Khotyn (Ukrainian: Хотин; Polish: Chocim; Romanian: Hotin; Russian: Хотин, Khotin) is a town in the Chernivtsi Oblast of Ukraine. In former times the town was part of the Bessarabia region, which between the 15th and the 20th centuries belonged successively to Moldavia, the Ottoman Empire, Russia, Romania, the Soviet Union, split between Ukrainian SSR and Moldavian SSR), and remained split between Ukraine and Moldova. Due to the fluctuations in control, the official name also changed, and there is a multitude of spellings for the town's name, including but not limited to Khotyn, Chocim, Chotyn, Hotin, Choczim, or Khotin. The city is famous for its history and archaeology, as well as for its Fortress.

History

Khotyn was founded as an ancient fortified settlement located on cliffs above the Dniester, and is said to have been named after Kotizon, a 3rd century Dacian chieftain. By the 10th century, it had become a minor settlement of the Kievan Rus. It later became part of the Principality of Halych and its successor, Halych-Volhynia. The town became an important trading centre due to its position as a river crossing and, by the 13th century, it came to be the site of a Genoese trading colony. Khotyn's famous castle was built by the Genoese and expanded by subsequent rulers.

In the 14th century Khotyn passed first to Hungary, then to Moldavia in the 15th century. It changed hands frequently over the next 200 years, as rival Empires sought to gain control of the strategic river crossing. During the 17th and 18th century, its history was dominated by the war between the Christian powers of northern Europe and the expanding Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Turks suffered two decisive defeats at Khotyn in the 17th century, at the hands of the army of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: in 1621 by hetman Jan Chodkiewicz, and again in 1673 by King Jan Sobieski. In 1739, a Russian army under Burkhard Christoph von Munnich seized the town. The Russians were themselves defeated by the Turks in 1768, but rallied the following year to recapture the town. Khotyn fell to Austria in 1788, but finally passed to Russia permanently, along with Bessarabia, in 1812 - as a result of the Russo-Turkish War.

The collapse of the Russian Empire in the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922 prompted Romanians from Bukovina to vote for unification with Romania, which made Khotyn Romanian territory. Shortly after the town became part of Romania, in January 1919, Ukrainian Bolshevik troops dressed as civilians entered Khotyn and encouraged the ethnic Ukrainians to revolt. An insurrection took place against the Romanians (see Khotyn uprising). The Romanian Army defeated the Bolsheviks within a month. It remained under Romanian rule until June 1940, when the town passed to the Soviet Union with the rest of the Chernivtsi region under the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Khotyn thus became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. It was under German occupation from 1941 to 1944, and in 1991 became part of the newly independent country of Ukraine.

Battles

In the 1621 battle of Khotyn, an army of 160,000 Turkish veterans, led by Sultan Osman II, advanced from Adrianople towards the Polish frontier. The Turks, following their victory in the Cecora, had high hopes of conquering Poland altogether. The Polish commander Jan Karol Chodkiewicz crossed the Dniester in September 1621 and entrenched the Khotyn Fortress, blocking the path of the Ottoman march. The Commonwealth hetman held the sultan at bay for a whole month, until the first snow of autumn compelled Osman to withdraw his diminished forces. But the victory was dearly purchased by Poland. A few days before the siege was raised, the aged grand hetman died of exhaustion in the fortress on September 24, 1621. The Commonwealth forces held under the command of Stanisław Lubomirski. The battle, described by Wacław Potocki in his most famous work Transakcja wojny chocimskiej, marks the end of the long period of Moldavian Magnate Wars.

In 1673, the Polish Hussars again fought a major battle on this site.

In the Russo-Turkish War, the fortress was taken by Russian field marshal Burkhard Christoph von Munnich on August 19 1739. This victory is remembered primarily through the Ode on the Taking of Khotin from the Turks, composed by the young Mikhail Lomonosov. This ode produced a revolution, often taken as a starting point of the modern Russian poetry.

Famous people

• The Romanian philologist, historian and writer Bogdan Petriceicu-Hasdeu was born in Khotyn in February 16, 1836.

External links

• History and photos
• Flags of the world
• Lomonosov's ode on the capture of Khotin