History of the city of Dnipro

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The history of the city of Dnipro describes the development of the city of Dnipro , which after it was founded by the deputy of Catherine the Great , Grigory Alexandrovich Potjomkin , became the capital of the New Russia governorate as Yekaterinoslav and then the Yekaterinoslav governorate named after her . The city became a closed city during the era of Soviet rule due to the armaments industry located here (including Yushmasch and KB Yuzhnoye ) and is now the third largest city in Ukraine and an important business and university location.

Prehistory and early history

Excavation objects that are assigned to the Yamnaya culture .

The area of ​​today's Dnipro had been settled since the Paleolithic , but it was often devastated, most recently in the 13th century during the Mongol storm . In the Neolithic period there are said to have been from 5000 to 4000 BC. Representatives of the Dnepr-Don culture lived, which was later followed by the Sredny-Stog culture , which dates from around 4500 to 3500 BC. Is dated. One of the most famous archaeological sites associated with this culture, Deriyivka , is very close to the city. According to other views, the area is said to have been around 4800 to 3000 BC. BC the eastern branch of the Cucuteni-Tripolje culture .

At the transition from the Neolithic to the Copper Age , the urban area belonged to the regions of origin of the presumably semi-nomadic spa culture , which dates from 4400 to 4300 BC. Is dated - but this is scientifically not entirely undisputed (cf. criticism of the spa theory and later research ).

From the Yamnaja culture , early remains of chariots from AI Trenoschkin were excavated from the late Copper Age / Early Bronze Age in Storoschowa mohyla - Kurgan, close to the city . The largest collection of "stone babas" ( Ukrainian Баби кам'яні , Russian каменные бабы ) in the Ukraine, which is in the Dnipro Historical Museum , probably dates from this period . Because of their 3000-year history, they were certainly not the product of just one people. However, the earliest are associated with the Yamnaya culture, the Iron Age specimens with the Scythians, and the medieval specimens with various Turkic peoples .

The Yamnaja culture followed in the Bronze Age from around 2800/2500 BC. Until 2000 BC The catacomb tomb culture , which got its name from the catacombs they created , the underground parts of which are most closely comparable to the Egyptian mastabas . In the Late Bronze Age , the Srubna culture followed in the 20th to 12th centuries BC .

Scythian archer

The steppe area around the city was part of the so-called Wild Field , which was created in antiquity (8th / 7th centuries BC) by the Iranian- speaking cavalry peoples of the Scythians and later by the Sarmatians close to them who lived in the 4th / 3rd century BC . Century BC BC the Scythians subjugated and assimilated, was inhabited.

Migration period

From the 2nd to the beginning of the 5th century AD , the Chernyakhov culture associated with the Ostrogoths could also have settled there , since the Goths were pushing from the Vistula to the coasts of the Black Sea at this time , presumably doing the there The resident Aorsen , then the largest tribe of the Sarmatians, gradually defeated them over a period of 20 years. Around the year 374, the first should Huns under their leader Balamir the Volga crossing, while the kingdom of Alans destroyed and then one of them Alliance have closed. The pressure from the east probably also pushed the Sarmatian tribes of the Jazygens and the Roxolans towards the west (most likely to the Balkans ). In 375 the Greutungen (Ostrogoths) of Ermanarich were destroyed (see above all Ammianus Marcellinus , Res gestae 31, 2f.), At the latest at this time the Huns began .

In the fourth century, the Bulgarians or Proto-Bulgarians could also have been carried away in the course of the great migration. They settled in the so-called Onoguria and expanded their empire over today's Dnipro. It was probably around this time that the Slavs coming from the north settled in the area for the first time, although some of them may have moved to the Balkans together with the Bulgarians. After the withdrawal of the Huns and the peoples they drove westwards, a power vacuum developed around today's city and all of southern Ukraine. In the 6th century, the early Bulgarians probably divided into the Kutrigurs , who pushed further west, and the Utigurs , who stayed on the Don and probably founded the Greater Bulgarian Empire , whose catchment area also included Dnipro. What happened to the Onogurs , another tribe associated with the Proto-Bulgarians , is unclear. The area of ​​today's Dnipro, like all of southern Ukraine, became a transit area for the Bulgarians from their homeland, which was presumably on the Volga. In the 7th century, the Bulgarians under their leader Kubrat gradually moved further and further into today's Bulgaria , a part of which probably formed the state of the Volga Bulgarians . The discovery of the important Pereschepensky treasure near Poltava, 100 kilometers north of Dnipro , probably dates from this time .

