Volhynia -- Wolhynien

Volhynia's history and geography

Volhynia -- known as Wolhynien in German -- is in the northwest corner of Ukraine. There was a government district with that name for more than a century, and the region is still generally known as Volhynia even though the old government district is now split between five modern oblasts.

Major cities in Volhynia include Zhitomir, Korosten, Novograd-Volynsk, Rowno, Lutzk and Kowel.

Geography

The northern part of Volhynia is known for its forests and its marshes. The most common tree is pine, but oak may be found on richer soils, along with birch, alder, and linden. At one time almost the entire belt was covered with forest, but the spread of agriculture over the past 150 years means that less than 33 per cent of the forests remain.

Volhynia includes part of the Polessie, one of the largest European swampy areas. The Polessie also includes parts of Belarus, Russia and Poland.The swamp area of the Polessie -- which translates as "woodland" -- is known as the Pripiat Marsh, named after the major river that runs through it. The main highway between Korosten and Rokitnoe passes through the southern part of the marsh, with water-soaked soil clearly visible from the road.

Volhynia was heavily affected by radioactive fallout from the 1986 nuclear plant accident at Chernobyl. Huge areas in the northeastern region were so badly polluted that agriculture has been prohibited. This region is also considered unsuitable for living, so several villages have been abandoned.

Temperatures in Volhynia vary widely -- between -35 in winter and 38 Celsius in summer. It gets about 600 millimetres of precipitation in an average year.

Today, Volhynia is home to about four million people. Its economy is primarily based on forestry and lumber milling, agriculture and food processing, granite mining, metalworking, and the manufacture of machinery and musical instruments.

History

Volhynia's name comes from the fortified town of Volyn, near Volodymyr-Volynsk. It was mentioned in documents dating from 1018, so it is nearly 1,000 years old. It was on a historic east-west route linking Kiev with the west through Brest, in today's Belarus, as well as a north-south route between Scandinavia and Constantinople, now Istanbul, Turkey.

1199: Galicia and Volhynia were brought together under Prince Roman Mstyslavych.

1349: Poland and Lithuania went to war. Volhynia ended up with in the grand duchy of Lithuania in 1352. Poland seized the western part, including Chelm, in 1366. The two countries started working together in 1385. Volhynia was considered a principality until 1452, then a province.

1569: Poland and Lithuania were brought together under one government through the Union of Lublin. Volhynia region was incorporated into the Polish kingdom. The administrative system in the area remained unchanged for the next two centuries. The local government was the Volhynia voivodship.

1793: With the second partition of Poland, Volhynia was incorporated into Russia. Ukraine was divided along the Dniper River, which runs through Kiev. Zhitomir became the centre of the western side of Ukraine, and courts and other government institutions were moved there. Germans -- and Czechs, and French -- started moving to Volhynia around the time of the second partition.

1797: The Volhynian gubernia was established, with its capital in Zhitomir. The government had 17 districts: Novograd-Volynsk, Labunsk, Volodymersk, Kovel, Zaslavsk, Ostrog, Rovno, Dombrovyts, Ovruch, Zhitomir, Chudniv, Lutsk, Dubno, Kremenetsk, Yampilsk, Bazalivsk and Starokanstantinovka. Radomyshl, northwest of the city of Zhitomir and part of today's Zhitomir oblast, was transferred to the Kiev gubernia.

There were minor internal changes to the Volhynia gubernia over the years. The Chudniv district was liquidated and its territory transferred to Zhitomir and Novograd-Volynskiy districts. In 1846 Berdichev with adjoining territories was separated from Zhitomir district and became a center of new district.

1861: Tsar Alexander II granted freedom to serfs, the peasants who worked for large farms. As a result, some of the nobility started selling land, and a large-scale migration of Germans into the area took place.

1917: By the time of the Russian revolution Volhynia was one of 10 gubernias on Ukrainian ethnic territory, with eight more in ethnically mixed areas. The district unit within the gubernia was the uezdy or powity. Think of the gubernia as a state and the uuezdy as a county.

1918: Ukraine was declared independent, and Zhitomir was named the capital. This lasted until 1922.

1921: According to the Riga peace treaty betwen Poland and Russia, signed on March 18, 1921, some of Volhynia's western districts were turned over to Poland. The districts included Kovel, Lutsk, Dubno, Rovno, Ostrog, as well as most of Kremenetsk and two regions in the Novograd-Volynsk district, Korez and Kysorytsk (today, Rokitno).

1923: The Gubernia system was replaced by okrugs. The Volhynian okrug was established in 1925.

1932: Oblasts were introduced, replacing okrugs. The district government became known as the raion. The Zhitomir area was one oblast; the Rovno and Lutzk areas were not part of this, because they were in Poland.

1939: The Soviets took western Volhynia. A new oblast was Volhynia, with the capital in Lutzk, and another was Rovno, with Rovno as the capital.

1941: The Germans invaded in June. They were driven out by the Russian army in late 1943.

1944: The oblasts returned.

1945: Volhynia was reunified when Poland was pushed west.

1991: Ukraine was established as an independent state. The former Soviet oblast and raion system was retained.

Sources include a Russian encyclopedia from 1865, the Encyclopedia Britannica from 1964, atlases, and an unpublished thesis prepared by a university student in Zhitomir.

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