Volyn Oblast ' onMouseout='HidePop("82414")' 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....
Volyns’ka oblast’; also referred to as
Volyn’) is an
oblastUkraine is subdivided into 24 oblasts , one autonomous republic, and two "cities with special status".- Overview :...
(province) 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...
.
Volyn Oblast ' onMouseout='HidePop("82414")' 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....
Volyns’ka oblast’; also referred to as
Volyn’) is an
oblastUkraine is subdivided into 24 oblasts , one autonomous republic, and two "cities with special status".- Overview :...
(province) 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...
. Its
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....
is
LutskLutsk is a city located by the Styr River in north-western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Volyn Oblast , as well as the administrative center of the surrounding Lutskyi Raion within the oblast...
.
KovelKovel is a city located in the Volyn Oblast , in north-western Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Kovelskyi Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast...
is the westernmost town and the last station in Ukraine of the rail line running from
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...
through to
KievKiev or Kyiv , is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300...
.
History
- See also: Volhynia
Volhynia, 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...
for earlier history
Volyn was once part of Kievan Rus before becoming an independent local principality and an integral part of the Halych-Volynia, one of Kievan Rus successor states. In the 1400s, the area came under the control of neighbouring
Grand Duchy of LithuaniaThe Grand Duchy of Lithuania was an Eastern and Central European state from the 12th /13th century until 1795. It was founded by the Lithuanians, one of the pagan Baltic tribes from Aukštaitija...
, in 1569 passing over to
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...
and then in 1795, until World War I, to 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...
where it was a part of the
Volynskaya GuberniyaA guberniya was a major administrative subdivision of Imperial Russia, usually translated as government, governorate, or province. A guberniya was ruled by a governor , a word borrowed from Latin , in turn from Greek...
. In the interwar period most of the territory, organized as Wołyń Voivodeship was under the
PolishThe 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,...
control.
In 1939 when following the
Molotov-Ribbentrop pactThe Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, colloquially named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and signed in...
Poland was invaded and divided by
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
and the Soviet Union, Volyn joined the Soviet Ukraine, and on December 4, 1939 the oblast was organized.
Many Ukrainians rejoiced at the "reunification", but the Polish minority suffered a cruel fate. Thousands of Poles, especially retired Polish officers and intelligentsia were deported to Siberia and other areas in the depths of the Soviet Union. A high proportion of these deportees died in the extreme conditions of Soviet labour camps and most were never able to return to Volyn again.
In 1941 Volyn was invaded by 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...
Germany's
Barbarossa OffensiveOperation 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...
. Nazis completed their holocaust of the Jews of Volhynia in late 1942.
Partisan activity started in Volyn in 1941, soon after German occupation. Partisans were involved in the Rail War campaign against German supply lines and were known for their efficiency in gathering intelligence and for sabotage. The region formed the basis of several networks and many members of the local population served with the partisans. The Poles in the area became part of the Polish Home Army, which often undertook operations with the partisan movement.
The
Ukrainian Insurgent ArmyThe Ukrainian Insurgent Army was a group of Ukrainian nationalist partisans who engaged in a series of guerrilla conflicts during World War II...
(UPA) began operating in the region in 1942 and then spread to other regions of Ukraine. UPA units fought the German Army, Polish Home Army, then the Soviets for many years after World War II. Some units of this army engaged in bloody widespread actions to ethnically cleanse the region of its local Polish population. Whole Polish settlements in Volyn were massacred, and some 30,000 to 60,000 Poles were killed (Polish sources gave even higher figures) (see
Massacres of Poles in VolhyniaThe Massacres of Poles in Volhynia were part of an ethnic cleansing operation in Volhynia and its environs that took place mainly between late March 1943 and August 1947 during and after World War II....
). Local Polish paramilitary units retaliated, killing around 15,000 or more local Ukrainians.
In January 1944 the
Red ArmyThe Red Army The Red Army The Red Army was the Soviet government’s revolutionary militia beginning in the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the USSR. Since 1946, after the Second World War, it was called the Soviet Army.The 'Red...
recaptured the territory from the Nazis.
In the immediate aftermath of World War II the Polish-Soviet border was redrawn based on the
Curzon lineThe Curzon Line was a demarcation line between the Second Polish Republic and Bolshevik Russia, first proposed on December 8, 1919 at the Allied Supreme Council declaration. The line was authored by British Foreign Secretary, George Curzon, 1st Earl Curzon of Kedleston...
. Volyn, along with the neighbouring provinces became an integral part of the
Ukrainian SSRThe Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic or the Ukrainian SSR was one of the founders of the Soviet Union constituent republic that made up the former Soviet Union from its formation in 1922 to its abolition in 1991.-Name:...
. Most Poles who remained in the eastern region were transferred to the
Recovered TerritoriesRecovered or Regained Territories was the official term used by the Communist Polish post-war authorities to denote those territories which were assigned by the Big Three allies to Poland and incorporated into Poland after the Second World War...
of western Poland (the former easternmost provinces of Germany) whose German population had been expelled. Some of the Ukrainians on the western side, notably around the city of Kholm (Chełm in Polish), were also allowed to move to Ukraine.
The area underwent rapid industrialisation including the construction of the Lutskiy Avtomobilnyi Zavod. Nevertheless the area remains one of the most rural throughout the former Soviet Union. It currently ranks amongst Ukraine's poorest areas, likely due to a lack of investment and a declining infrastructure. Some of its lands are on the edge of the area affected by the
Chernobyl disasterThe Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear reactor accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine . It is considered to be the worst nuclear power plant disaster in history and the only level 7 event on the International Nuclear Event Scale...
.
Historical Sites
The following historical-cultural sites were nominated for the
Seven Wonders of UkraineThe Seven Wonders of Ukraine are the seven historical and cultural monuments of Ukraine, which were chosen in the Seven Wonders of Ukraine contest held in July, 2007...
