble . Knight of the Order of the White Eagle, awarded on May 8, 1781....
, szlachta (owned and organized several factories in the village of Makhnivka, near Berdychiv)
- Mendele Mocher Sforim
Mendele Moicher Sforim , "Mendele the book peddler," is the pseudonym of Sholem Yankev Abramovich, — Solomon Moiseyevich Abramovich, Jewish author and one of the founders of modern Yiddish and Hebrew literature.-Youth:Mendele was born...
(lived)
- Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev
Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev , also known as the Berdichever was a rabbi and Hasidic leader. He was one of the main disciples of the Maggid of Mezritch. Reb Levi Yitzchok was known as the "defense attorney" for the Jewish people, because it was believed that he could intercede on their behalf before...
(Levi Yosef Yitzhak of Berdichev), Torah commentator, chassidic rabbi, leader, religious song writer, and leader of the BerditchevBerditchev Hasidim, also known in Yiddish as Berditchiver Hasidim, originated in the town of Berdychiv, which over the years was under the control of Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine....
Hasidic dynasty.
See also
- Shtetl
A shtetl was typically a small town with a large Jewish population in pre-Holocaust Central and Eastern Europe...
- Names of European cities in different languages
Many cities in Europe have different names in different languages. Some cities have also undergone name changes for political or other reasons. This article attempts to give all known different names for all major cities that are geographically or historically and culturally in Europe...
- History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union
History of the Jews in Russia The vast territories of the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest Jewish population in the world. Within these territories the Jewish community flourished and developed many of modern Judaism's most distinctive theological and cultural traditions, while also...
External links