Ochakiv, also known as Ochakov ( uk, Оча́ків, ; russian: Очаков; crh, Özü; ro, Oceacov and ''Vozia'', and Alektor ( in Greek), is a small city in
Mykolaiv Raion,
Mykolaiv Oblast (region) of southern
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
. It hosts the administration of
Ochakiv urban hromada, one of the
hromada
A hromada ( uk, територіальна громада, lit=territorial community, translit=terytorialna hromada) is a basic unit of administrative division in Ukraine, similar to a municipality. It was established by the Government of Ukra ...
s of Ukraine.
Population:
For many years the city fortress served as a capital of the Ottoman province (
eyalet
Eyalets ( Ottoman Turkish: ایالت, , English: State), also known as beylerbeyliks or pashaliks, were a primary administrative division of the Ottoman Empire.
From 1453 to the beginning of the nineteenth century the Ottoman local government ...
).
Geography
The city is located at the mouth of
Dnieper
}
The Dnieper () or Dnipro (); , ; . is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. It is the longest river of Ukraine and B ...
, on the banks of the
Dnieper-Bug Estuary. Between the
Cape of Ochakiv (northern bank) and the
Kinburn spit (southern bank) there are only . The Ochakiv and Kinburn fortresses controlled the entrance to Dnieper and Bug.
History
Establishment and names
The strip of land on which Ochakov is located was inhabited by
Thracian
The Thracians (; grc, Θρᾷκες ''Thrāikes''; la, Thraci) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Eastern and Southeastern Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied t ...
s and
Scythians in ancient times. It was known as a part of Great Scythia. In the 7th and 6th centuries BC, Greek colonists had founded a commercial colony town, named
Alektor, near the Thracian coast. Archaeological excavations also show that near the area was the old
Milesian (
ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
) colony of
Pontic Olbia; it is supposed that the same Greek expeditions settled Alektor.
In the 1st century BC, Alektor became a Roman colony and part of the
Roman empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...
. The area was part of the space in which the
Romanians
The Romanians ( ro, români, ; dated exonym ''Vlachs'') are a Romance languages, Romance-speaking ethnic group. Sharing a common Culture of Romania, Romanian culture and Cultural heritage, ancestry, and speaking the Romanian language, they l ...
' ethnogenesis took place, and was also more generally a place of passage for many migratory people and tribes. As a result of the migrations, the city fell and the inhabitants lived in small settlements built on the shores of the
Bug and
Dnieper River
}
The Dnieper () or Dnipro (); , ; . is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. It is the longest river of Ukraine and B ...
s.
During the Middle Ages the place was named Vozia by Romanians. The name is supposed to come from a plant known in Romanian as ''bozii'' or ''bozia'' (
Sambucus ebulus), a medicinal herb frequently found there. The territory was a part of the
Brodnici rule. It fell under
Tatar
The Tatars ()[Tatar]
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different domination in the time of the
Mongol invasion of Europe.
Alexandru cel Bun (Alexander I, the Good),
ruler of
Moldavia
Moldavia ( ro, Moldova, or , literally "The Country of Moldavia"; in Romanian Cyrillic: or ; chu, Землѧ Молдавскаѧ; el, Ἡγεμονία τῆς Μολδαβίας) is a historical region and former principality in Centr ...
(r. 1400–1432), and his ally
Vytautas
Vytautas (c. 135027 October 1430), also known as Vytautas the Great ( Lithuanian: ', be, Вітаўт, ''Vitaŭt'', pl, Witold Kiejstutowicz, ''Witold Aleksander'' or ''Witold Wielki'' Ruthenian: ''Vitovt'', Latin: ''Alexander Vitoldus'', O ...
, Grand Duke of
Lithuania
Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
(r. 1392–1430), freed the Vozia territory and a fortress was built again close to Alektor's ruins. Later the stronghold will be mentioned in Russian chronics as ''Dashev''.
In the 14th century the Senarega brothers, Genovese merchants and warriors, had settled a castle at the place called
Lerici
Lerici ( lij, Lerxi, locally ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of La Spezia in Liguria (northern Italy), part of the Italian Riviera. It is situated on the coast of the Gulf of La Spezia, southeast of La Spezia. It is known as the place ...
