Chyhyryn

Chyhyryn stands on the Tiasmyn near the Dnieper, beneath the hill where its castle guarded the steppe frontier. Established as a fortified town under a royal privilege of 1589, it received Magdeburg rights in 1592. Its greatest prominence came as the seat of the Cossack hetmans and a centre of the emerging Hetmanate.

Bohdan Khmelnytsky made Chyhyryn his principal residence after the uprising of 1648. Its regiment became a leading formation of the Zaporozhian Host, and embassies and political decisions tied the town to the struggles for control of Ukraine. His successors faced competing Polish, Muscovite and Ottoman claims. Hetman Petro Doroshenko sought Ottoman protection but surrendered to Russian and Cossack forces in 1676. Ottoman armies besieged Chyhyryn in 1677 and again in 1678. The first assault failed; the second captured and destroyed the fortress and town. People later returned to the devastated district, and Chyhyryn was gradually resettled. In 1793 the second partition of Poland brought it under Russian rule.