Khodorkiv (Ukrainian: Ходорків) is a village (population 1,371; 0.7037 km²) in Zhytomyr Oblast, in Zhytomyr Raion, located on the Irpin River.
Founded in 1471, it is the former seat of the Khodorkiv municipality in Skvyra County in the Kiev Governorate. At the end of the 19th century, a suburb of the town was called Pustelniki.
In 1941, during the Nazi occupation,the Germans established a Jewish ghetto in the forest for the town's Jewish residents. About 200 people were confined there. On 15 October 1941, the Germans liquidated the ghetto and murdered the Jews on the premises of the Widrodzhennia kolkhoz.
Name
According to I. Zhelezniak, the name **Khodorkiv** clearly has an anthroponymic origin — *Khodor* is the folk form of the names Fedir, Feodor, or Theodor. It is possible that the first owner or settler of Khodorkiv was named Fedir, and the settlement took its name from him.
Castle and manor
- A castle built by the Tyshas family
- A Manor house in Khodorkiv built in the Stanisławów style, with a front avant-corps supported by four Ionic columns. The main part is two stories high and topped with a triangular pediment; in the mid-19th century, it belonged to Konstanty Świdziński, who stored his art collection there. At that time, Khodorkiv was part of Skvyra County in the Kiev Governorate.,
History
Ancient times
The initial settlement of the area where Khodorkiv is located dates back to ancient times. A settlement from the 10th–12th centuries was discovered. Archaeological expeditions between 1984 and 1988 uncovered interesting ancient relics in and around Khodorkiv. For example, 2 km southeast of the village, in a field 100 m east of the Khodorkiv–Kotliarka road, two kurgans were discovered, with a height of 1–2 m and a diameter of 22–35m. About 500 m southwest of Khodorkiv, on the left bank of the Irpin River, M. P. Kuchera discovered and studied remains of the Serpent's Walls dating from the 10th–11th centuries.
These places seem to have held exceptional significance in ancient times, as evidenced by the vast number of burial mounds in the vicinity. Especially notable is the area of Hrubsk, where researchers counted 684 mounds there. In Hrubsk, in addition to numerous mounds, there are 4 ramparts with moats, which are fairly well preserved. One of them, 6 to 7 sazhen high, forms a circle enclosing an area of up to 300 square sazhen, creating a kind of citadel. It has a moat nearby, with a single entrance leading inside. Local residents claim that during the first Tatar invasion of Kyiv, about 40,000 people from the surrounding areas fortified themselves in this location, but all were killed after a short siege. Supposedly confirming this legend, coins contemporary with the Tatar invasions were found in Hrubsk, including a broad silver groschen minted in Prague, depicting the Bohemian king Wenceslaus I of Bohemia, who reigned from 1230 to 1253.
Lithuanian period
After the victory of Lithuanian Prince Algirdas over the Tatars in the Battle of Blue Waters in 1362, during the second half of the 14th century, the lands of the Principality of Kyiv, to which Khodorkiv belonged, voluntarily became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
The exact time of Khodorkiv's founding is unknown. Mykhailo Hrushevsky cites a document he used: "The well-known description of Kyiv region, compiled after the death of Semen Olelkowicz, before the Tatar devastations, sheds interesting light on the organization of this military-settler colonization and on the local economy. The fragment begins with the village of Terpsiyiv on the Ros (later unknown). Then we have the village of Antoniv near the Ros (by the Berezianka), several villages along the Rostavytsia river and others, whose locations we cannot determine precisely (there are seven of them) — the historian notes – all show signs of practices from the time of Vytautas. This suggests we are dealing with old settlements, not new, and perhaps even older than the times of Vytautas (1392–1430)".
The settlements of Khodorkiv, Kryve, and Sokilcha had long given three barrels of honey to one of the Kyiv monasteries, but "had lain desolate since ancient times." Most likely, they were destroyed by the Tatars and, as "deserted settlements," became property of the Kyiv Castle.