, very close to Vozia city. It was a good point for commerce with Romanians and Tatars, but the Senarega family's interference in
Moldavia
Moldavia ( ro, Moldova, or , literally "The Country of Moldavia"; in Romanian Cyrillic: or ; chu, Землѧ Молдавскаѧ; el, Ἡγεμονία τῆς Μολδαβίας) is a historical region and former principality in Centr ...
's internal affairs made the Moldavians from
Cetatea Albă (today's Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi) take the castle from them in 1455.
In 1492, Crimean Tatars took Vozia from the Moldavians and named it Özü-Cale, which literally meant "Dnieper-fortress". The name was also very similar to the then current Romanian ''Vozia''. At that time, the city was also referred to as Kara-Kerman ("Black city") as an opposite to Cetatea Albă ("White City", hence the synonymous naming as Ak-Kerman), also taken by the Tatars and Turkish army from their once Moldavian rulers.
In 1493, the fortress was taken by the
cossack
The Cossacks , es, cosaco , et, Kasakad, cazacii , fi, Kasakat, cazacii , french: cosaques , hu, kozákok, cazacii , it, cosacchi , orv, коза́ки, pl, Kozacy , pt, cossacos , ro, cazaci , russian: казаки́ or ...
s of Bohdan Gliński. Due to its strategic location the fortress was a site of contest for a long time between
Moldavia
Moldavia ( ro, Moldova, or , literally "The Country of Moldavia"; in Romanian Cyrillic: or ; chu, Землѧ Молдавскаѧ; el, Ἡγεμονία τῆς Μολδαβίας) is a historical region and former principality in Centr ...
, Moldavia's ally
Zaporizhian Sich
The Zaporozhian Sich ( ua, Запорозька Січ, ; also uk, Вольностi Вiйська Запорозького Низового, ; Free lands of the Zaporozhian Host the Lower) was a semi-autonomous polity and proto-state of Cos ...
, the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, after 1791, as the Commonwealth of Poland, was a bi-confederal state, sometimes called a federation, of Crown of the Kingdom of ...
, and the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
.
At a later date it became the centre of an Ottoman
sanjak
Sanjaks (liwāʾ) (plural form: alwiyāʾ)
* Armenian language, Armenian: նահանգ (''nahang''; meaning "province")
* Bulgarian language, Bulgarian: окръг (''okrǔg''; meaning "county", "province", or "region")
* el, Διοίκησι ...
which included
Khajidereh (today Ovidiopol),
Khadjibey (Odessa), and
Dubossary, as well as some 150 villages, and
Silistra Province
Silistra Province ( bg, Област Силистра, transliterated ''Oblast Silistra'', former name Silistra okrug) is a province of Bulgaria, named after its main city - Silistra. It is divided into seven municipalities with a total populati ...
, sometimes called Özi Province, to which it belonged. Khadjibey later became a sanjak centre of its own.
In 1600
Mihai Viteazul
Michael the Brave ( ro, Mihai Viteazul or ; 1558 – 9 August 1601), born as Mihai Pătrașcu, was the Prince of Wallachia (as Michael II, 1593 – 1601), Prince of Moldavia (1600) and ''de facto'' ruler of Transylvania (1599 – 1600). ...
(Michael the Brave), Prince of
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia (; ro, Țara Românească, lit=The Romanian Land' or 'The Romanian Country, ; archaic: ', Romanian Cyrillic alphabet: ) is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Lower Danube and so ...
, took control of the city for a short time.
Giovanni Battista Malbi noted in 1620 that the town and the land of Vozia, even if ruled by the Tatars, were inhabited by Romanians, describing them as having the Orthodox religion and a corrupt Latin-Italian language, with Slavic influences, as in those times the Old Slav language was the church language in all Romanian countries. The same ethnic note was made by Niccolo Barsi from
Lucca in the same century.
