{"id":38600,"date":"2026-09-09T16:56:45","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T20:56:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/?p=38600"},"modified":"2026-09-09T16:56:45","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T20:56:45","slug":"babyn-yar-history-and-memory-chapter-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/babyn-yar-history-and-memory-chapter-1\/","title":{"rendered":"\"Babyn Yar: History and Memory\" \u2014 Chapter 1"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Ukrainian Jewish Encounter was founded in 2008 with the goal of building stronger relations between Ukrainians and Jews, two peoples who, for centuries, lived side by side on the territory of what is modern-day Ukraine. Since then, in keeping with its motto, \"Our stories are incomplete without each other,\" UJE has sponsored conferences, round-table discussions and research, as well as translations and publication of works the organization anticipates will promote a deeper understanding between the two peoples and an appreciation of their respective cultures.<\/p>\n

We offer for the first time the book Babyn Yar: History and Memory<\/em> in eBook format.<\/p>\n

A ravine on the outskirts of Kyiv on September 29-30, 1941, was witness to one of the great atrocities of the Holocaust. There, over a two-day period, nearly 34,000 Kyiv Jews were shot to death in one of the first major events that has become known as the \u201cHolocaust by Bullets\u201d.<\/p>\n

With deep compassion and understanding, a group of internationally-renowned scholars discuss the treatment of Babyn Yar in culture, music, and the arts from Stalinist times to our own. Beyond the detailed and harrowing accounts of what took place in Kyiv in late September 1941, the essays in this volume realize the importance of preserving Babyn Yar as a symbol of the Holocaust and other tragedies of the twentieth century.<\/p>\n

Babyn Yar: History and Memory<\/em> was edited by Paul Robert Magocsi, Professor Emeritus of history and political science at the University of Toronto, where from 1980 to 2025 he held the professorial Chair of Ukrainian Studies and Vladislav Hrynevych, Leading Scholar at the Kuras Institute for Political and Ethnic Studies, Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The book (Ukrainian version) was published in conjunction with a series of events sponsored by UJE to commemorate the 75th<\/sup> anniversary of Babyn Yar<\/a>. Published in 2016 by Dukh i Litra<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Publication of the English version (2023) was made possible by the generous support of the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter, Toronto, Canada. Distributed by the University of Toronto Press for the Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Toronto,<\/p>\n

(The editors appreciate the support of the sponsor and acknowledge that the views expressed herein are not necessarily those of the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter.)<\/p>\n

Chapter 1<\/h1>\n

Click here for a pdf <\/a>of the entire book.<\/p>\n

Babyn Yar in space and time<\/h2>\n

Mykhailo Kalnytskyi<\/span>
\n<\/em><\/strong>The history of Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, encompasses a multitude of diverse events that took place over many centuries. Kyiv is rightfully considered the cradle of spirituality, education, and culture of Eastern Slavdom. The city is home to magnificent monuments of the Kyivan Rus' <\/em>era, which are mentioned in the Rus' Primary Chronicle<\/em>, a seminal source in Ukrainian national historiography. The foundations of Ukrainian statehood were formed in Kyiv, and it was there that the inhabitants of several ethnic backgrounds helped the city develop and flourish.<\/p>\n

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Equally diverse and meaningful is the landscape of the contemporary city, which was created by wondrous nature and human intervention. Amidst the ancient towers and modern skyscrapers is the highest structure in Ukraine, the 380-meter television tower, which instantly catches the eye. In the minds of the residents of Kyiv the immense metal needle piercing the sky above the Ukrainian capital is not only associated with the achievements of engineers and builders. This is because right next to the tower is the infamous ravine, Babyn Yar.<\/p>\n

The very name Babyn Yar evokes, first and foremost, the most horrific events of the World War II Nazi German occupation of Kyiv. Moreover, the past history of Babyn Yar and surrounding territory is not limited to the tragedies that took place in 1941\u20131943. Over an extended period of time the traces of wide-ranging human activities, embodied in documentary evidence and man-made monuments, were stratified here.<\/p>\n