.
- Upper Castle
- Volodymyr-Volynsky historical-cultural complex
- Villa-museum of Lesia Ukrainka
- Painting of the Holm's Virgin Mary
Politics
Former Chairmen of Oblast Council
- - 2006 Vasyl Dmytruk Lytvyn's Bloc
The Lytvyn Bloc, formerly Lytvyn's People's Bloc, is a centrist political alliance in Ukraine led by Volodymyr Lytvyn. According to Lytvyn the party had 400,000 members in October 2009.-Ukrainian parliamentary election, 2006:...
- 2006 - Anatoliy Hrytsiuk
Subdivisions
The Volyn Oblast is administratively subdivided into 16 raions (
districtDistricts are a type of administrative division, in some countries managed by a local government. They vary greatly in size, spanning entire regions or counties, several municipalities, or subdivisions of municipalities.-Austria:...
s), as well as 4 cities (
municipalitiesA municipality is an administrative entity composed of a clearly defined territory and its population and commonly denotes a city, town, or village, or a small grouping of them. A municipality is typically governed by a mayor and a city council or municipal council.The notion of municipality...
) which are directly subordinate to the oblast government: Kovel,
NovovolynskNovovolynsk is a city in Volyn Oblast, Ukraine. Population is 53,838 ....
,
Volodymyr-VolynskyiVolodymyr-Volynskyi or Vladimir-Volynsky is a historic city located in the what is now Volyn Oblast , in north-western Ukraine...
, and the administrative center of the oblast, Lutsk.
style="background:#ddd; vertical-align:bottom; text-align:left; font-size:111%; font-weight:bold; padding:.5em 0;" | Raions of the Volyn Oblast
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In English |
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Administrative Center |
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Horokhivskyi Raion Horokhiv Raion is a raion in Volyn Oblast in western Ukraine. Its administrative center is Horokhiv.-Urban-type settlements:* Mar'yanikva *Senkevichivka -Villages:...
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Горохівський район
Horokhivs'kyi raion |
Horokhiv Horokhiv is a city in Volyn Oblast, Ukraine. It is administrative center of the Horokhivskyi Raion. It is located at around ....
(City) |
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Ivanychivskyi Raion |
Іваничівський район
Ivanychivs'kyi raion |
Ivanychi
(Urban-type settlementUrban-type settlement is an official designation for a certain type of urban localities used in some of the countries of the former Soviet Union....
) |
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Kamin-Kashyrskyi Raion Kamin-Kashyrskyi Raion is a raion in Volyn Oblast in western Ukraine. Its administrative center is Kamin-Kashyrskyi. It has a population of 62 151.-External links:*...
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Камінь-Каширський район
Kamin'-Kashyrs'kyi raion |
Kamin-Kashyrskyi Kamin-Kashyrskyi is a city in Volyn Oblast, Ukraine. It is administrative center of the Kamin-Kashyrskyi Raion. Population is 10,818 ....
(City) |
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Kivertsivskyi Raion |
Ківерцівський район
Kivertsivs'kyi raion |
Kivertsi Kivertsi is a town in Volyn Oblast, Ukraine. It is administrative center of the Kivertsivskyi Raion. Population is 16,678 ....
(City) |
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Kovelskyi Raion |
Ковельський район
Kovels'kyi raion |
Kovel Kovel is a city located in the Volyn Oblast , in north-western Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Kovelskyi Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast...
(City) |
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Lokachynskyi Raion |
Локачинський район
Lokachyns'kyi raion |
Lokachi
(Urban-type settlement) |
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Lutskyi Raion |
Луцький район
Luts'kyi raion |
LutskLutsk is a city located by the Styr River in north-western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Volyn Oblast , as well as the administrative center of the surrounding Lutskyi Raion within the oblast...
(City) |
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Lyubeshivskyi Raion |
Любешівський район
Lyubeshivs'kyi raion |
Lyubeshiv
(Urban-type settlement) |
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Lyubomlskyi Raion |
Любомльський район
Lyubomls'kyi raion |
Lyuboml
(City) |
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Manevytskyi Raion |
Маневицький район
Manevyts'kyi raion |
Manevychi
(City) |
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Ratnivskyi Raion |
Ратнівський район
Ratnivs'kyi raion |
Ratne
(Urban-type settlement) |
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Rozhyshchenskyi Raion |
Рожищенський район
Rozhyshchens'kyi raion |
Rozhysche Rozhysche ) is a city in Volyn Oblast, Ukraine. It is administrative center of the Rozhyshchenskyi Raion. Population is 13,636 ....
(City) |
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Shatskyi Raion |
Шацький район
Shats'kyi raion |
Shatsk Shatsk is a small town in Ukraine, in the region of Volhynia, to the north-west of Kovel. It is the administrative center of the Shatskyi Raion. It has approximately 6,000 inhabitants.The town was first mentioned in 1410...
(City) |
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Starovyzhivskyi Raion |
Старовижівський район
Starovyzhivs'kyi raion |
Stara Vyzhivka
(Urban-type settlement) |
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Turiyskyi Raion |
Турійський район
Turiys'kyi raion |
Turiysk
(Urban-type settlement) |
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Volodymyr-Volynskyi Raion Volodymyr-Volynskyi Raion is a raion in Volyn Oblast in western Ukraine. Its administrative center is Volodymyr Volynskyi. It has a population of 28 446.-External links:*...
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Володимир-Волинський район
Volodymyr-Volynskyi raion |
Volodymyr-Volynskyi Volodymyr-Volynskyi or Vladimir-Volynsky is a historic city located in the what is now Volyn Oblast , in north-western Ukraine...
(City) |
External links