page_title: Zhytomyr
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Zhytomyr / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Kiev street looking West toward St. Michael church. Photo early 1900's. Українська: вулиця Київська. Вигляд на Михайлівську церкву. Фото 1900-х років. From the Boris Feldblyum Collection.
context_page_description: Zhytomyr is a city in the north of the western half of Ukraine. It is the administrative center of Zhytomyr Oblast, as well as the administrative center of the surrounding Zhytomyr Raion. The city of Zhytomyr is not a part of Zhytomyr Raion: the city itself is designated as its own separate raion within the oblast; moreover Zhytomyr consists of two so-called "raions in a city": Bohunskyi Raion and Koroliovskyi Raion. Zhytomyr occupies an area of 65 square kilometres. Its population is 266,936.
  Zhytomyr is a major transportation hub. The city lies on a historic route linking the city of Kiev with the west through Brest. Today it links Warsaw with Kiev, Minsk with Izmail, and several major cities of Ukraine. Zhytomyr was also the location of Ozerne airbase, a key Cold War strategic aircraft base 11 kilometres southeast of the city.
  Important economic activities of Zhytomyr include lumber milling, food processing, granite quarrying, metalworking, and the manufacture of musical instruments.
  Zhytomyr Oblast is the main center of the Polish minority in Ukraine, and in the city itself there is a Latin Catholic cathedral and large Roman Catholic Polish cemetery, founded in 1800.
context_section_description: Legend holds that Zhytomyr was established about 884 by Zhytomyr, prince of a Slavic tribe of Drevlians. This date, 884, is cut in the large stone of the ice age times, standing on the hill where Zhytomyr was founded. Zhytomyr was one of the prominent cities of Kievan Rus'. The first records of the town date from 1240, when it was sacked by the Mongol hordes of Batu Khan.
  In 1320 Zhytomyr was captured by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and received Magdeburg rights in 1444. After the Union of Lublin (1569) the city was incorporated into the Crown of the Polish Kingdom and in 1667, following the Treaty of Andrusovo, it became the capital of the Kiev Voivodeship. In the Second Partition of Poland in 1793 it passed to Imperial Russia and became the capital of the Volhynian Governorate.
  Following the Union of Lublin, Zhytomyr (known in Polish as Żytomierz) became an important center of local administration, seat of the starosta, and capital of Żytomierz County. Here, sejmiks of Kiev Voivodeship took place. In 1572, the town had 142 buildings, a manor house of the starosta and a castle. Following the privilege of King Sigismund III Vasa, Zhytomyr had the right for two fairs a year. The town, which enjoyed royal protection of Polish kings, prospered until the Khmelnytsky Uprising (1648), when it was captured by Zaporozhian Cossacks and their allies, Crimean Tatars. Its residents were murdered, Zhytomyr was burned to the ground, and all government files were destroyed. In 1667, Zhytomyr became capital of Kiev Voivodeship, and in 1724, a Jesuit school and monastery were opened here. By 1765, Zhytomyr had five churches, including 3 Roman Catholic and 2 Orthodox, and 285 houses.
  In 1793 Zhytomyr was annexed by the Russian Empire, and in 1804 was named capital of the Volhynian Governorate. In 1798, a Roman Catholic Diocese of Zhytomyr was established. During the January Uprising, the town was a stronghold of Polish rebels.
  During a brief period of Ukrainian independence in 1918 the city was for a few weeks the national capital. Nicolas Werth claims that armed units of the Ukrainian People's Republic were also responsible for rapes, looting, and massacres in Zhytomyr, in which 500–700 Jews lost their lives. From 1920 the city was under Soviet rule. Under Soviet rule a German National District was set up in the area for the German minority, according to Soviet minorities policy before World War II.
  
  During World War II Zhytomyr and the surrounding territory was, for two and a half years (first from July 9, 1941 to November 12, 1943 and again from November 19, 1943 to December 31, 1943) under Nazi German occupation and was Heinrich Himmler's Ukrainian headquarters. The Nazi regime in what they called the "Zhytomyr General District" became what historian Wendy Lower describes as
  a laboratory for… Himmler's resettlement activists… the elimination of the Jews and German colonization of the East—transformed the landscape and devastated the population to an extent that was not experienced in other parts of Nazi-occupied Europe besides Poland. [While]… [u]ltimately, the exigencies of the war effort and mounting partisan warfare behind the lines prevented Nazi leaders from fully developing and realizing their colonial aims in Ukraine… In addition to the immediate destruction of all Jewish communities, Himmler insisted that the Ukrainian civilian population be brought to a 'minimum.'
  From 1991, the city has been part of the independent Ukraine.
caption: Kyivska (Kiev) street looking West toward St. Michael's Cathedral. Photo early 1900s.
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