Mykolaiv Oblast

History

Historically, at various times, the territory was ruled either entirely or partly by Scythia, the ancient Greeks, Old Great Bulgaria, the Khazars, the Kipchaks, the Mongol Empire, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Crimean Khanate, the Ottoman Empire, the Kingdom of Poland and the Russian Empire. Historic cities of particular importance included ancient Olbia and the late medieval port city of Ochakiv.

In the late 17th and 18th centuries, the tripoint of three early modern great powers, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Ottoman Empire and Russia, was located at the site of present-day Pervomaisk, now the second-largest city in Mykolaiv Oblast. The modern city was formed by the merger of the former Polish town of Bohopol, the Russian town of Olviopol and the Ottoman settlement of Holta, later known as Golta.

Jewish history

Jewish communities developed in the region during the period of the Russian Empire, when much of the territory formed part of the Pale of Settlement. Jews participated extensively in commerce, crafts and the economic development of the region. The port and shipbuilding city of Mykolaiv, founded in 1789, developed one of the area's largest Jewish communities. Jews were present there from the city's earliest years, many having migrated from Galicia.

The Russian government prohibited most Jews from residing in Mykolaiv in 1829 because of its status as an important naval base, although implementation of the expulsion was delayed. Restrictions were gradually relaxed beginning in the 1850s and were removed in 1866, after which the Jewish population grew rapidly. There were 8,325 Jews in Mykolaiv in 1880. By the 1897 census, the number had increased to 20,109, representing 21.8 percent of the city's population. The community maintained synagogues, houses of prayer, schools and charitable organizations. Jews suffered during outbreaks of anti-Jewish violence in 1881 and 1899, while Jewish self-defence organizations helped prevent a pogrom in the city during the Revolution of 1905.

Jewish communities also existed in towns and villages throughout what is now Mykolaiv Oblast, particularly in the western districts adjoining the Southern Bug. Under Soviet rule, traditional Jewish religious and communal institutions were restricted, while Jews increasingly participated in industry and urban life. In 1926, Mykolaiv itself had 21,786 Jewish residents, approximately 20.8 percent of its population. The city supported Yiddish-language educational and judicial institutions during the 1920s. By 1939, 25,280 Jews lived in Mykolaiv, constituting approximately 15.2 percent of the city's population.

World War II and the Holocaust

Following the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the territory of present-day Mykolaiv Oblast was divided between German and Romanian occupation zones. Mykolaiv and the eastern part of the present-day oblast came under German administration, while the territory west of the Southern Bug was incorporated into the Romanian-administered Transnistria Governorate. The latter included Golta County, centred on the Golta section of present-day Pervomaisk. Transnistria became one of the principal sites of the Holocaust perpetrated by Romanian authorities, German units and local auxiliaries.

German forces occupied Mykolaiv in August 1941. In September, approximately 7,000 Jews were murdered in the vicinity of the city. The prewar Jewish community, which had numbered more than 25,000 in 1939, was largely destroyed during the German occupation.

In the Romanian occupation zone, Golta County became a major centre of mass murder. Romanian authorities concentrated local Ukrainian Jews together with tens of thousands of Jews deported from Bessarabia, Bukovina and elsewhere in Transnistria. The three principal killing camps in the county were Bogdanovka, Domanovka and Akhmechetka. Other ghettos, camps and forced-labour sites operated throughout the county.

Bogdanovka, located at a large state farm near the Southern Bug, became the largest of these killing sites. Romanian authorities confined Jews deported from Odesa, other parts of Transnistria, Bessarabia and Bukovina there. Between 25,000 and 30,000 Jews were forced to march from Odesa toward Bogdanovka beginning in October 1941. Thousands died from hunger, disease and exposure after reaching the camp. Beginning on 21 December 1941, tens of thousands of prisoners were murdered in a series of mass killings carried out by Romanian-controlled local police and ethnic German auxiliaries operating under German authority. Prisoners who were elderly or too weak to walk to the killing sites were among those burned alive in buildings.

At Domanovka, approximately 20,000 Ukrainian and Bessarabian Jews were confined between November 1941 and January 1942. About 18,000 were murdered by Romanian soldiers and police, Ukrainian auxiliaries and ethnic German units by February 1942. Survivors were subjected to starvation, disease and forced labour, and Jewish prisoners were later forced to exhume and burn the bodies of victims.

Akhmechetka, situated between Bogdanovka and Domanovka, was established at an isolated former Soviet pig farm. Romanian authorities used the camp particularly for Jews considered incapable of work. Prisoners were confined under lethal conditions with inadequate food, shelter and medical care, and thousands died or were murdered there.

The Golta section of Pervomaisk itself contained a ghetto. By the autumn of 1942 approximately 450 Jews, including deportees from Bessarabia and Bukovina, were concentrated there. Local Jews were subsequently sent to Bogdanovka, Akhmechetka and other camps, although some were later returned to Golta. Jews considered incapable of labour faced murder or transfer to Akhmechetka.

Numerous smaller detention and forced-labour sites also operated in territory now belonging to Mykolaiv Oblast. These included the Bobric camp and Slivina. At Slivina, now Slyvyne, Jewish prisoners were used for forced labour in 1943, including construction work associated with a bridge across the Southern Bug toward Mykolaiv.

Romanian authorities also carried out deportations of Roma to Transnistria, including locations in and around Golta County. Across Transnistria, the Romanian government deported an estimated 25,000 Roma, of whom at least 11,000 died from deprivation and maltreatment or were murdered.

The Red Army recaptured the region in the spring of 1944. Mykolaiv was liberated in March 1944, ending the German and Romanian occupations of the territory of the present-day oblast.

Postwar period

The oblast had been established within Soviet Ukraine in 1937. Following the end of World War II, it remained part of the Ukrainian SSR. Jewish survivors and evacuees returned to Mykolaiv after the war. The city had approximately 15,800 Jewish residents in 1959, although Soviet restrictions on Jewish religious life continued and the last synagogue was closed by the authorities in 1962. The Jewish population subsequently declined as a result of assimilation and, particularly from the late Soviet period onward, emigration.

During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian army invaded the oblast from Kherson Oblast, advancing as far northwest as Voznesensk. Russian forces were repulsed at Voznesensk, and their attempt to capture Mykolaiv also failed. From April 2022, almost all of the oblast remained under Ukrainian control, apart from the extreme southeast and the Kinburn Peninsula. When Russia announced the annexation of Kherson Oblast in September 2022, its claims incorporated Russian-occupied areas of Mykolaiv Oblast. A Ukrainian military official announced the Russian withdrawal from Mykolaiv Oblast on 10 November 2022.

On 4–5 July 2022, during the international Ukraine Recovery Conference in Lugano, Switzerland pledged to support the reconstruction of Mykolaiv Oblast.