Kozelets (, ) is a rural settlement in

Chernihiv Raion Chernihiv Raion () is a raion (district) of Chernihiv Oblast, northern Ukraine. Its administrative centre is the city of Chernihiv. Population: On 18 July 2020, as part of the administrative reform of Ukraine, the number of raions of Chernihi ...

Chernihiv Oblast Chernihiv Oblast (), also referred to as Chernihivshchyna (), is an administrative divisions of Ukraine, oblast (province) in northern Ukraine. The capital city, administrative center of the oblast is the city of Chernihiv. There are 1,511 sett ...

, northern

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

. It hosts the administration of Kozelets settlement hromada, one of the

hromada In Ukraine, a hromada () is the main type of municipality and the third level Administrative divisions of Ukraine, local self-government in Ukraine. The current hromadas were established by the Cabinet of ministers of Ukraine, Government of Uk ...

s of Ukraine. Kozelets is located on the

Oster River The Oster () is a river in the northern Ukrainian oblast of Chernihiv. The river is a left tributary of the Desna River. It is approximately 199 km long and its basin area is 2,950 km2. It is connected by canals and streams with the T ...

, a tributary of the

Dnieper The Dnieper or Dnepr ( ), also called Dnipro ( ), is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. Approximately long, with ...

. Population: The town was first mentioned in written documents in 1098, but its status as an

urban-type settlement Urban-type settlement, abbreviated: ; , abbreviated: ; ; ; ; . is an official designation for lesser urbanized settlements, used in several Central and Eastern Europe, Central and Eastern European countries. The term was primarily used in the So ...

(one level below that of a

city A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...

) was granted in 1924. Notable attractions in the city includes the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin designed in the

Ukrainian Baroque Ukrainian Baroque (), also known as Cossack Baroque () or Mazepa Baroque, is an style (visual arts), artistic style that was widespread in Ukraine in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was the result of a combination of local traditions and Europea ...

style by architects Ivan Hryhorovych-Barskyi and Andrei Kvasov. Kozelets also houses several local food industries, and a veterinary technicum.

History

Kozelets was first mentioned in 1098 as a fortified town in the East Slavic state of

Kievan Rus' Kievan Rus', also known as Kyivan Rus,. * was the first East Slavs, East Slavic state and later an amalgam of principalities in Eastern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century.John Channon & Robert Hudson, ''Penguin Historical At ...

. During times of the

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, also referred to as Poland–Lithuania or the First Polish Republic (), was a federation, federative real union between the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ...

, Kozelets was known by the name ''Kozlohrad'' (). In the beginning of the seventeenth century, Kozelets was an important regional trade center. The town was also a

sotnia A sotnia ( Ukrainian and , ) was a military unit and administrative division in some Slavic countries. Sotnia, deriving back to 1248, has been used in a variety of contexts in both Ukraine and Russia to this day. It is a helpful word to create ...

town in the Pereiaslav and Kyiv Regiment of the

Cossack Hetmanate The Cossack Hetmanate (; Cossack Hetmanate#Name, see other names), officially the Zaporozhian Host (; ), was a Ukrainian Cossacks, Cossack state. Its territory was located mostly in central Ukraine, as well as in parts of Belarus and southwest ...

during the seventeenth-eighteenth centuries. In 1656, Kozelets was granted the

Magdeburg rights Magdeburg rights (, , ; also called Magdeburg Law) were a set of town privileges first developed by Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (936–973) and based on the Flemish Law, which regulated the degree of internal autonomy within cities and villages gr ...

. The Kozelets Cossack Rada elected Yakym Somko as the

Hetman ''Hetman'' is a political title from Central and Eastern Europe, historically assigned to military commanders (comparable to a field marshal or imperial marshal in the Holy Roman Empire). First used by the Czechs in Bohemia in the 15th century, ...

of the Cossacks in 1662. After the Tatar invasion of 1679, Kozelets was partially destroyed. In 1744 Empress Elizabeth of Russia stayed in Kozelets while making a pilgrimage to Kyiv. The city also served as a regional center of the Kyiv Governorate, Malorossiya, and

Chernigov Governorate Chernigov Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit (''guberniya'') of the Russian Empire. It was officially created in 1802 from the disbanded Little Russia Governorate (1796-1802), Little Russia Governorate and had its capital in Cher ...

s of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

during the eighteenth-nineteenth centuries. At the end of the nineteenth century, Kozelets's population was 5,420. After the breakup of the Russian Empire leading to the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

, Kozelets became a part of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. In 1924, its status as a city was removed and given that of an

. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

Einsatzgruppen (, ; also 'task forces') were (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The had an integral role in the imp ...

executed 125 of the town's

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

s, a population that numbered 2,000 before the war. Until 18 July 2020, Kozelets was the administrative center of Kozelets Raion. The raion was abolished in July 2020 as part of the administrative reform of Ukraine, which reduced the number of raions of Chernihiv Oblast to five. The area of Kozelets Raion was merged into Chernihiv Raion. Until 26 January 2024, Kozelets was designated

. On this day, a new law entered into force which abolished this status, and Kozelets became a rural settlement.

Attractions

Being a

regiment A regiment is a military unit. Its role and size varies markedly, depending on the country, military service, service, or administrative corps, specialisation. In Middle Ages, Medieval Europe, the term "regiment" denoted any large body of l ...

al Cossack town, Kozelets has some important architectural monuments. This includes the Regimental Chancellery Building (the current town hall), the Darahan Mansion complex, the Saint Michael's Church (built in 1784) and the Ascension Church (1864–66). The town's main cathedral and architectural attraction is the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin. The cathedral was built in the mid-eighteenth century in the late

style by architects Ivan Hryhorovych-Barskyi and Andrei Kvasov. Funds for the construction of the cathedral were provided by Alexey and Kyrylo Rozumovsky (the latter was appointed Hetman in 1750).

Notable people

List of famous people from Kozelets: * Bella Abzug (1920–1998), American congresswoman and activist whose mother emigrated from Ukraine * Yevstafiy Bogomolets (between 1750 and 1755–1811) - the mayor of Kozelets in 1789, direct ancestor of academician Alexander A. Bogomolets (1881–1946) and Olga Bogomolets (1966), M.D., the founder of Radomysl CastleБогомолець. О. "Замок-музей Радомисль на Шляху Королів Via Regia". — Київ, 2013 * Yuriy Levitansky (1922–1996), Russian poet * Boris Mankevsky (1883–1962), Ukrainian

neurologist Neurology (from , "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the nervous system, which comprises the brain, the ...

* Vladimir Negovsky (1909–2003), Russian pathophysiologist * Maria Vasillievna Pavlova (née Gortynskaia) (1854-1939) paleontologist and academician

References

External links

* * *
The Official Site of Radomysl Castle

The murder of the Jews of Kozelets
during

, at

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem (; ) is Israel's official memorial institution to the victims of Holocaust, the Holocaust known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (). It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the ...

website. {{authority control Holocaust locations in Ukraine Populated places established in the 11th century Kozeletsky Uezd Rural settlements in Chernihiv Raion