Chernihiv (
Ukrainian ????????,
Russian ????????;
Belarusian ????????; also referred to as
Chernigov) is a historic city in northern
Ukraine. It is the
capital of the
Chernihiv Oblast (
province), as well as the administrative center of the surrounding
Chernihivskyi Raion (
district) within the oblast. The current estimated population is around 299,000 (as of
2006).
Chernigov was first mentioned in the Rus'-Byzantine Treaty (907) (as ?????????), but is considered to have existed at least in the ninth century, as uncovered by archeological excavations of a settlement which included the artifacts from the Khazar Khaganate. Towards the end of the 10th century, the city probably had its own rulers. It was there that the Black Grave, one of the largest and earliest royal mounds in Eastern Europe, was excavated back in the 19th century.
In the southern portion of the Kievan Rus the city was the second by importance and wealth.[1] From the early eleventh century it was the seat of powerful Grand Principality of Chernigov, whose rulers at times vied for power with Kievan Grand Princes, and often overthrew them and took the primary seat in Kiev for themselves. The grand principality was the largest in Kievan Rus and included not only the Severian towns but even such remote regions as Murom, Ryazan and Tmutarakan. The golden age of Chernigov, when the city population peaked at 25,000, lasted until 1239 when the city was sacked by the hordes of Batu Khan, which started a long period of relative obscurity.
The area fell under the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1353. The city was burned again by Crimean khan Meñli I Giray in 1482 and 1497 and in the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries it changed hands several times between Lithuania, Muscovy (1408–1420 and from 1503), and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1618–1648), where it was granted Magdeburg rights in 1623 and in 1635 became a seat of Czernihów Voivodship. The area's importance increased again in the middle of the seventeenth century during and after the Khmelnytsky Uprising. In the Hetman State Chernihiv was the city of deployment of Chernihiv Cossack regiment (both a military and territorial unit of the time).
