Kropyvnytskyi is a city in central Ukraine, situated along the Inhul River. It serves as the administrative center of Kirovohrad Oblast. As of 2022, the population of the city was estimated to be 219,676 (2022 estimate), making Kropyvnytskyi the 29th largest city in Ukraine and the largest city in the oblast.
Kropyvnytskyi traces its history back to 1764, when the Russian government constructed the Fortress of St. Elizabeth to protect the frontier regions. Settlements grew around the fortress, which eventually came to be known as the city of Yelysavethrad. For a brief period, the fortress served as the capital of the Novorossiya Governorate, but after it was demoted back down, it lost military importance, while the importance of the city grew sharply as a regional trade centre. It was also known thanks to the Theatre of Coryphaei, which is considered the birth of Ukrainian professional theatre. After the October Revolution, it was claimed by the Soviet Union after a change of hands in 1920, and the city was eventually renamed Kirovohrad. Kirovohrad became the administrative centre of the newly created Kirovohrad Oblast in 1939, but was shortly thereafter largely destroyed during World War II. During the war, over 5,000 Jews were killed in the city as part of the Holocaust until Kirovohrad was liberated as part of the Kirovograd offensive. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the city became part of a newly independent Ukraine and was renamed to Kropyvnytskyi in 2016.
Kropyvnytskyi is the main industrial centre of the oblast, especially in agricultural machinery manufacturing and food processing. Some of its largest enterprises are Elvorti, Hydrosila, and Radiy. Cultural landmarks include the ruins of the Fortress of St. Elizabeth, the Arboretum, the Theatre named after Marko Kropyvnytskyi, and the numerous architecturally important buildings in the city centre. The city has multiple museums, including the Regional Museum of Local Lore, Regional Art Museum, and the Oleksandr Osmiorkin Art Memorial Museum. The city is home to the association football team FC Zirka Kropyvnytskyi, which plays at Zirka Stadium, and the historically dominant baseball team Biotechkom-KNTU, which plays at Diamond Baseball Stadium. The city is also home to multiple institutions of higher education, most notably the Kirovohrad State Pedagogical University, Kirovohrad National Technical University, and the State Flight Academy of Ukraine.
Names
Current name
- Yelysavet (Ukrainian: Єлисавет, Russian: Елисавета) 1754-1784
- Yelysavethrad (also spelled Yelisavetgrad, or commonly rendered as Elisavetgrad or Elizabethgrad in English langauge publications; Ukrainian: Єлисаветград, IPA: [jelɪsɑwɛtˈɦrɑd]; Russian: Елисаветград, romanized: Yelisavetgrad; Yiddish: יעליסאוועטגראד, romanized: Yelisavetgrad, IPA: [jəlɪsavətɡrad]) 1784-1924
- Zinovievsk (Ukrainian: Зінов'євськ, IPA: [zʲinɔu̯ˈjeu̯sʲk]; Russian: Зиновьевск) 1924-1934
- Kirovo (Ukrainian: Кірово, IPA: [ˈkirowɔ]; Russian: Кирово) 1934-1939
- Kirovohrad (also spelled Kirovograd; Ukrainian: Кіровоград, IPA: [kirowɔˈɦrɑd]; Russian: Кировоград, romanized: Kirovograd) 1939-2016
Name history
Yelysavet and Yelysavethrad
The foundation of the modern city of Kropyvnytskyi is dated to 18 June 1754 with the ceremonial laying of the first stone of the Fortress of St. Elizabeth. The first reference naming the fortress occurred during its establishment by the Imperial Russian government in decree No. 9921, in which the government ordered that "an earthen fortress be made, which is to be named the fortress of St. Elizabeth". The fortress itself was named for Elizabeth, a saint of Eastern Orthodox Christianity and the mother of John the Baptist, and also the patron saint of Elizabeth of Russia, the Russian monarch that established the fortress. Following the establishment of the fortress, thousands of workers were brought in, most of whom were Ukrainian Cossacks from the Myrhorod Regiment and Poltava Regiment, and settlers also came to the area around the fortress, including Old Believers, Serbs, Moldovans, Greeks, and Russians. These new settlements around the fortress were not formally assigned a name, although in practice the informal name of Yelysavet, or transliterated as Elizabeth in English, came to be in popular use to describe them during the first few decades. Yelysavet was evidently derived from the name of the fortress, a practice common in Cossack naming, as they frequently named settlements in relation to the area. The use of Yelysavet is evidenced to by multiple documents, one of the earliest of which is a French map from 1754 by Robert de Vaugondy, who just lists the settlement as "Єлисавет Город", or Yelysavet town. A year later, on 25 April 1755, Maksym Taran of the Zaporozhian Sich wrote "....