Middle Ages to the Cossack state

The area east of the city became part of the Khazar Empire around the year 750 . It also belonged to the trading network of the Radhanites , Jewish merchants who, from around the 8th to the 11th centuries, ensured trade relations between the warring countries of the West and the Islamic world and also traded with India and China . They were probably the most important reason for the great importance of Judaism in the Khazar Empire. To the west of the city, the Magyars , who still lived in the Volga region in 600 AD, already settled the area between the Dniester and Dnieper around 900 AD , probably what they called Etelköz (literally: land between the rivers) - on the eastern border of the Khazar Empire, to which they were tributary . During this time they were also joined by the Kabars , three tribes that rebelled against the Khazar Empire, and because of the pressure of the Pechenegs , they moved west to the Carpathians from the vastness of the Eurasian steppe regions and the Bulgarians allied with them under Tsar Simeon I or in the Pannonian Basin .

From around the 8th to the 11th century, the trade route between Scandinavia and Byzantium , one of the most important trade routes in Eastern Europe , ran through today's urban area (across the Dnepr) .

Former settlements and fortresses in the area of ​​today's city of Dnipro

After the decline of the Khazar Empire came the horsemen of the Pechenegs and Cumans as well as the Golden Horde . After the dissolution of the Golden Horde, the area around Dnipro was settled in the 15th and 16th centuries by the Ruthenians who fled Poland-Lithuania and founded free Cossack communities there and formed a Cossack state (see also Zaporozhian Cossacks ). They fought against Polish rule and resisted the frequent raids of the Tatar Crimean khanate .

In 1635, the Poles built Kodak fortress about ten kilometers south of the city to protect themselves from the Zaporozhian Cossacks and to deter local farmers from joining them. In the same year, the Cossacks, led by Ivan Sulyma , captured the fortress and burned it down. In 1639 the Poles rebuilt the fortress in double size. Due to the protection of the fortress, more and more people settled in the emerging city of Stari Kodaki instead of joining the Zaporozhian Cossacks. During the Khmelnytskyi uprising , the fortress was under siege for seven months and then surrendered to the Cossack troops. It was razed by the Russians in 1711 due to the Prut Peace Treaty . The settlement of Stari Kodaki applies.

The city in tsarist and imperial Russia

Prince Grigori Potjomkin and Empress Catherine the Great

After the Cossack alliance with Russia , expansion of the Ottoman Empire into eastern Ukraine was fought off at the end of the 17th century . After the Russo-Ottoman War of 1768 to 1774 , when the influence of the Ottoman Empire north of the Black Sea was eliminated, a comprehensive development program for the newly conquered southern areas was worked out as part of the so-called Greek plan of Empress Catherine the Great . Under the direction of Prince Grigory Potjomkin , the New Russia governorate was created here, the capital of which was Yekaterinoslav, founded in 1776. The location of the city a little southwest of today's Pidhorodne , at the confluence of the Samara and Kiltschen ( Ukrainian Кільче'нь ), was disadvantageous because rising spring water regularly turned the city into a swamp. Therefore, the city was re-established in 1783 at its current location. In 1805, 2,634 people lived there (376 of them Jews).

From 1802 to 1925 the city was the capital of the Yekaterinoslav Governorate . In the 19th century, in connection with the relocation of the railway line from central Russia to the Crimea , the city experienced rapid growth in population and industry.

In 1883 anti-Jewish riots / pogroms reached the city and, as in Krywyj Rih and Novomoskowsk , numerous Jewish houses, shops and, above all, inns were looted. There were rapes and murders, the number of which can only be estimated. These unrest began in 1881 and extended over large parts of the southern Pale of Settlement, especially in the Cherson Governorate as a starting point, but also in Tauria , Kiev , Yekaterinoslav and in 1884 Nizhny Novgorod . Because it was assumed that Jews were behind the assassination attempt on Tsar Alexander II on March 13, 1881. Although it was actually perpetrated by the left-wing terrorist organization Narodnaya Volya .

