Military history of Kharkiv

Kharkiv (Харків, ), or Kharkov (Ха́рьков), is the second-largest city of Ukraine. Located in the north-east of the country, it is the largest city of the Slobozhanshchyna historical region. By its territorial expansion on September 6, 2012 the city increased its area from about 310 to 350 km2.

The city was founded in 1654 and was a major centre of Ukrainian culture in the Russian Empire. Kharkiv was the first city in Ukraine to acknowledge Soviet power in December 1917 and later became the capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. As of 2006, its population was 1,461,300. The city has been involved in several battles since it was founded.

Kharkiv Fortress
The Kharkiv Fortress was erected around the Assumption Cathedral and its castle was located at University Hill. It was situated between today's streets: vulytsia Kvitky-Osnovianenko, Constitution Square, Rose Luxemburg Square, Proletarian Square, and Cathedral Descent. The fortress had 10 towers: Chuhuivska Tower, Moskovska Tower, Vestovska Tower, Tainytska Tower, Lopanska Corner Tower, Kharkivska Corner Tower and others. The tallest tower was Vestovska some 16 m tall, while the shortest one was Tainytska which, however, had a secret well 35 m deep. The fortress had the Lopanski Gates. In 1689 the fortress was expanded and included the Saint-Pokrov Cathedral and Monastery which was baptized and became the center of local eparchy. Coincidentally in the same year in the vicinity of Kharkiv in Kolomak Ivan Mazepa was announced the Hetman of Ukraine. Next to the Saint-Pokrov Cathedral was located the Kharkiv Collegiate that was transferred from Belgorod to Kharkiv in 1726.

Soviet period


When the Russian Civil War broke out, on 12 February 1918, Kharkov became the capital of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic. The Republic was disbanded at the 2nd All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets on 20 March 1918, when the independence of the Soviet Ukraine was announced. It failed to achieve recognition, either internationally or by the Russian SFSR, and in accordance with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was abolished.

Prior to the formation of the Soviet Union, Bolsheviks established Kharkiv as the capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (from 1919 to 1934) in opposition to the Ukrainian People's Republic with its capital of Kiev.

As the country's capital, it underwent intense expansion with the construction of buildings to house the newly established Ukrainian Soviet government and administration. Derzhprom was the second tallest building in Europe and the tallest in the Soviet Union at the time with a height of 63 m. In the 1920s, a 150 m wooden radio tower was built on top of the building. During the interwar period the city saw the spread of architectural constructivism. One of the best representatives of it was the already mentioned Derzhprom, the Building of the Red Army, the Ukrainian Polytechnic Institute of Distance Learning (UZPI), the City Council building, with its massive asymmetric tower, the central department store that was opened on the 15th Anniversary of the October Revolution. The same year on November 7, 1932 the building of Noblemen Assembly was transformed into the building of All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee.

In 1928, the SVU (Union for the Freedom of Ukraine) process was initiated and court sessions were staged in the Kharkiv Opera (now the Philharmonia) building. Hundreds of Ukrainian intellectuals were arrested and deported.

In the early 1930s, the Holodomor famine drove many people off the land into the cities, and to Kharkiv in particular, in search of food. Many people died and were secretly buried in mass graves in the cemeteries surrounding the city.

In 1934 hundreds of Ukrainian writers, intellectuals and cultural workers were arrested and executed in the attempt to eradicate all vestiges of Ukrainian nationalism in Art. The purges continued into 1938. Blind Ukrainian street musicians were also gathered in Kharkiv and murdered by the NKVD. In January 1935 the capital of the Ukrainian SSR was moved from Kharkiv to Kiev.

During April and May 1940 about 3,800 Polish prisoners of Starobelsk camp were executed in the Kharkiv NKVD building, later secretly buried on the grounds of an NKVD pansionat in Pyatykhatky forest (part of the Katyn massacre) on the outskirts of Kharkiv. The site also contains the numerous bodies of Ukrainian cultural workers who were arrested and shot in the 1937–38 Stalinist purges.

German occupation
During World War II, Kharkiv was the site of several military engagements (see below). The city was captured and recaptured by Nazi Germany on 24 October 1941; there was a disastrous Red Army offensive that failed to capture the city in May 1942; the city was successfully retaken by the Soviets on 16 February 1943, captured for a second time by the Germans on 15 March 1943 and then finally liberated on 23 August 1943. Seventy percent of the city was destroyed and tens of thousands of the inhabitants were killed. Kharkiv, the third largest city in the Soviet Union, was the most populous city in the Soviet Union captured by the Germans, since in the years preceding World War II, Kiev was by population the smaller of the two.

The significant Jewish population of Kharkiv (Kharkiv's Jewish community prided itself with the second largest synagogue in Europe) suffered greatly during the war. Between December 1941 and January 1942, an estimated 30,000 people (slightly more than half Jewish) were killed and buried in a mass grave by the Germans in a ravine outside of town named Drobitsky Yar.

During World War II, four battles took place for control of the city:
 * First Battle of Kharkov
 * Second Battle of Kharkov
 * Third Battle of Kharkov
 * Fourth Battle of Kharkov (See also Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev)

Before the occupation, Kharkiv's tank industries were evacuated to the Urals with all their equipment, and became the heart of Red Army's tank programs (particularly, producing the T-34 tank earlier designed in Kharkiv). These enterprises returned to Kharkiv after the war, and continue to produce tanks.

Post War
In the post-war period many of the destroyed homes and factories were rebuilt. From the constructivism the city was planned to be rebuilt in the style of Stalinist Classicism.

Gas lines were installed for heating in government and later private homes. An airport was built in 1954. Following the war Kharkiv was the third largest scientific-industrial centre in the former USSR (after Moscow and Leningrad).

Notable military people

 * Valentina Grizodubova — One of the first female pilots in the Soviet Union
 * Mikhail Gurevich – (originally from Rubanshchina) Soviet aircraft designer, a partner (with Artem Mikoyan) of the famous MiG military aviation bureau
 * Mikhail Koshkin – (originally from Brynchagi), chief designer of Soviet tank T-34
 * Nikolai Tikhonov — Premier of the Soviet Union
 * Vladimir Vasyutin — Soviet cosmonaut of Ukrainian descent

Footnotes and references

 * Citynet UA — Official website of Kharkiv City Information Centre /
 * Misto Kharkiv — Official website of Kharkiv City Council /
 * Your beloved Kharkiv — Kharkiv city portal //
 * Kharkiv Za Jazz Fest — official web-site of International kharkiv jazz festival KHARKIV ZA JAZZ FEST.
 * Old Kharkiv Gallery — Photos and postcards
 * — 360 VR panoramas of Kharkiv`s square (dinosaur exhibition summer 2010)
 * Kharkiv churches, monuments and other sights
 * Kharkiv under Nazi Occupation
 * Kharkiv on Google Maps