єдучи чрез Гардъ до города Елисавету с трома бутами виномъ", thus referring to the town as Елисавету, or Yelysavet(a). The name Yelysavethrad or Yelysavethrad (also sometimes rendered Yelysavetohrad early on) only came into use following the establishment of the Yelysavegrad province of the Novorossiysk Governorate on 22 March 1764. Similar to Yelysavet, Yelysavegrad was derived from the fortress name, but with the addition of "-grad" (Old/Church Slavonic "градъ"; Russian "град"). The early form of Yelysavetohrad was only used for a short time, as the addition of the "o" came from the Russian convention during this time of having vowels bridging the root name and the suffix, although the locals preferred simply modifying the already existing Yelysavet. In 1784, when Yelysavethrad was designated a city, the name was again confirmed officially. Another common variant of the name Yelysavethrad was Yelzavethrad, which had a з form, and was confirmed in use prior to 1934 alongside the more common variant by the Ukrainian Soviet Encyclopedia.
Zinovievsk, Kirovo, and Kirovohrad
During the brief period of Ukrainian rule during the Ukrainian War of Independence, the UPR preferred to shift away from the imperial Yelysavethrad and towards Yelysavet, which was viewed as more Ukrainian since it was associated with the Cossacks. During the UPR period, the Mala Rada passed the renaming following efforts by Ukrainian activists. The Bolsheviks, after winning the war and taking the city, also eventually abandoned the imperial name of Yelysavethrad in 1924 for the name Zinovievsk by official decree. The name commemorated Grigory Zinoviev, a native of the city and an Old Bolshevik. Other proposed names prior to the passing of Zinovievsk included Leninsk (in honour of Vladimir Lenin; proposed by Chervona Zirka) and Trotsk (in honour of Leon Trotsky, who was also native to nearby Bobrynets). The name Zinovievsk was approved by the local authorities on 12 July 1924, and officially confirmed by the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee (VUTsVK) a few months later on 7 August 1924, and finally at an executive level on 5 September 1924. As Zinoviev slowly fell out of favour after siding with Trotsky against Joseph Stalin, in 1928, there were some early efforts to rename Zinovievsk to Dzerzhynsk, although these did not pass. It was not until 1934 that the name was changed, when Sergei Kirov, another high-ranking Bolshevik in Leningrad, was assassinated, for which Zinoviev was accused of complicity and then executed after a show trial. Thus, the name of the city was quickly changed on 27 December 1934 to Kirovo or Kirove, which was ratified by January 1935. Kirovo honoured Sergei Kirov, who had many new things named after him in the city, while the name of Zinovievsk was quickly wiped out and suppressed. The name Kirovo was eventually changed in early 1939 to Kirovohrad or Kirovograd alongside the establishment of Kirovohrad Oblast. This was done in order to differentiate the city from the larger city of Kirov within the Russian SFSR.
Renaming efforts, switch to Kropyvnytskyi
During the German occupation of the city in 1941, some Ukrainian nationalists, supported by the newspaper Ukrainian Voice, attempted to get the city renamed to Tobilevychi in honour of the Tobilevych family, a theatre family native to the area. The Germans, however, rejected this and kept Kirovohrad/Kirowograd for unknown reasons. After Ukrainian independence, the renaming of Kirovohrad became an immediate topic within the city council as early as 1992, but renaming efforts were largely blocked by opponents who argued the timing was "not right". Most of these early renaming efforts were to restore Yelysavethrad, supported by deputy Volodymyr Panchenko and Leonid Kutsenko. The also historical Yelysavet was also floated around by the city's newspapers, and supported by mayor Vasyl Mukhin for some time. Over time, renaming efforts splintered as Yelysavethrad was continuously rejected as Russified due to its imperial use, while alternatives emerged. On 16 April 2000, a referendum was held in the city asking three questions: whether they supported renaming Kirovohrad, if they wished to restore Yelysavethrad, or in general if they wished to rename the city anything. In the survey, nearly 71% voted to retain Kirovohrad, 35% said they would support renaming, and 33% supported Yelysavethrad. Four years later, to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the city, renaming efforts were again pushed, although again nothingn happened. Eventually, in October 2008, the city council seriously attempted a renaming referendum, but an online poll conducted had 65% of the population opposing a renaming. Further attempts were made to restore Yelysavethrad primarily over the years by Our Ukraine in 2010 and then from 2011-2013 by the Party of Regions, UOC-MP, and Serhiy Larin.
