Uman

Uman lies on the Umanka River in eastern Podolia. First recorded in 1616, it was a fortified town of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, built to withstand raids from the steppe. Its position also made it a centre of Cossack power and a prize in the wars that swept across the region.

In 1648 Ivan Hanzha captured Uman for Bohdan Khmelnytsky's uprising, and the town became the seat of a Cossack regiment. It returned to Polish rule in 1667 and later passed under Ottoman authority. Under the Potocki family, who held it from 1726, Uman grew in importance and acquired a Basilian monastery and school. In 1768 the haidamaka leaders Maksym Zalizniak and Ivan Gonta captured the town during the Koliivshchyna; Jews, Poles and Ukrainian Uniates were massacred. Uman passed to Russia in the second partition of Poland in 1793.