Earliest reports about the area<\/span>
\n<\/strong>By its nature, Babyn Yar is part of a system of ravines (Ukrainian: yar) that cuts through rising ground in the northwestern section of Kyiv. The ravine's troughs (depressions), formed hundreds of thousands of years ago, are the result of soil erosion. The troughs also include the Syrets, Repiakhiv, and Hlybochytskyi ravines. The geology of this area consists of speckled clay on which loam and sand were layered during the process of glaciation. In ancient times the \"estuaries\" of the ravines flowed toward the Pochaina, the former right-bank tributary of the Dnieper River known as Slavutych in the Kyivan Rus' <\/em>era. Situated on the muddy lowland between the rising ground and the banks of the Slavutych\/Pochaina River were flood-meadows known as the Kyivan Obolon (called Bolone in medieval chronicles). [1]<\/a> With the passage of time (since the beginning of the eighteenth century) a significant portion of the Pochaina's water-course was absorbed by the Dnieper River.<\/p>\n

Evidence of human settlement in the lowland ravines of this part of the contemporary city dates back to the Upper Paleolithic Period (approximately 20,000 years ago), specifically the well-known Kyrylivka\/ Kurenivka settlement which was discovered, excavated, and studied by the archeologist Vikentii Khvoika in the 1890s. It is located near Kyrylivska (former Frunze) Street, nos. 59\u201361, in the vicinity of the farmstead at the foot of a hill called Yurkovytsia. Excavations revealed that there was a layer beneath the slope over twenty meters deep, which contained the remnants of a bonfire, houses made of wood and mammoth bones, and flint tools. Also found among the remnants of the Kyrylivka settlement were works of primitive art, such as mammoth tusks featuring unusual ornamentation. It is likely that the inhabitants hunted mammoths and drove them to the edge of the ravine. [2]<\/a> Traces of settlements found closer to Babyn Yar (along the odd side of Kyrylivka Street) date from later eras: the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, and periods connected to the Trypillian and Zarubynets cultures.<\/p>\n

During the Kyivan Rus' <\/em>period (ninth to thirteenth centuries) Babyn Yar and the adjacent Repiakhiv Yar served as a natural protective barrier for ancient Kyiv. The two ravines became the site of frequent armed conflicts between the defenders of Kyiv and other Rus' princes who hoped to make this natural barrier a bridgehead along their way to capture the capital city. Such clashes are mentioned in Rus' Primary Chronicle <\/em>entries for the years 980, 1146, 1150, 1161, and 1169\u20131171. In particular, the locality of Dorohozhych (also called Dorohozhychi, Dorozhych) is described as the site of major historical events. For example, Prince Ihor Olhovych suffered a catastrophic defeat in 1146 \"in the Dorohozhych swamps,\" while resisting the forces of Prince Iziaslav Mstyslavych, who was vying for the Kyivan throne. [3]<\/a><\/p>\n

Dorohozhych is comprised of hilly terrain near the Babyn, Repiakhiv, and Hlybochytskyi ravines. [4]<\/a> The meaning of the toponym Dorohozhych is most often interpreted as an \"intersection of roads\" because of the junction of important roads leading to the towns of Vyshhorod, Chernihiv, and Bilohorodka to the north and west of Kyiv. Some scholars, however, suggest that the name was derived from a piece of property owned by an individual named Dorohozhyt. [5]<\/a> The steep and long rising ground between Babyn Yar and Repiakhiv Yar, just northeast of the contemporary Menorah Monument may have been of artificial origin referring to the remnant of an old Kyivan defensive wall protecting the roads in Dorohozhych. [6]<\/a> In the nineteenth century, the historian of Kyiv, Mykola Zakrevskyi, noted in magisterial tones: \"Menacing hordes approached the walls of the ancient capital city; the armed force of the grand prince came out of Kyiv and a terrible slaughter commenced provoked by the princes' passions. It is surmised correctly that perhaps there is no place in all of Rus' that is so steeped in blood and bones as this locality has consumed for more than two centuries.\" [7]<\/a><\/p>\n

Some historians, particularly Petro Tolochko, basing themselves on their analyses of chronicle references, have argued that Dorohozhych was located elsewhere, closer to the Obolon meadows, on a lowland \"beneath St. Cyril\" and, perhaps, on the adjacent St. Cyril's Hill. [8]<\/a> The latter name is derived from the Church of St. Cyril that was built on a promontory above Babyn Yar in the 1140s during the reign of Prince Vsevolod-Kyrylo Olhovych (r. 1139\u20131146). The builders embodied the traditions of ancient Rus' <\/em>architecture creating a single-domed structure in brick. The church served as the family tomb of the princely Olhovych branch of Kyiv's founding Riuryk royal dynasty. A monastery was formed around the church. It is very likely that the first monks lived in the caves of St. Cyril's Hill, the partial remnants of which have been preserved to this day. Some scholars have speculated that the princely residence was located nearby. At any rate, in 1963, when a bulldozer was digging into the northern promontory of the hill on which the church stands, a dwelling dating to the twelfth\u2013thirteenth centuries was discovered. [9]<\/a><\/p>\n