Khodorkiv is first mentioned in historical records in 1471. The "Lustration of the Kyiv Land" mentions the village of Khodorkovo, where there were seven men, and the eighth was the ataman. The hearth tax was paid under Prince Vytautas. In the 1470s, after another Tatar raid, only seven men remained in Khodorkiv serving in the castle, and the eighth was their commander – the ataman.
Between 1505 and 1507, Khodorkiv suffered devastating raids by the Crimean Tatars. Folk legends recount heroic resistance by the locals. According to these, during a battle in 1527, a garrison of 2,500 registered Cossacks repelled an attack by a 43,000-strong Tatar army. Earthen fortifications preserved to this day testify to this. The 1545 lustration of Kryve, Khodorkiv, and Sokilcha states that they "have lain deserted for many years".
In 1553, Fryderyk (Friedrich) Hlibovych, Prince of Pronsk, the Chornobyl steward, granted the two "deserted settlements" of Khodorkiv and Kryve, as well as lands along the rivers Irpin and Vilia (Dubovets) in Kyiv County of the Kyiv Voivodeship, to Teodor (Fedir) Tysha, a Kyiv boyar who carried out frontier economic service. King Sigismund II Augustus on 19 December 1554, in Vilnius issued a special privilege confirming the grant. The privilege stated that "two settlements are granted to him, his wife, and descendants in hereditary possession for his merits in Kyiv and Ukraine, under the condition that they always perform economic and military service at the level of other nobles of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania".
Some rights to these lands may have also belonged to the Obdul-Pochapytsky family, who in 1598 and 1600 claimed that the Tyshas had taken the "Vilia district" (from the Vilia River) and established Khodorkiv and the village of Lypky on its lands – in the Vilia lands of Velnyn (Vilnya), Zvyzden (Zdvysk – possibly the village of Zdvizhka), and others. Additionally, the Metropolitans of Kyiv had claims against the Tyshas for founding Khodorkiv and the village of Kryve on their lands.
Teodor Tysha became the founder of the Tysha-Bykovsky family in Khodorkiv. From that time, the Tysha family expanded and spread in the area. Their family estates included Kryve, Skochysche, Bykiv, and other settlements clustered around Khodorkiv. At that time, the town was divided into Old and New Town. The Tyshas built a wooden fortified castle here, since although Khodorkiv was located off the Black Path, it and nearby villages still suffered from Tatar raids from time to time. There were two churches: one in the Old Town, and another in the New. The first had a brick-built family crypt of the Tyshas.
Soon, Khodorkiv gained the status of a miasteczko. It developed quite rapidly, as the so-called Volyn (or Kotelnia) route passed through Zhytomyr, Kotelna, Khodorkiv, and Fastiv towards Kyiv (and further to the Left Bank), along which communication and trade took place.
Khodorkiv under the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
After the Union of Lublin in 1569, Khodorkiv became part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
In the mid-16th century, the peasantry of Right-bank Ukraine migrated to the free lands of Left-bank Ukraine in search of freedom from oppression by landlords, based on the principle of "zaymanka" (self-initiated land settlement). The Polish researcher of the late 19th century, A. Jabłonowski, referring to the records of the Lublin Tribunal, which dealt with cases concerning runaway peasants, provides the geography of the places from which resettlement occurred. Thus, fugitives from Khodorkiv headed towards Bobrovytsia, Bykiv, and Basan. In the second half of the 16th century, Cossacks, runaway peasants, and craftsmen from Khodorkiv, Rzhyshchiv, Dyvyn, and other towns and villages of Right-bank Ukraine rebuilt Baryshivka.
In 1581, Khodorkiv appears as a small town under the ownership of the Tysha-Bykovsky family, which contributed 2.5 florins in chopove tax. According to tax book No. 32 "On the register of collection of taxes from the Kyiv land", the owner of Khodorkiv in that year is listed as Pan Oleksandr Tysha.