In the turmoil of the Russian Revolution of 1905 , triggered by the Russo-Japanese War and St. Petersburg Bloody Sunday , the proletariat of the city of Yekaterinoslav rose up. The revolutionaries Grigory Ivanovich Petrowski and Ivan Vasilyevich Babushkin , after whom the Shevchenko district was named, began their careers here.

Revolution time

In November 1917, after the February Revolution , the city, like the entire Yekaterinoslav Governorate , belonged to the Ukrainian People's Republic . However, Bolshevik units marched in on January 9, 1918 and took the city. The city was annexed by the Bolsheviks to the red Soviet republic Donetsk-Krivoy Rog until April 1918 . From April 1918, the city belonged to the German occupation zone. The Central Na Rada was dissolved and Pavlo Skoropadskyj was installed as the hetman of the Ukrainian state puppet state .

From January 1919 to June 29, 1919, the city belonged to the red Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and then to the White Movement- controlled area of ​​the White Southern Russia ( Russian бе́лый Юг Росси́и ).

The city did not experience any battles or destruction during the Russian Civil War . It was taken twice by soldiers of Makhovshchina , December 27th to 31st, 1918 and November 9th to December 9th, 1919. In 1918 the combined armed forces of the Ukrainian People's Republic and the Ukrainian State , the so-called "Petlyurovtsi" ( Russian петлюровцы ) were expelled. During the affiliation of the city to the Ukrainian People's Republic or the Ukrainian State, the National University of Dnipro was founded and the city was renamed to Sitscheslav, but this never became official and lasted only for one year.

In 1919 the city (again as Yekaterinoslav) was the capital of Makhnovshchina after units of the White Army had been driven out. Subsequently, on December 30, 1919, the city was captured by the Red Army , which finally won the civil war.

The city in Soviet times

Memorial to the 20,000 Jews shot dead in Dnipropetrovsk in 1943

During the Holodomor in 1933, many cases of cannibalism were detected by the GPU secret police . About 7% of all criminal cases for cannibalism ( punishable by at least 10 years in prison or the death penalty) originated in Dnepropetrovsk Oblast. During this time, several million people died of starvation in Ukraine.

The city ​​suffered enormous damage during the Second World War . There was also mass murder of Jewish residents by the German occupiers. SS leader Friedrich Jeckeln and Police Battalion 314 played a key role in the mass shootings . On 13./14. October 1941 11,000 Jews murdered. When a famine in the city could no longer be overlooked in the autumn of 1941, the "USSR incident report" No. 135 of SS-Einsatzgruppe C banned . November 19, 1941, the Nazi State Secretary for Food and Agriculture Herbert Backe introduced food ration cards, "as these represented legal claims to delivery".

In the city there were two POW camps 417 and 460 (from 1949) for German POWs of the Second World War. Seriously ill people were cared for in the prisoner of war hospital 5905 .

After the city was recaptured, Juschmasch (translated: Production Association of Southern Mechanical Engineering), a manufacturer of rockets, satellites and spacecraft, was founded here in 1944 . Yushmash manufactured the first Soviet ICBM , the R-16 . In 1951, the Juschnoje design office was separated from Juschmasch as an independent company. The establishment of Yushmash was the main reason to convert the city into a closed city . This was felt to be necessary in order to protect important information about rocket construction and space research from espionage.

After the Second World War, there was reconstruction, continued industrialization and rapid population growth, which made Dnepropetrovsk a city of over a million in the 1980s.

In the course of perestroika from 1986 the demand for military technology sank drastically, which forced Juschmasch to get into civil engineering (wind turbines, trams, buses ...).

Independent Ukraine since 1991

The Dnieper City Council
Dnieper branch of the National Bank of Ukraine

With Ukraine's independence from the Soviet Union, the city lost its closed city status.

With the establishment of the private bank in 1992, Dnipropetrovsk became the seat of the largest financial institution in Ukraine.

A series of murders broke out in the city in 2007 . 21 people, mostly defenseless and homeless, were killed. The perpetrators who were arrested in 2008 are three young people aged 20 years. The young people filmed their crimes. All three came from a good family and justified their act by saying that they felt the "kick" of killing and wanted to have memories of their youth in later life.

On October 13, 2007, there was a gas explosion in a residential building in the city, in which 22 people died. The house is called Китайская стена (transcription Kitaiskaja Stena ) - in German "Great Wall of China" - and is located in one of the poorer districts.

