Zaporizhzhia city, Ukraine

Some historians interpret this fortification as the first Zaporozhian Sich (a proto-state of the Cossacks), however, most historians reject this interpretation, as it is not confirmed by sources. In any case, despite the short time of its existence, Khortytsia Sich played a significant role in the formation of the Ukrainian Cossacks.

In 1764, during the reign of the Russian Empress Catherine II, Novorossiya (New Russia) Governorate was formed in the territories previously controlled by the Ottomans and Cossacks, within the boundaries of which was the territory of the entire Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

With the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774, it became necessary to protect the southern borders of the governorate from the Crimean Khanate, a vassal of the Ottoman Empire. At the beginning of 1769, the army of General P. A. Rumyantsev repelled the invasion of the Crimean Tatars and reached the coast of the Sea of Azov.

Alexandrovsk Fortress

In 1770, Catherine II decided to build seven fortresses from the Dnieper rapids to the Azov Sea - the Dnieper defensive line. According to the plans, the line was supposed, on the one hand, to protect the region from the Crimean Tatar attacks, and on the other - to ensure the strengthening of Russian control over the lands of the Zaporozhian Sich.

There is no unequivocal point of view, after whom the fortress was named. The names of Field Marshal Alexander Golitsyn, Prince Alexander Vyazemsky are given; there is also an opinion that the fortress was named by Catherine II in honor of the saint, whose name was mentioned in the church calendar for the first half of 1770.

The construction of the fortress of Aleksandrovsk lasted five years. It was a powerful fortification, which had more than 100 guns. From the very beginning of the existence of the Alexandrovsk Fortress, the so-called “Vorstadt” (from German vorstadt - “suburb”) began to form near it. At first, builders-peasants, convicts, personnel serving the fortress, and retired soldiers settled there.

According to the Kuchuk-Kainarji Treaty (1774), the lands of the southern Russian steppes, called the “Wild Field”, became part of the Russian Empire. In 1775, Catherine II ordered General Peter Tekeli to end the existence of the Zaporozhian Sich, which he was able to achieve without resorting to bloodshed.

In 1783, the population of the Aleksandrovsk vorstadt was 1,230 people, 886 men and 344 women. In 1783, after the annexation of the Crimean Khanate to the Russian Empire, the Dnieper defensive line lost its military importance and was abolished. In 1785, the fortress became an urban settlement.

In 1787, by the order of Catherine II, Mennonite Protestants, subjected to religious oppression, were allowed to move to the newly conquered Russian lands along the Black Sea and in the Crimea, which were deserted after the war. In 1789, the resettlement of Mennonite Germans from the Vistula Delta (the area of ??the cities of Gdansk and Elblag) began. Mennonites in the Russian Empire were granted freedom of religion and freedom from military and civil service.

At least 23 German villages (420 families) were founded around the fortress, among them Upper Khortytsia (Chortitza) and Lower Khortytsia (Nieder Chortitza), Baburka (Burwalde), Kichkas (Einlage), Kapustyanka (Blumengart). The village of Schonwiese later became a district of the town of Aleksandrovsk.

At the same time, Russian peasants and retired soldiers began to settle here, while a lot of Zaporozhye Cossacks were resettled to Kuban, where they became Kuban Cossacks. From 1791 to 1917, Aleksandrovsk was in the Pale of Settlement for the Jews of the Russian Empire.

Alexandrovsk - a small provincial town

At the end of the 18th century, Aleksandrovsk became a transport center - it was through it that goods for the construction of Kherson and the Black Sea Fleet went. With the growth of the trade role of Odesa and the change in the direction of the main trade routes in the region, Aleksandrovsk began to decline; this was facilitated by the abolition of the Dnieper defensive line in 1797.

In 1804, the population of Alexandrovsk was about 2.5 thousand people. In 1806, it became a county town of the Yekaterinoslav Governorate with a town council, a post office, courts, and a treasury. In 1811, Alexandrovsk received its coat of arms (the current coat of arms of Zaporizhzhia is almost an exact copy of it). In the middle of the 19th century, Aleksandrovsk was an ordinary provincial town. In 1861, about 3.8 thousand people lived in the town.

The presence of a pier on the Dnieper below the rapids, as well as the construction of a railway from the center of the Russian Empire to the Crimea, contributed to the growth of Aleksandrovsk. In 1873, a section of the Catherine Railway from Lozovaya to Aleksandrovsk was opened, the first railway station was built, called the Southern Station.

In 1875, the construction of the railway to Sevastopol was completed. Various goods (bread, coal, cattle, timber, etc.) were transported to Alexandrovsk by rail, where they were loaded onto barges and rafted down the Dnieper to sea ports, mainly to Odesa.

As a result, the town gradually began to turn into an important transport hub of the region, its industry began to develop too. In the 1870s, there were 5 agricultural machinery plants in Alexandrovsk. In 1897, the population of the town was 18,849 people, of them Ukrainians - 8,101, Jews - 5,248, Russians - 4,667.