The residents of the Khodorkiv region actively joined the ranks of the Cossacks. Thus, in 1584, a Khodorkiv noble-sich member Hryhorii Stepanovych Dublianskyi is mentioned. Khodorkiv residents also took part in the Cossack-peasant uprisings of the late 16th century under the leadership of Krzysztof Kosiński and Severyn Nalyvaiko. The Khodorkiv region itself often became a theater of military operations. In 1596, the town is mentioned in a letter from the Field Crown Hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski to the Grand Crown Hetman Jan Zamoyski during the former's stay in the town, when they were fighting against Cossack-peasant detachments led by Matvii Shaula and Severyn Nalyvaiko.
In 1606, the town of Khodorkiv is mentioned in connection with the escape of subjects of Oleksandr Tysha-Bykovskyi from the town of Khodorkiv and the village of Kryve to the estate of the Kraków castellan Prince Janusz Ostrogski in the town of Koshiv of Bratslav County and to the estate of Prince Janusz Zbaraski in the town of Pohrebyshche in Vinnytsia County.
Residents of Khodorkiv participated in the Cossack-peasant uprising of 1618, which spread across Kyivshchyna and Volhynia. The rebellious peasants destroyed noble estates, dealt with hated noblemen, declared themselves free Cossacks, and joined Cossack detachments. In the territory of the Bila Tserkva Regiment, the uprising was led by the Pavoloch sotnyk Hrytsko Krasnopirka, the Pavoloch osaul Fedir, and a certain otaman from Stara Kotelnya. The uprising spread rapidly and by mid-summer had reached the towns of Fastiv, Kodnia, Lishchyn, Kotelnya, Pavoloch, Khodorkiv, Brusyliv, Korostyshiv, and Radomyshl. By July, the insurgent detachment numbered 2,000 men.
Historical documents preserved a complaint by nobleman Petro Strybyl from the village of Studenytsia, dated 1618, against residents of Pavoloch, Verkhovnia, Khodorkiv, Kornyn and other towns and villages. They had gathered a detachment of 2,000 men, attacked his estate, burned it down, looted the peasants, and spared his "own house only for ransom." They systematically attacked the estates of other local nobles. The movement, as evidenced by the list of settlements, covered a significant area. The rebels were apparently connected with the Cossacks, as the complainant refers to several participants in the pogroms as colonels and sotnyks. The outcome of this uprising is unknown; the complaint only describes the damage inflicted on noble estates: “...assaulting violently the estates and noble houses like a foreign enemy, storming them, burning them to the ground, attacking various people along the roads, breaking into storehouses, looting estates, taking cattle and horses, and sending them to their own homes…”.
There is information that in 1618 Vasyl Mirovytskyi, who was the steward of the estate of Teodor Tysha-Bykovskyi in the village of Kryve, refused to report on the management of the estate, fled, and became the leader of one of the Cossack-peasant bands. That same year, Mirovytskyi attacked Khodorkiv and looted its owners and residents for 10,000 zlotys. Also, in 1618, the town of Khodorkiv was mentioned in the testimonies of the general court messenger of the Kyiv Voivodeship, Volhynian, and Bratslav Voivodeship, regarding the delivery of a summons from the main Lublin Tribunal to Vasyl Tysha-Bykovskyi about the return of peasants who had fled to Khodorkiv from the estate of the heirs of Bratslav castellan Mykola Semashko.
Khodorkiv suffered greatly due to the internecine struggle among the nobility. The Tysha family grew significantly, and its numerous members constantly sued and quarreled among themselves for the right to possess the Khodorkiv estates. The disputes often led to armed clashes, during which noble bands repeatedly (in 1588, 1606, 1618, 1635) attacked the townspeople and residents of nearby villages, killing and robbing them. These conflicts are documented not only in court records but also by the Polish chronicler Joachim Jerlicz, author of the Chronicle or Notes of Various Events, whose sister Tetyana was married to Yeremiya Tysha, an heir of Khodorkiv.