An oblast ( or ) is a type of

administrative division Administrative divisions (also administrative units, administrative regions, subnational entities, or constituent states, as well as many similar generic terms) are geographical areas into which a particular independent sovereign state is divi ...

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

and several

post-Soviet states The post-Soviet states, also referred to as the former Soviet Union or the former Soviet republics, are the independent sovereign states that emerged/re-emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Prior to their independence, they ...

, including

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

and

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

. Historically, it was used in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

and the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. The term ''oblast'' is often translated into English as 'region' or 'province'. In some countries, oblasts are also known by

cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical effects on both the s ...

s of the Russian term.

Etymology

The term ''oblast'' is borrowed from Russian область (), where it is inherited from

Old East Slavic Old East Slavic (traditionally also Old Russian) was a language (or a group of dialects) used by the East Slavs from the 7th or 8th century to the 13th or 14th century, until it diverged into the Russian language, Russian and Ruthenian language ...

, in turn borrowed from Church Slavonic область ''oblastĭ'' 'power, empire', formed from the prefix (cognate with

Classical Latin Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a Literary language, literary standard language, standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It formed parallel to Vulgar Latin around 75 BC out of Old Latin ...

''ob'' 'towards, against' and

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

ἐπί/ἔπι ''epi'' 'in power, in charge') and the stem ''vlastǐ'' 'power, rule'. In Old East Slavic, it was used alongside ''obolostǐ''—the equivalent of 'against' and 'territory, state, power' (cognate with English 'wield'; see

volost Volost (; ; ) was a traditional administrative subdivision in Kievan Rus', the Grand Duchy of Moscow, and the Russian Empire. History The '' Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary'' (1890–1907) states that the origins of the concept is unc ...

History

Russian Empire

In the

oblasts were considered to be administrative units and were included as parts of Governorates General or

krai A krai or kray (; , , ''kraya'') is one of the types of federal subjects of modern Russia, and was a type of geographical administrative division in the Russian Empire and the Russian SFSR. Etymologically, the word is related to the verb "" ...

s. The majority of then-existing oblasts were on the periphery of the country (e.g. Kars Oblast or Transcaspian Oblast) or covered the areas where

Cossacks The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic languages, East Slavic Eastern Christian people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Ukraine and southern Russia. Cossacks played an important role in defending the southern borde ...

lived.

Soviet Union

In the

, oblasts were one of the types of administrative divisions of the union republics. As any administrative units of this level, oblasts were composed of districts (''

raion A raion (also spelt rayon) is a type of administrative unit of several post-Soviet states. The term is used for both a type of subnational entity and a division of a city. The word is from the French (meaning 'honeycomb, department'), and is c ...

s'') and cities/towns directly under oblasts' jurisdiction. Some oblasts also included autonomous entities called

autonomous okrug Autonomous okrugs, () which are also referred to as "autonomous districts" or "autonomous areas" are a type of federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of the Russia, Russian Federation and simultaneously an administrative division type of ...

s. Because of the Soviet Union electrification program under the GOELRO plan, Ivan Alexandrov, as director of the Regionalisation Committee of Gosplan, divided the Soviet Union into thirteen European and eight Asiatic oblasts, using rational economic planning rather than "the vestiges of lost sovereign rights".''Ekonomicheskoe raionirovanie Rossii'', Gosplan, Moscow 1921 The names of oblasts did not usually correspond to the names of the respective historical regions, as they were created as purely administrative units. With a few exceptions, Soviet oblasts were named after their administrative centers.

Yugoslavia

In 1922, the

Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, but the term "Yugoslavia" () has been its colloq ...

was divided into 33 administrative divisions also called oblasts. In 1929, oblasts were replaced with larger administrative units known as banovinas. During the

Yugoslav Wars The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related#Naimark, Naimark (2003), p. xvii. ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and Insurgency, insurgencies that took place from 1991 to 2001 in what had been the Socialist Federal Republic of ...

, several Serb Autonomous Oblasts were formed in

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes known as Bosnia-Herzegovina and informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to th ...

and

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

. These oblasts were later merged into the Republic of Serbian Krajina and the

Republika Srpska Republika Srpska ( sr-Cyrl, Република Српска, ; also referred to as the Republic of Srpska or Serb Republic) is one of the two Political divisions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, entities within Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other bein ...

. Word "oblast" is also prominent and widely used in Serbian language. It does not have only territorial meaning. It is also regularly used to denote parts of science, literature, or production, and so on (for example "''oblast'' nauke" means "field of science"). So, it means something like "part of whole".

Modern oblasts

Bulgaria

Since 1999, Bulgaria has been divided into 28 oblasts, usually translated as "provinces". Before, the country was divided into just nine units, also called oblasts.

Post-Soviet states

''Viloyat'' and ''welaýat'' are derived from the

Turkish language Turkish ( , , also known as 'Turkish of Turkey') is the most widely spoken of the Turkic languages, a member of Oghuz languages, Oghuz branch with around 90 million speakers. It is the national language of Turkey and one of two official languag ...

term ''

vilayet A vilayet (, "province"), also known by #Names, various other names, was a first-order administrative division of the later Ottoman Empire. It was introduced in the Vilayet Law of 21 January 1867, part of the Tanzimat reform movement initiated b ...

'', itself derived from the

Arabic language Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

term '' wilāya'' ().

Notes

References

External links

* {{authority control Types of administrative division Russian-language designations of territorial entities