Over the next several centuries St. Cyril's Church and its adjacent structures were practically the only urban elements in the vicinity of Babyn Yar. Following the Mongol invasion of 1240, the church, although falling into a state of decay, nevertheless remained operational. In the early seventeenth century restoration work was undertaken, and the church was reconsecrated in honor of the Holy Trinity, with St. Cyril retained as the name of the south chapel. In effect, the church continued to be called St. Cyril's or Holy Trinity-St. Cyril's, and by the seventeenth century it came to be headed by renowned ecclesiastical figures such as Inokentii Gizel and Lazar Baranovych. Another distinguished ecclesiastic, Dymytrii (Tuptalo) of Rostov, was from 1697 the hegumen (abbot) of the nearby St. Cyril Monastery. It was also at this time that the church's external appearance underwent conversion with the addition of four corner domes. Further Baroque features were added in the mid-eighteenth century, when the architect Ivan Hryhorovych-Barskyi designed a magnificent, undulating gable for the western fa\u00e7ade. Then, in 1759, Barskyi was commissioned to build a stone, three-tiered bell tower for the nearby St. Cyril's Monastery as well as for another church, that of the Annunciation, completed in the early 1770s. Together the new and restored structures comprised a distinct Ukrainian Baroque ensemble. [10]<\/a> In keeping with Empress Catherine II's policy of secularizing monastic lands in the Russian Empire, St. Cyril's Monastery was dissolved in 1786, and a refuge for invalids was founded on its premises. As a result of developments undertaken in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there came into being in the area around the former monastic territory several \"St. Cyril's charitable institutions\" under secular governmental control, as well as numerous medical buildings and a hospice. In 1806, an insane asylum began operating, while plans were hatched to construct a water supply system. All the while, Holy Trinity-St. Cyril's Church was used as a hospital church. [11]<\/a><\/p>\n

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Main entrance to St. Cyril\u2019s Hospital (Kyiv, 1914\u20131916).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

During the second half of the nineteenth century the medical practices used at the psychiatric hospital in the Kyrylivka (today Kurenivka) district brought notoriety to the medical establishment, which became known as the \"Kyivan Bedlam.\" At the same time, the restoration of ancient twelfth-century frescoes was undertaken in St. Cyril's Church under the direction of the St. Petersburg art professor Adriian Prakhov. Part of the work was carried out by the distinguished artist Mikhail Vrubel, who painted icons for the church iconostasis and new compositions on those sections of the walls, where there were no longer any traces of the original paintings. [12]<\/a> Ever since that time, the church and the picturesque surroundings have attracted the attention of art lovers.<\/p>\n

Local toponyms<\/span>
\n<\/strong>By the nineteenth-century Kyiv had significantly developed the northwestern district of the city well beyond the nucleus that had formed the medieval city. For example, in the second half of the nineteenth century the former suburban hamlet of Lukianivka (its name is traditionally associated with Lukian Oleksandrovych, a Kyivan guild master who lived in the late seventeenth century) [13]<\/a> was incorporated into the city as the Lukianivka police district, whose territory expanded to the crest of Babyn Yar. The main Lukianivka thoroughfare was laid out as a suburban route, and in accordance with the 1837 general development plan for Kyiv it became the first leg of the Zhytomyrska Road. Then, in 1869, it was renamed Velyka Dorohozhytska Street. [14]<\/a> Large brick buildings were constructed on several streets in the Lukianivka district. One of the residents in those buildings was, in the 1890s, an educated worker and Marxist named Yuvenalii Melnikov, who founded a workers' group. This took the form of a studio school for the propagation of social-democratic views in a one-storey building (no longer existing) at the top of Velyka Dorohozhytska Street. [15]<\/a> In 1923, the street was again renamed. This time, in honor of the pre-revolutionary Marxist, it was called Melnikova Street (sometimes in the distorted form \"Melnyk\" Street), the name by which it was known during the tragic events of World War II. [16]<\/a> Just to the northwest of Lukianivka was the district of Syrets, already mentioned in documentary sources from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. [17]<\/a> It owes its name to the small Syrets River, which to this day flows through the huge ravine of the same name. A settlement which sprang up along its banks eventually became the large village of Syrets. It was initally owned by a Dominican monastery, but it was acquired by the city of Kyiv in the second half of the seventeenth century. [18]<\/a> In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a considerable part of the Syrets district consisted of privately owned hamlets that were used for a variety of purposes, ranging from suburban cottages to industrial enterprises, in particular mills and brickworks.<\/p>\n