On April 27, 2012, several bomb attacks were carried out almost simultaneously in busy areas of the city, in which at least 29 people were injured. So far there have been no confessional videos or other communications from the perpetrators, so that it is not possible to say in which context this attack was carried out.

In 2012, Russian was reintroduced as the regional official language in Dnepropetrovsk Oblast, and thus also in the city itself.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Marija Gimbutas: The End of Old Europe. The invasion of steppe nomads from southern Russia and the Indo-Germanization of Central Europe. (= Archeolingua. Series minor 6). Ed. Archaeological Institute of Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Linguistic Institute of the University of Innsbruck. Archaeolingua Alapítvány, Budapest 1994, ISBN 3-85124-171-1 .
  2. ↑ Short article on the “Stone Babas” of Dnipro , accessed on www.ukrainehotelsonline.com on June 20, 2013.
  3. ^ JP Mallory, DQ Adams: Kemi Oba Culture. In: Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997, pp. 327-328.
  4. ↑ For the following story, cf. the relevant manuals on late antiquity and Maenchen-Helfen: World of the Huns. Wiesbaden 1997, ISBN 3-928127-43-8 ; general and quite topical about Peter J. Heather: The Fall of the Roman Empire. London 2005, ISBN 0-330-49136-9 , pp. 145 ff.
  5. ↑ For an introduction see Florin Curta: The Making of the Slavs. History and Archeology of the Lower Danube Region, c . 500-700 . Cambridge 2001; Florin Curta: Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500-1250 . Cambridge 2006; Christian Lübke: Eastern Europe. The Germans and the European Middle Ages . Munich 2004.
  6. ^ Paul Robert Magocsi: A History of Ukraine . University of Toronto Press, Toronto 1996, ISBN 0-8020-0830-5 , pp. 27 .
  7. ↑ Article about the Pereschepensky treasure on goldensands.bg (English) , accessed on June 22, 2013.
  8. ↑ hm3_2_13.html. hermitagemuseum.org, archived from the original on August 22, 1999 ; Retrieved September 18, 2016 (article on the Pereschepensky Treasure on the St. Petersburg Hermitage website).
  9. ↑ Thomas Gerlach , Gert Schmidt: Discovering the Ukraine. 9th, completely revised and expanded edition. Trescher Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-89794-103-8 .
  10. ^ Dnepropetrovsk History. eugene.com.ua, archived from the original on November 2, 2014 ; accessed on September 21, 2014 (English).
  11. ↑ www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org
  12. ↑ IM Aronson: Troubled Waters. The Origins of the Anti-Jewish Pogroms in Russia. Pittsburgh 1990, pp. 59ff.
  13. ↑ Dr. Hennadii Boriak, Director General of the State Committee of Archives in Ukraine «The Ukrainian Famine of 1933: Sources and Source Publications»
  14. ^ Dieter Pohl: Persecution and mass murder in the Nazi era 1933-1945. Darmstadt 2003, pp. 73 and 96; Peter Longerich: Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews. 2010, pp. 196-198.
  15. ↑ Dieter Pohl : Die Einsatzgruppe C : In: Peter Klein (Ed.): Die Einsatzgruppen in the occupied Soviet Union 1941/42. The activity and situation reports of the chief of the security police and the SD. Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-89468-200-0 , pp. 71–87, here p. 76.
  16. ↑ Klaus-Michael Mallmann , Andrej Angrick , Jürgen Matthäus , Martin Cüppers (eds.): The "incident reports USSR" 1941. Documents of the Einsatzgruppen in the Soviet Union . (= Publications of the Research Center Ludwigsburg . Volume 20). WBG, Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-534-24468-3 , pp. 774f.
  17. ↑ Erich Maschke (Hrsg.): On the history of the German prisoners of war of the Second World War. Verlag Ernst and Werner Gieseking, Bielefeld u. a. 1962-1977.
  18. ↑ Article on the Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs , accessed on www.unian.net on January 10, 2014.
  19. ↑ Article on the "Great Wall of China" Dnipro ( Memento of the original from January 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed at nrcu.gov.ua  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nrcu.gov.ua
  20. ↑ Series of attacks: Ukraine sees no security threat for European football championships. In: time online . April 27, 2012.