BOHUSLAV: a city — a gift of Yaroslav the Wise
St. Nicholas Monastery. Boguslav. Early 20th century / info-ua.net
Bohuslav is a small town on the Ros River, where the history of Right-Bank Ukraine is literally embodied in its landmarks and artifacts. It is a pantheon of prominent Ukrainians. Here one finds references to Bohdan Khmelnytsky and Ivan Mazepa, to Severyn Nalyvaiko, to Taras Shevchenko and Ivan Soshchenko, to Marko Vovchok. Just 125 kilometers from Kyiv — and we are already in Bohuslav. At the entrance to the town stands a stone building, on the whitewashed side of which a commemorative plaque is mounted, informing that the city was founded in 1032 by the Grand Prince of Kyiv, Yaroslav the Wise, who at that time was strengthening the defensive line of his principality. However, Bohuslav is first mentioned in an Old Rus chronicle in 1195 as a fortress intended for defense against the Polovtsians. Buyslavl, Boieslav, Bohuslavl, Buslav, Bohuslav — these are the names that, according to legend, the town bore at different times. Local historians put forward various hypotheses about their origin…
CURIOSITIES OF THE TOWN
T
he Kamianytsia ( Stone Building ) is the oldest and most solid structure in the town, built in 1726. Its walls are 1.2 meters thick. Initially it served fortification purposes; in the second half of the 19th century it housed a Jewish religious school; after the October Revolution it became a club for the deaf and mute; during the years of German occupation it was used by the Gestapo; and in the postwar years it functioned as the Museum of Komsomol Glory. Today it houses the Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts. The Holy Trinity Church is a must-see. It was completed in 1862, although its foundation was laid back in 1833 by order of Countess Oleksandra Branitska; for various reasons, construction dragged on for almost 30 years. Another local curiosity is the house of the owner of a cloth factory, the merchant Pokras (1887). Today it serves as the city council building.
This refined house was built in the Neo-Renaissance style to a design by the well-known Kyiv architect Andrii-Ferdinand Krauss (one may recall, for instance, his Richard the Lionheart Castle on Andriivskyi Descent) and somewhat resembles a small palace. Finally, a landmark of cult significance is the St. Nicholas Monastery, founded in the 16th century, which was the main center of Orthodoxy in the region. Yet many are more drawn to a geological landmark — the Bohuslav Granite Quarry, where granite boulders are scattered along the slopes of the Ros River, having grown into the ground. Their age is at least 2 billion years. Where the Ros washes around a granite island, rapids are formed. Particularly impressive are the high granite cliff above the river and the stone «Pit» — a favorite recreation spot for Bohuslav residents. It is said that this is precisely where a «place of power» with strong energy is located.
AS YAROSLAV DECREED
Let us return to tales and legends. The town was called Boieslav because «boi» (the Ukrainian word for «battles») with the Pechenegs and the Polovtsians often took place in these lands. Some interpret Boieslav as a compound word in which the element boi or bui carries the meaning of «mighty» or «strong.» There is an assumption that the ancient name of the town was Bohuslavl, likely derived from the name of the Bohuslavka River, a tributary of the Ros. Yet, according to another legend, it all happened this way. When Yaroslav the Wise routed the detachments of nomads pressing on the southern borders of Kyivan Rus, the people cried out together: «Slava Yaroslav!» («Glory to Yaroslav!»). And the prince, wiping the sweat from his brow, wearily exclaimed: «Bohu slava!» («Glory be to God!»). And he ordered that a fortress town be built on the left bank of the Ros, naming it Bohuslavl. In 1240, Bohuslavl was destroyed by the Mongol-Tatar hordes.
MAGDEBURG LAW
From 1362, the town belonged to the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and after the Union of Lublin in 1569 it was taken over by the Polish nobility. With the aim of colonizing Ukrainian lands and strengthening the southern borders of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Polish government took measures to transform Bohuslav into a well-fortified stronghold. In 1591, King Sigismund III Vasa granted the town into the possession of the Volhynian voivode Janusz Ostrogski and allowed it to be settled. The town received privileges: for 29 years the population was exempt from all taxes and levies; it was also permitted to hold markets once a week and fairs twice a year. In 1620, Bohuslav was granted Magdeburg law and a coat of arms. At that time, the town had 115 households, 15 taverns, four water mills, a castle, and two potash works — small factories producing potash, a substance necessary for bleaching and dyeing fabrics, soap-making, and glass production.
