Kovel ' onMouseout='HidePop("51602")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Romanization_of_Ukrainian">translit.
The romanization or Latinization of Ukrainian is the representation of the Ukrainian language using Latin letters. Ukrainian is natively written in its own Ukrainian alphabet, a variation of Cyrillic....
Kovel’,
PolishPolish 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...
: Kowel) is a
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...
located in the
Volyn OblastVolyn Oblast is an oblast in north-western Ukraine. Its administrative center is Lutsk...
(
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"...
), in north-western
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...
.
Kovel ' onMouseout='HidePop("51602")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Romanization_of_Ukrainian">translit.
The romanization or Latinization of Ukrainian is the representation of the Ukrainian language using Latin letters. Ukrainian is natively written in its own Ukrainian alphabet, a variation of Cyrillic....
Kovel’,
PolishPolish 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...
: Kowel) is a
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...
located in the
Volyn OblastVolyn Oblast is an oblast in north-western Ukraine. Its administrative center is Lutsk...
(
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"...
), in north-western
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 Kovelskyi 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 also designated as a separate raion within the oblast. The current estimated population (as of 2009) is around 65,777.
Kovel, located around , is the north-western hub of the Ukrainian rail system, with six rail lines radiating outward from the city. The first of these was built in 1873, connecting the city with Brest-Litovsk and
RivneRivne is a historic city in western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Rivne Oblast , as well as the administrative center of the surrounding Rivne Raion within the oblast...
. In 1877 Kovel was first linked by rail with
LublinLublin is the ninth largest city in Poland. It is the capital of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 350,462 . Lublin is also the largest Polish city east of the Vistula river...
and
WarsawWarsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River roughly from both the Baltic Sea coast and the Carpathian Mountains. Its population as of 2009 was estimated at 1,709,781, and the Warsaw metropolitan area at approximately 2,785,000...
in
Congress PolandCongress Poland , officially and formally Kingdom of Poland and informally known as Russian Poland was a constitutional personal union of the Russian Empire created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, replaced by the Central Powers in 1915 with the Kingdom of Poland...
.
Kovel gives its name to one of the oldest Runic inscriptions which was lost during World War II. The Kovel spearhead, unearthed near the town in 1858, contained text in
Gothic languageGothic is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the Codex Argenteus, a 6th century copy of a 4th century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizable corpus...
(
illustration).
History
Kovel (Kowel) received city rights from the Polish king Zygmunt Stary in 1518. After the
Partitions of PolandThe Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The partitions were carried out by Prussia, Russia and Habsburg Austria dividing up the Commonwealth lands...
the town fell 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...
for over a hundred years. During the First World War, the city was a site of the Battle of Kovel between Austrian and
Russian imperial armiesThe 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...
. In the
interwar periodThe interwar period is understood, within recent Western culture, to be the period between the end of the First World War and the beginning of the Second World War. This is also called the period between the wars or interbellum....
, Kovel served as the capital of Kovel County in
Volhynian VoivodeshipVolhynian Voivodeship or Wołyń Voivodeship was a unit of administrative division and local government in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from 1566 till 1569 and in the Kingdom of Poland since 1569 till the partitions of Poland in 1795...
of the
Second Polish RepublicThe Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; from the creation of an independent Polish state in the aftermath of World War I, to the invasion of Poland in 1939 by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Slovak Republic,...
. In
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...
, following the Nazi German
invasion of PolandThe Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II...
and subsequently, their
Operation BarbarossaOperation Barbarossa was the code name for Nazi 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 2,900 km front...
the Germans murdered 18,000 Jews in Kovel, mostly during August and September of 1942. Later on, in March and April 1944, Kovel was a site of fierce fighting between the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking and the Soviets. In 1945, at the insistence of
Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953...
(following the
Tehran ConferenceThe Tehran Conference was the meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill between November 28 and December 1, 1943, most of which was held at the Soviet Embassy in Tehran, Iran. It was the first World War II conference among the Big Three in which Stalin was present...
of 1943) Poland's borders were
redrawnThe territorial changes of Poland after World War II were very extensive.In 1945, following the Second World War, Poland's borders were redrawn, following the decision taken at the Teheran Conference of 1943 at the insistence of the Soviet Union...
, the Polish population was
forcibly resettledRepatriation of Poles can refer to:*Repatriation of Poles *Repatriation of Poles...
and Kovel was incorporated into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
People from Kovel
- Abraham Zapruder
Abraham Zapruder was an American manufacturer of women's clothing who filmed U.S. President John F. Kennedy's 1963 motorcade traveling through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, and unexpectedly recorded the assassination of the President...
(1905-1970), naturalized American manufacturer of women’s clothing who filmed the assassination of John KeenedyThe assassination of John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, took place on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time in Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was fatally shot while riding with his wife Jacqueline in a Presidential motorcade...
in 1963.
- Rabbi Meir Aurbach
Meir Aurbach was the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Jerusalem.Born in Kowel, Poland, into the Auerbach family of rabbis, he became rabbi of his hometown at the age of 25....
(1815), president of the Jewish court at KoloKoło is a town on the Warta River in central Poland with 23,101 inhabitants . It is situated in the Greater Poland Voivodship , having previously been in Konin Voivodship , and it is the capital of Koło County.-Early history:...
, author of "Imrei Bina" (Words of Wisdom). Immigrated to the Land of Israel and was the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of JerusalemJerusalem is the capital of Israel and its largest city in both population and area, with a population of 747,600 residents over an area of if disputed East Jerusalem is included...
.