Khotyn

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Khotyn (#redirect , Polish: , Romanian: , Turkish: Khotin, Russian: , translit. Khotin) is a city in the Chernivtsi Oblast of western Ukraine, and is the administrative center of the Khotynsky Raion (district) within that oblast. In earlier times, the town was part of the Bessarabia region, which between the 15th and the 20th centuries belonged successively to Moldavia, the Ottoman Empire, Russia, Romania, the Soviet Union, split between Ukrainian SSR and Moldavian SSR), and remained split between Ukraine and Moldova. Due to the fluctuations in control, the official name also changed, and there is a multitude of spellings for the town's name, including Khotyn, Chocim, Chotyn, Hotin, Choczim, or Khotin. The city is famous for its history and archaeology, as well as for the famous Khotyn Fortress.

History

Contemporary painting of the Battle of Khotyn

In the 14th century, Khotyn, previously a minor settlement in Kievan Rus, passed to the Kingdom of Hungary; in the 15th century, it passed to Moldavia. It changed hands frequently over the next 200 years, as rival empires sought to gain control of the strategic river crossing. During the 17th and 18th century, its history was dominated by the war between the Christian powers of northern Europe and the expanding Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Turks suffered two decisive defeats at Khotyn in the 17th century, at the hands of the army of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: in 1621 by hetman Jan Chodkiewicz, and again in 1673 by Jan III Sobieski. In 1739, the Russian Empire sent an army under Burkhard Christoph von Munnich and seized the town. The Russians were themselves defeated by the Turks in 1768, but rallied the following year to recapture the town. Khotyn fell to Austria in 1788, but finally passed to Russia, along with Bessarabia, in 1812, as a result of the Russo-Turkish War (1806-1812).

The collapse of the Russian Empire in the Russian Civil War (1918-1922) prompted Romania to annex territories along its border, including Khotyn. The town became part of Romania in January 1919. However, Ukrainian Bolshevik troops dressed as civilians entered Khotyn and encouraged the ethnic Ukrainians to revolt.[Communist Machinations], Electronic Text Archive The Ukrainians rebelled against the Romanian annexation of the city in what is known as the Khotyn uprising. The uprising was, however, defeated by the Romanian Army within a month. The city remained under Romanian rule until June 1940, when the town passed to the Soviet Union with the rest of the Chernivtsi region under the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Khotyn thus became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. It was under the occupation of Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1944, and in 1991 became part of the newly-independent country of Ukraine.

Battles

In the Battle of Khotyn in 1621, an army of 160,000 Turkish veterans, led by Osman II, advanced from Adrianople towards the Polish frontier. The Turks, following their victory in the Battle of Cecora, had high hopes of conquering Poland. The Polish commander Jan Karol Chodkiewicz crossed the Dniester in September 1621 with approximately 35,000 soldiers and entrenched the Khotyn Fortress, blocking the path of the Ottoman march. The arrival of 40,000 Ukrainian cossack forces under their hetman Petro Konashevych was instrumental in that victory. The Commonwealth hetman held the sultan at bay for a whole month, until the first snow of autumn compelled Osman to withdraw his diminished forces. But the victory was dearly purchased by Poland. A few days before the siege was raised, the aged grand hetman died of exhaustion in the fortress on September 24, 1621. The Commonwealth forces held under the command of Stanisław Lubomirski. The battle, described by Wacław Potocki in his most famous work Transakcja wojny chocimskiej, marked the end of the long period of Moldavian Magnate Wars.

In 1673, the Polish hussars again fought a major battle on this site. This time Polish forces under the command of soon-to-be-king Jan Sobieski defeated the Ottomans on 11 November 1673.

In the Russo-Turkish War, the fortress was taken by Russian field marshal Burkhard Christoph von Munnich on August 19, 1739. This victory is remembered primarily through the Ode on the Taking of Khotin from the Turks, composed by the young Mikhail Lomonosov. This ode produced a revolution, often taken as a starting point of the modern Russian poetry.

Famous people

• The Romanian philologist, historian and writer Bogdan Petriceicu-Hasdeu was born in Khotyn on February 16, 1836.

Notes