Lawryn Piaseczynski, secretary of the Polish king
Sigismund III Vasa, traveling with a diplomatic mission to
Gazi Giray Khan, traversing the region of Cetatea Albă (Ak-Kerman) and the Vozia or Oceakov region, found only "Moldavian villages under the Tatar Khan's domination, ruled in his name by Nazyl Aga" ("sate moldoveneşti pe care le ţine hanul tătărăsc şi pe care le guvernează în numele lui sluga lui Nazyl aga") Similar notes were made by
Giovanni Botero
Giovanni Botero (c. 1544 – 1617) was an Italian thinker, priest, poet, and diplomat, author of '' Della ragion di Stato (The Reason of State)'',Botero, Giovanni, Pamela Waley, Daniel Philip Waley, and Robert Peterson. 1956. The Reason of St ...
(1540–1617) in ''Relazioni universali'' (Venice 1591);
Gian Lorenzo d'Anania
Gian is a masculine Italian given name. It is a variant of Gianni and is likewise used as a diminutive of Giovanni, the Italian form of John.
In Italian, any name including Giovanni can be contracted to Gian, particularly in combination with other ...
in ''L'Universale fabbrica del Mondo, ovvero Cosmografia'' (Napoli 1573, Venice 1596 etc.) and
Giovanni Antonio Magini
Giovanni Antonio Magini (in Latin, Maginus) (13 June 1555 – 11 February 1617) was an Italian astronomer, astrologer, cartographer, and mathematician.
His Life
He was born in Padua, and completed studies in philosophy in Bologna in 1579. Hi ...
(1555–1617), from
Padova, în ''Geographie universae'' (Venice 1596).
Daniel Krman wrote that apart from the Turks and Tatars, the conquerors of Vozia, the city was inhabited by Moldavians (Romanians) and a number of Greek merchants.
Russian conquest
During the
Russo-Turkish War (1735–1739), the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
, viewing the Ottoman fortress as the key for obtaining control of the Black Sea littoral, besieged it in 1737. Russian troops commanded by Marshal
von Münnich took the fortress by storm (July 1737), but the following year Russia abandoned it, restoring it to Turkey in 1739. The 1737 siege became famous as the background to one of the tales of the fictional
Baron Munchausen.
During the
Russo-Turkish War of 1787–1792, Russian land forces under
Alexander Suvorov
Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov (russian: Алекса́ндр Васи́льевич Суво́ров, Aleksándr Vasíl'yevich Suvórov; or 1730) was a Russian general in service of the Russian Empire. He was Count of Rymnik, Count of the Holy ...
and naval units commanded by
John Paul Jones started a second
siege of Ochakov, which began in the summer of 1788 and lasted six months. In December 1788, in temperatures of , the Russians stormed the fortress, resulting in a terrible loss of life. The siege became the subject of a famous
ode by
Gavrila Derzhavin. The naval
Battle of Ochakov
The second siege of Ochakov (now Ochakiv, Ukraine) was one of the major events of the Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792). It was known as "Özi Kuşatması" in Turkish.
In 1788, Russian forces led by Prince Grigory Potemkin and General Alexande ...
(July 1788) took place alongside the city during the same campaign. The
Treaty of Jassy of 1792 transferred Özi to the Russian Empire, which renamed it as Ochakov ( ru , Оча́ков).
Initially the Russian Empire planned to establish a "New Moldavia" as a point of attraction for the Romanians from Moldavia, Wallachia and other Romanian-speaking areas. Romanians became a minority in the area as a result of the Russian Empire's policy of Slavic settlement.
Anglo-French occupation
During the
Crimean War
The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia.
Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...
the
Kinburn Fortress Kinburn may refer to:
Canada
* Kinburn, Huron County, Ontario, a community in Central Huron Township
*Kinburn, Carleton County, Ontario, a community in Ottawa
Ukraine
* Kinburn Peninsula, a peninsula that separates Dnieper-Bug Estuary from Black S ...
opposite Ochakiv was bombarded by the Anglo-French fleet and captured on October 17, 1855, in the course of the
Battle of Kinburn. The fortress remained in Anglo-French hands for the remaining months of the war, while the Russians abandoned Ochakiv and destroyed the fort located there. After that war the coastal defences around Ochakiv were rebuilt and strengthened.