The construction of the second Catherine Railway, which passed through Alexandrovsk and connected the Krivoi Rog Iron Ore and Donets Coal Basins in 1902, and the significant expansion of the harbor, gave a powerful new impetus to the development of the town and its economy. The second railway station was built.

In 1913, on the eve of the First World War, the town’s population reached 63,600 people. During the First World War, a number of enterprises were evacuated from the western regions of the Russian Empire to Alexandrovsk. During the Civil War in the former Russian Empire, power in the town changed several times.

Zaporizhzhia before and during the Second World War

In 1921, Aleksandrovsk was renamed to Zaporozhye (literally meaning “below the river rapids”) by decision of the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee. Zaporizhzhia is the Ukrainian spelling of this name.

The natural conditions around the city were favorable for the construction of a giant hydroelectric power station. This fact, together with the availability of transport routes and the geographical position between Krivoy Rog ore and Donetsk coal, coincided with the intention of the Soviet authorities to industrialize the country. It was planned to build a powerful industrial site nearby, primarily metallurgical plants.

The turning point in the history of the town was the construction of the Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Station (DneproGES), which was opened on October 10, 1932. The Dnieper rapids were flooded and direct navigation along the Dnieper River became possible. The construction of a large industrial complex of ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy began. DneproGES became one of the main symbols of Soviet industrialization.

In the middle of 1928, Professor I. G. Aleksandrov drew attention to the need for a plan for the development of the city around the Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Station under construction. In September of the same year, the Council of People’s Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR announced a competition for drawing up a layout plan for the Big Zaporizhzhia. On April 29, 1932, the city project was approved. New Zaporizhzhia was designed as if apart from the old Aleksandrovsk. The architectural qualities of the project were so significant that its model was presented at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York as an outstanding example of socialist urban planning.

Between the dam and the industrial site, where the plants were being built, about 10 km from the center of old Aleksandrovsk, a settlement #6 named Sotsgorod (Socialist city) was founded. Sotsgorod was created with the idea of building a city of the future, a city-garden. The ideas of Soviet urban avant-garde were used in the design of buildings. In 1937, Zaporizhzhia produced about 60% of Soviet aluminum, 60% of ferroalloys, 100% of magnesium, and 20% of rolled steel. In 1939, the city became the center of the newly formed Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Its population was about 289 thousand people.

On August 18, 1941, during the Second World War, the Germans broke through the defenses of the Soviet troops west of Zaporizhzhia. In order to delay the offensive of the German troops, the Soviet command decided to blow up the bridges connecting the island of Khortytsia with the right and left (Zaporizhzhia) banks of the Dnieper and the Dnieper hydroelectric dam.

As a result of the explosion, a hole more than 100 meters long appeared in the dam, through which a 30-meter wave gushed down, causing destruction and death of people who found themselves in the riverside zone (German troops, the Red Army soldiers, who carried out the crossing across the Dnieper, as well as civilians). The number of victims among the Red Army and the civilian population is not known, since no calculations were made immediately, most likely thousands of people. The German command estimated its losses at 1,500 people.

Using the surviving bridge, the Germans entered Khortytsia, occupied it and began shelling the city. On the night of September 3-4, 1941, the troops of the Red Army and the militia crossed the Dnieper and landed on Khortytsia in order to drive the Germans off it. After the liberation of the island, the shelling of the city significantly weakened. In a short time, 22 factories of all-Union significance, 26 enterprises of the light and food industries were evacuated, institutes, educational institutions, a theater, and a museum were evacuated too. The defense of Zaporizhzhia lasted a month and a half - until October 4, 1941.

By the summer of 1942, the Germans rebuilt the DneproGES and partially restored the Zaporizhzhia steel mill. During the occupation, the Germans conducted a census of the population. According to it, on May 1, 1942, 103,375 people lived in Zaporizhzhia. October 12-14, 1943, the city was liberated by the Red Army. Soviet intelligence officers and sappers managed to save the Dnieper hydroelectric power station from destruction.

Zaporizhzhia after the Second World War

In the postwar years, Zaporizhzhia was actively rebuilt. DneproGES was restored by 1947. By the end of 1950, about 90% of residential buildings were restored. Two two-tiered bridges across the Dnieper, opened in 1953, became cultural and engineering attractions of the city. The famous Soviet movie “Spring on Zarechnaya Street” was filmed in Zaporizhzhia (director M. Khutsiev, 1956). In this movie you can see what the city was like in post-war times. In 1956, the population of Zaporizhzhia was about 381 thousand people.

The growth of the old part of the city and the new one (Sotsgorod) led to their unification in the 1960s. At that time, large new residential districts were founded. In 1960, the plant “Kommunar”, changed its direction of activity and instead of harvesters began to produce famous Soviet mini-cars ZAZ Zaporozhets. In 1970, about 658 thousand people lived in the city.

In the 1950s-1980s, Zaporizhzhia continued to develop as a large industrial city. During this period, the machine-building, industrial and metallurgical institutes, technical schools of the city developed rapidly too. In the late 1980s, the population of Zaporizhzhia reached 900 thousand people.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, in independent Ukraine, the population of Zaporizhzhia began to decline. From 1992 to 2022, the city’s population decreased by about 20%.