Berezhany ( ; ; ) is a small city on the Zolota Lypa river, administratively subjected to the Ternopil Raion of Ternopil Oblast in the historical region of Galician Podolia in Ukraine. It lies about from the administrative center of the oblast, Ternopil. Berezhany hosts the administration of Berezhany urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. Population:

History

Middle Ages

The first written mention of Berezhany dates from 1375, when the village was granted by the Governor of Galicia and Lodomeria Vladislaus II to Ruthenian boyar Vas'ko Teptukhovych. In 1416 the ownership was confirmed by Polish king Władysław II Jagiełło, however it is unknown if the village mentioned in the document was located on the same site as the modern city. The first certain mention of Berezhany in documents comes from the 1469 lustration of the royal domain of Ruthenian Voivodeship. In 1510 the village was ruined by Vlachs, and in 1512 and 1515 was devastated by Tatars.

Under the rule of Poland Berezhany was the property of a noble family from Buchach — members House of Buczacki, later Sieniawa. As Mikołaj Sieniawski, a notable Polish military commander and politician envisioned a seat of his family there, on March 19, 1530, King Sigismund I of Poland granted the village a city charter modelled on the Magdeburg Law. In the town, Rákóczi and Bercsényi signed a proclamation, which called on Hungarians to fight for independence, and then they both joined the uprising in Hungary. By 1931 the population had risen to 12,000.

On July 4, 1941, the town was again occupied by Germany and latter attached to the so-called Distrikt Galizien of the General Government. Following German occupation, a Ukrainian local administration was established according to a decree of the Ukrainian national government. In December 1941, approximately 1,000 Jews were killed in the Lityatyn forest. On 12 June 1943 the Nazis murdered almost all the Jews from the Brzezany ghetto and work camp at the local cemetery; only a few escaped. Between 1942 and the end of the war there was heavy partisan activity in the area, mostly by local branches of the Armia Krajowa.

In 1944 the town was liberated in the course of Operation Tempest of the insurgent Polish Home Army, but the Poles were soon pushed aside as the town was occupied by the Red Army. In 1945 it was annexed by the Soviet Union and attached to the Ukrainian SSR.

Postwar era

thumb|[[Flag of Ukraine in front of the city hall]]

According to the decision of the Soviet-organized Lviv pseudosynod, local parishes of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church were transferred under jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1990 the Trinity Church was returned to the Greek Catholic community. and served as the administrative center of Berezhany Raion though it did not belong to the raion. As part of the administrative reform of Ukraine, which reduced the number of raions of Ternopil Oblast to three, the city was merged into Ternopil Raion.

Geography

The city is located about 50 km (31 mi) from the administrative center of the oblast, Ternopil. The city is about 400 metres (1,300 ft) above sea level.

Climate

Education

thumb|Berezhany Gymnazium

In 1789 a German gymnasium was established in Berezhany. Polish and Ukrainian-language classes were opened in the establishment in 1874 and 1905 respectively. The gymnasium played an important role in the Ukrainian national revival in Galicia, being connected with such figures as Oleksander Barvinskyi, Bohdan Lepkyi and Antin Krushelnytskyi. A secret Ukrainian patriotic circle was created by Zenon Kuzelia during his studies in the gymnasium in 1900.

Nearby localities

  • Shybalyn – c.
  • Narayiv – c.
  • Kozova – c.
  • Pidhaytsi – c.
  • Rohatyn – c.
  • Peremyshliany –
  • Burshtyn – c.
  • Halych – c.
  • Ternopil – c.
  • Lviv – c.
  • Ivano-Frankivsk – c.
  • Zavaliv – c.
  • Zboriv – c.

Notable people

  • Aleksander Brückner — Polish scholar of Slavic languages and literatures, born here
  • Antoni Brzeżańczyk — Polish football manager
  • Zbigniew Dunin-Wasowicz — Polish soldier
  • David Meir Frisch — rabbi, posek and rabbinical authority, lived here
  • Myroslava Gongadze - Ukrainian and American journalist, born here
  • Mykhailo Hlibovytskyi (1818–1887) – Ukrainian Greek Catholic priest and public figure
  • Vassily Ivanchuk — world-class chess player, lived here
  • Mykola Konrad — Ukrainian Greek-Catholic saint, beatified by John Paul II in 2001, taught here
  • Edward Kofler — mathematician
  • Olena Kulchytska – Ukrainian painter
  • Bohdan Lepky – Ukrainian poet
  • Samuel Hirsch Margulies — rabbi of Florence and the principal (from 1899) of Italy's only rabbinical seminary, born here
  • Joseph Saul Nathansohn — Polish rabbi, posek and rabbinical authority, born here
  • Abraham A. Neuman (1890—1970) — rabbi, historian and president of Dropsie College
  • Shimon Redlich — historian, born here
  • Edward Rydz-Śmigły — Commander-in-Chief of Polish Armed Forces, born here (in the village of Lapshyn on the outskirts of Berezhany)
  • Volodymyr Sawchak (1911–2007) — painter and activist who lived in Australia, born here
  • Sholom Mordechai Schwadron — Jewish gaon lived and died here
  • Markiyan Shashkevych (1811–1843) — Ukrainian poet, studied here
  • Vitalii Shupliak — Ukrainian artist
  • Vitalii Skakun — soldier who sacrificed himself in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine by blowing up a bridge, born here
  • Edward Sucharda — Polish chemist and engineer, born here

References

Further reading

  • Gallery of old photos and postcards