Mukacheve
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Image:Mukacheve Coat of Arms.jpg Mukacheve (Template:Lang-uk) is a city in Zakarpattia Oblast, southwestern Ukraine. It is located in the valley of the Latorica river. It has a castle from the IX to XVI centuries on top of the Lamkova hill. The population in 1989 was 85,000 and is now 77,300 (2004).
Earlier it was part of the Kingdom of Hungary (11th century - 1918 and 1938-1944) and of Czechoslovakia (1918-1938 and 1944-1945).
The city is now a rail terminus and highway junction, and has beer, wine, tobacco, food, textile, timber and furniture industries.
Today Mukacheve has a majority Ukrainian and Rusyn population with a significant minority of Hungarians and Jews.
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Historical names
Rusyn: Мукачів (Mukachiv); Template:Lang-ru (Mukachevo); Template:Lang-hu; Slovak and Czech: Mukačevo; Template:Lang-de; Yiddish: Munkacz or Minkatsh
Timeline
For early history (Great Moravia, Kievan Rus') see Carpathian Ruthenia.
- 9th to 11th centuries: Mukacheve was for a time a part of the Kievan Rus' state.
- 1018: Mukacheve was taken by the Hungarians and became a center of power of Hungarian kings.Template:Fact
- 1397: The town and its surrounding was granted by King Sigismund of Hungary to the Ruthenian prince Theodor Koriatovich, who settled many Ruthenians in the territory.
- 1445: The town became a Hungarian free royal town.
- 15th century: Became a prominent craft & trade center for the region.
- 16th century: Became part of the Principality of Transylvania.
- 1604-1711: Anti-Habsburg revolts in this territory and present-day Slovakia.
- 1685-1688: Beginning of the anti-Habsburg Revolt of Imre Thököly.
- Early 18th century: Beginning of the revolt of Ferenc II. Rákóczi. Image:Mukachev.jpg
- 18th century: Came under Austrian control as part of the Kingdom of Hungary and was made a key fortess of the Habsburg Monarchy.
- 1726: The castle and the town, before 1711 owned by the Rákóczi family, was given by the Habsburgs to the Schönborn family, who were responsible for an expansion of the town. They also settled many Germans in the territory, thereby causing an economic boom of the region.
- 1796-1897: The Mukacheve castle, until then a strong fortress, became a prison.
- 1821-1823: The Greek national hero Alexander Ypsilanti was imprisoned at the Mukacheve castle.
- 1919: After the American Rusyns agreed with Tomas Masaryk to incorporate Carpathian Ruthenia into Czechoslovakia, the whole Carpathian Ruthenia was occupied by Czechoslovak troops.
- June 4, 1920: The city officially became part of Czechoslovakia by the Treaty of Trianon.
- November 1938: Part of the territory of the former Kingdom of Hungary re-annexed by Hungary as part of the First Vienna Award.
- 1944: The deportation of the Jewish population to concentration camps. Mukacheve was the only one in Hungary with a Jewish majority until 1944, when all the Jews were deported to Auschwitz by the Eichmann Commando. The Hungarian Jewish community was the last Jewish community in Europe to be subjected to deportation, and then only partially.
- End of 1944: The Soviet Army occupies Carpathian Ruthenia (at that time part of Czechoslovakia again) and the territory became part of the Soviet Union by a treaty between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union of 1945. The Soviet Union began a policy of extermination of the Hungarian and Rusyn population.
- 1945: Ceded to the Ukrainian SSR (now Ukraine)
- 2002: Mukacheve has been the seat of the Roman Catholic diocese comprising Transcarpathia.
Jewish community
There are documents in the Berehove State Archives which indicate that Jews lived in Munkács and the surrounding villages as early as the second half of the seventeenth century. The Jewish community of Munkács was an amalgam of Galician & Hungarian Hasidic Jewry, assimilationists, and Zionists. A large number of non-Hasidic Orthodox Jews were also present.
The Hebrew Gymnasium was founded in Munkacz five years after the first Hebrew speaking elementary school in Czechoslovakia was established there in 1920. It soon became the most prestigious Hebrew high school east of Warsaw. Zionist activism along with Chasidic pietism contributed to a community percolating with excitement, intrigue and at times internecine conflict
Today, what remains of the Jewish community of Mukachevo is fewer than 300 Jews including eight Jewish men and less than twenty Jewish women who were born there before World War II; their average age being over eighty.
Architectural landmarks
- Castle (14th century). The castle of Munkács, called the Palanok Castle, played an important role during the anti-Habsburg revolts in this territory and present-day Slovakia (1604 - 1711), especially at the beginning of the anti-Habsburg Revolt of Imre Thököly (1685-1688), as well as at the beginning of the revolt of Ferenc II. Rákóczi (early 18th century). This important fortress became a prison from the end of the 18th century and was used until 1897. The Greek national hero Alexander Ypsilanti was imprisoned in Munkács castle from 1821 to 1823.
- Monastery (14th century)
- Wooden church built in the Ukrainian architectural style (18th century)