Recent history
With the establishment of the Ukrainian statehood as the
Ukrainian People's Republic
The Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR), or Ukrainian National Republic (UNR), was a country in Eastern Europe that existed between 1917 and 1920. It was declared following the February Revolution in Russia by the First Universal. In March 1 ...
the Ukrainian name of the city became official. Ochakiv was part of the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
's
Ukrainian SSR
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( uk, Украї́нська Радя́нська Соціалісти́чна Респу́бліка, ; russian: Украи́нская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респ ...
and during World War II it was occupied by
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
between 1941 and 1944. This was the first time in the city's history that the ethnological and sociological research of Ochakiv's Romanians survivors were made by
Anton Golopenția
Anton Golopenția (May 12, 1909 – September 9, 1951) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian sociologist.
Biography
Beginnings, education and early career
Born in Prigor, Caraș-Severin County, his father Simion was a lawyer originally from Pe ...
.
Until 18 July 2020, Ochakiv was incorporated as a
city of oblast significance. It also served as the administrative center of Ochakiv Raion even though it did not belong to the raion. In July 2020, as part of the administrative reform of Ukraine, which reduced the number of raions of Mykolaiv Oblast to four, the city of Ochakiv was merged into Mykolaiv Raion.
Present
Today Ochakiv is a resort town and a fishing port. The current estimated population is around 16,900 (as of 2001).
The town's main sight is the building of the
Suvorov Museum
Suvorov Memorial Museum (Russian: Музей Суворова) in Saint Petersburg, Russia is a military museum dedicated to the memory of Generalissimo Alexander Suvorov (1729–1800). It was founded in 1900 to commemorate the century of Suvorov ...
, which served as a
mosque
A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers ( sujud) are performed, ...
in the 15th century. It was converted into the church of
St. Nicholas in 1804 and was reconstructed in Russian style in 1842.
Ochakiv is home to a
Ukrainian Navy’s operational control center.
[Read more on ]UNIAN
The UNIAN or Ukrainian Independent Information Agency of News ( uk, Українське Незалежне Інформаційне Агентство Новин, УНІАН, translit=Ukrayins'ke Nezalezhne Informatsiyne Ahentstvo Novyn) is a ...
: https://www.unian.info/politics/2079834-ukrainian-interest-putins-maneuvers-waszczykowskis-advice-and-merkels-rating.html
stroitelstvo-ochakove-komandnogo-1502449040.html
Not far from the city is located the Historical-Archaeological Preserve "
Olvia" and
Berezan Island
Berezan (Cyrillic: Береза́нь; Ancient Greek: Borysthenes; former tr, Pirezin) is an island in the Black Sea at the entrance of the Dnieper-Bug Estuary, Ochakiv Raion, Mykolaiv Oblast, Ukraine. Located 8 kilometers from the city of Och ...
. On the Kinburn peninsula are located the National park "White Bank of Svyatoslav" and the "Volzhyn forest" of
Black Sea Biosphere Preserve
The Black Sea Biosphere Reserve ( uk, Чорноморський біосферний заповідник) is a biosphere reserve of Ukraine that is located at littoral zone of the northern Black Sea coast covering regions of the Kherson and Myk ...
.
Gallery
File:Фонтан на місці пам'ятника Леніну в Очакові.JPG, Ochakiv town centre
File:Oczaków sobór3.jpg, Saint Nicholas Church in Ochakiv
File:Очаків 36.JPG, Saint Nicholas Church
File:Ochakiv Military History Museum of Alexander Suvorov-3.JPG, Ochakiv Military History Museum
File:Пляж с горы возле 'Аллеи сказок' - panoramio.jpg, Beach near the 'Alley of fairy tales'
References
External links
Satellite photo from Google Maps*
1:100,000 topographic map
{{Authority control
Cities in Mykolaiv Oblast
Port cities and towns in Ukraine
Port cities of the Black Sea
Populated places on the Dnieper in Ukraine
Cities of regional significance in Ukraine
1492 establishments in Europe
15th-century establishments in Ukraine
Yedisan
Crimean Khanate
Odessky Uyezd