Chornobyl
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Name Origin
The city is named after the chornobyl' grass (Полин звичайний, Polyn zvychaynyi), which is the same as mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris). The word itself is a combination of chornyi (чорний, black) and byllia (билля, grass blades or stalks), hence it literally means black grass or black stalks. Sometimes it is erroneously translated as wormwood (Artemisia absinthium), which actually corresponds to Polyn hirkyi (Полин гіркий). Various species of Artemisia are common in steppes, and it bears poetic connotations in folklore. Chornobyl roots were also used in folk medicine to heal neurotic conditions, but its overdose could lead to psychical distress, including memory loss.
History
Chornobyl first appeared in a charter of 1193 described as a hunting-lodge of the Ruthenian Prince Rostislavitch. Some time later it was taken into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, where it became a crown village. The castle was built for defence against marauding Tatars. In 1566, three years before the Grand Duchy's Ukrainian provinces were transferred to the Kingdom of Poland, Chornobyl was granted in perpetuity to a Captain of the royal cavalry, Filon Kmita, who thereafter styled himself Kmita Czarnobylski. In due course, it passed by marriage to the Sapiehas, and in 1703 to the Chodkiewicz family. It was annexed by the Russian Empire after the Second Partition of Poland in 1793.
Chornobyl had a very rich religious history. The Jewish community, which formed an absolute majority, would probably have been imported by Filon Kmita as agents and arendators during the Polish campaign of colonisation. Later on, they would have included Chasidim as well as Orthodox Jews. The Ruthenian peasantry of the district would have largely turned to the Greek Catholic (Uniate) religion after 1596, only to be forcibly converted to Russian Orthodoxy by the Tsars.
The Dominican Church and monastery was founded in 1626 by Lukasz Sapieha, at the height of the Counter-reformation. In those days, Chornobyl was clearly a haven of toleration. There was a group of Old Catholics, who opposed the decrees of the Council of Trent, just as the seventeenth century saw the arrival of a group of Raskolniki, or "Old Believers", from Russia. They all escaped the worst horrors of the Chmielnicki Uprising of 1648-54 (also known as Polish-Cossack War) and those of 1768-9, when one of the rebel leaders, Bondarenko, was caught and brutally executed by Chodkiewicz's hussars.
The Dominican monastery was sequestrated in 1832, the church of the Raskolniki in 1852. Since 1880, Chornobyl has seen many changes of fortune. In 1915, it was occupied by the Germans, and in the ensuing Russian Civil War, was fought over by Bolsheviks, Whites, and Ukrainians. In the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-20, it was taken first by the Polish Army and then by the Red Cavalry of the Red Army. From 1921, it was incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR, and experienced the mass killings of Stalin's collectivisation campaign and Terror-Famine. The Polish population was deported during the Frontier Clearances of 1936. The Jewish community was killed by the Nazis during the German occupation of 1941-44. Twenty years later, it was chosen as the site of one of the first Soviet nuclear power stations.
On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl-4 nuclear reactor, located 10 km to the north of the city, exploded. All permanent residents were evacuated because radiation levels in the area had become unsafe.
From 1991, Chornobyl was joined to the Ukraine.
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