Following Euromaidan, the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, signed a bill as part of decommunization in Ukraine on 15 May 2015, which required places associated with the communist past to be renamed within a six-month period. Due to this, in August 2015, following public hearing seven names were shortlisted for renaming efforts: Yelysavethrad, Inhulsk, Zlatopil, Kropyvnytskyi, Kozatskyi, Blahomyr, and Eksampei. Rather than holding a legally binding referendum like in 2000, a non-binding "public opinion poll" was held on 25 October 2015 (alongside the local elections) about renaming. The poll itself was highly controversial, with multiple journalists in investigations finding that people could vote multiple times without identification or providing residency in the city, with "Prosvita" head saying he was able to vote several times under different names. Exit polls showed a roughly equal share between Yelysavethrad, Inhulsk, and Zlatopil, although in the end the officially released count showed Yelysavethrad as the clear winner at 35,153 votes, followed by Inhulsk at 4,302 and Zlatopil at 3,509. Following the poll, a city council session was held, which, instead of just forwarding Yelysavethrad to the Verkhovna Rada for renaming, sent all seven to the Rada for the deputies there to choose the name. According to Verkhovna Rada speaker Andriy Parubiy, the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance recommended the name "Inhulsk" to the Rada, rejecting Yelysavethrad. After debates, an appeal for Kropyvnytskyi as a substitute was approved, and with 230 votes in favour, Kropyvnytskyi was chosen to replace Kirovohrad on 14 July 2016.
History
Before the foundation
The area around Kropyvnytskyi was originally settled during the Middle Paleolithic, as evidenced by two flint tools that are likely Mousterian. Successive cultures then inhabited the area, mostly leaving behind kurgans. There have been some arguments that the area was then permanently settled by the Zaporozhian Cossacks as early as the second half of the 16th century, who mostly had winter settlements in the area. Some of the claimed Cossack-era settlements include the present-day neighbourhoods of Zavadivka, Lelekivka, Kovalivka, and Balka.
Founding of the fortress and city
In order to protect the settlements of the newly created frontier region of New Serbia, in 1751, Jovan Horvat requested the Imperial Russian government to construct a fortress. This was eventually approved, with the fortress being specified to be named the Fortress of St. Elizabeth by decree No. 9921. The site chosen for the fortress was 200 sazhen from the right bank of the Inhul, and was in the middle of two other fortresses. After construction was approved, the ceremonial laying of the fortress began on 18 June 1754, which is considered the founding date of the city. In order to construct it, many Ukrainian Cossacks were brought in, with other settlers also coming, including Old Believers and Greeks. These settlers formed the early suburbs of Bykove and Permski around the fortress, although the settlement itself had no name up until this point. For a brief period upon the foundation of the Novorossiya Governorate, the fortress was designated as the capital of the governorate from March 1764 to March 1765. In light of the loss of its status as capital and with the liquidation of the Cossack Hetmanate, the military significance of the fortress fell sharply, although the settlement grew into a chartered county town and later city called Yelysavehtrad.
The city of Yelysavethrad rapidly grew into a regional trade centre of southern Ukraine, although it was placed under military-settlement administration from 1829 to 1861. In the course of this growth, the city saw swell in the amount of its Jewish population due to being located within the Pale of Settlement. It also became well-known culturally thanks to the foundation of the Theatre of Coryphaei within the city in 1882, which is considered the birth of Ukrainian professional theatre. The city also had many notable Ukrainian actors and playwrights come to the city during this time.