Here we can pause for a moment. Potash enterprises in Ukraine in the 16th–18th centuries were manufactories in nature. They were located where raw materials were sourced — in forested areas. These were complexes of production facilities — budy (buda being a small utility building or hut) equipped with the necessary apparatus (calcining kilns, vats for leaching ash, boiling cauldrons, and the like), as well as living quarters for workers. Potash was produced by leaching wood ash with water. The resulting ash (which contained potassium salts) was then evaporated in metal pans and cauldrons. After that, the crude potash was calcined in special furnaces…
TIMES OF UPRISINGS AND TURMOIL
As for the political situation… The Ukrainian people put up considerable resistance to the colonizing policy of the Polish government. Thus ancient Bohuslav remembers both turmoil and uprisings — under the leadership of Severyn Nalyvaiko in 1594; Pavliuk and Skydan in 1637; Hunia and Ostrianyn in 1638. And from 1648, Bohuslav became a company town of the Bila Tserkva Regiment. Bohdan Khmelnytsky repeatedly chose Bohuslav as a place to station his troops. He stayed here in 1651 and in 1654–1656. Throughout the 16th–17th centuries, Bohuslav suffered numerous attacks by the Crimean Tatars and the Turks. In 1678, Yurii Khmelnytsky destroyed Bohuslav and handed the city’s population over into captivity (Turk. esir — captive) to his Turkish allies.
In 1685, the town was taken by Colonel Samiilo Samus, who, by order of Hetman Mazepa, established the Bohuslav Cossack Regiment here; it existed until 1712. Throughout its entire existence, Samus was its only colonel and simultaneously the acting hetman of Right-Bank Ukraine. In 1712, the town once again came under Polish control. The population of the Bohuslav region took part in the Haidamaky movement of the 1740s–1750s. Then came the Koliivshchyna. In 1768, the haidamaks brutally dealt with the garrison of the Polish army. The uprising, as is known, was suppressed, and soon Bohuslav became the patrimony of the Polish king. He gifted the town to his nephew, Stanisław Poniatowski, who in 1785 sold it to Count Ksawery Branicki for 4 million zlotys.
In 1793, the town, together with all of Right-Bank Ukraine, became part of the Russian Empire. Until 1837, Bohuslav was the center of Bohuslav County of the Kyiv Governorate. In 1846, a major fire occurred, and as a result it lost its city status and entered Kaniv County of the Kyiv Governorate as a volost. As of 1885, the center of the Bohuslav volost had a population of 8,451; there were 1,018 household farms, two Orthodox churches, a Roman Catholic church, a synagogue, a theological school, a general school, three inns, 18 lodging houses, 181 shops, two cloth factories, and brewing, distilling, and cast-iron plants. By 1913 (a year whose indicators were considered exemplary by many historians of the Soviet era), the number of cloth factories in the town had grown to three; new enterprises were added — machine-building, beer-and-mead, and brick plants; a confectionery factory and three mills began operating… The Soviet period added little to the ancient and glorious image. Perhaps only the curbs of the streets asphalted in the mid-20th century — made of granite slabs taken from the old Jewish cemetery.
UKRAINIAN PANTHEON
The well-known artist and educator Ivan Soshchenko was born and grew up in Bohuslav; he played a key role in securing the emancipation of Taras Shevchenko from serfdom. Shevchenko himself also visited the town. The Ukrainian writer and translator Marko Vovchok lived in Bohuslav as well. Their life paths can be explored in detail in local museums — the Ivan Soshchenko Memorial Museum, the Museum of the History of the Bohuslav Region, and the Marko Vovchok Museum. To mark the 985th anniversary of the town’s founding (in 2017), a Ukrainian record was registered — the longest woven rushnyk. Its creation involved 1,500 people over the course of nine months. The rushnyk depicts all the landmark events in the town’s history over 985 years. It was woven using the technique of hand double-sided weaving on a 70-year-old loom, which is itself an exhibit of the Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts. The work of art even has its own name: the Bohuslav rushnyk.
Such a wonderful town in the Kyiv region — Bohuslav. So come and visit it yourself!
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