The neighboring district of Kurenivka was situated in an area that opens up into the lower part of Babyn Yar. Kurenivka is mentioned in the first half of the eighteenth century as a village located north of Kyiv, which belonged to the urban \"suburb\" also owned by the city of Kyiv. According to Mykola Zakrevskyi, in the wake of the Treaty of Andrusovo (1667) the battalions (kureni<\/em>) of borderland guards that were stationed in Kurenivka gave rise to the name of this suburb. [19]<\/a> During the nineteenth century Kurenivka was incorporated into Kyiv as part of the Ploska police district. The latter was located north of Nyzhnii Val Street, between the Obolon meadows and the slopes of the elongated hills of Shchekavytsia and Yurkovytsia. The main thoroughfare of the Ploska district was Kyrylivska Street.<\/p>\n

The gradual clarification and specification of urban toponymics also led to the establishment of personal names for the ravines located in this vicinity. For a long time, the depressions on both sides of the former St. Cyril's Monastery were generally referred to as the St. Cyril's ravines. Streams flowed at the bottom of the two ravines, merging farther on with St. Cyril's stream, which flowed in the direction of the Pochaina. On the 1695 plan of Kyiv, prepared under the direction of Colonel I. Ushakov, Babyn Yar was designated in the following way: \"Behind St. Cyril's Monastery there is a large ravine, about 600 sazhens in size, which makes passage difficult for the mounted people.\" [20]<\/a> In the opinion of Lidiia Ponomarenko and Oleksandr Riznyk, a view shared by many other authors, the name Babyn Yar is linked with the former land holdings that a female tavern keeper (\"baba\") sold to the Dominican monastery in 1401. [21]<\/a> It is difficult to accept this interpretation, however. According to documents dating to the fifteenth\u2013seventeenth centuries, there was a tract known as Bisova Baba or Shalena Baba (Polish: Biesowa Baba \u2014 \"Damn Woman\"). The property, owned by Kyiv's Dominican Order, was indeed acquired from a female tavern keeper. But the document-based topographic reference to this tract (stretching from Syrets to the village of Bilohorodka, that is, in a westerly direction) does not correspond to the true location of Babyn Yar. As Zakrevskyi noted, the Shalena Baba tract was actually located in the village of Bilychi. [22]<\/a><\/p>\n

The names of particular ravines in the area appeared on maps only in the middle of the nineteenth century. Professional cartographers under the direction of \"the city's chief surveyor\" Aleksandr Terskii prepared a collection of \"plotting boards indicating pastures and developed land\" of the city of Kyiv and its suburbs. [23]<\/a> The plotting boards, on a scale of 1:4200, depict in detail the topography, water bodies, roads, and urban development in the area. It is here that the name \"Babyn Yar\" appears for the first time in sources.<\/p>\n

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Fragment of a Kyiv site plan marked \"Babyn Yar Tract\" (1869).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And yet, Babyn Yar is not the only name that appears on the mid-nineteenth-century plotting boards. On one board titled, \"A part of the suburb of Kurenivka that belongs to Kyiv\" (1852), the upper part of the ravine is called Zmiinyi Yar or Snake Ravine, the middle and lower parts are called Vovchyi Yar or the Wolf's Ravine, while the upper reaches of the western branch are called the \"Babyn Yar Tract (urochyshche<\/em>).\" [24]<\/a> This branch no longer exists, and by its location it corresponds to the parts of the present-day neighbourhoods of Syrets to the north from Olzhych Street. Similarly, the plotting board titled \"Part of a pasture and the suburb of Lukianivka that belongs to Kyiv\" (1852) depicts the upper reaches of Babyn Yar under the name Zmiinyi Yar. [25]<\/a> Here one can also see the upper reaches of the Repiakhiv Yar which was then also called Kyrylivskyi Yar. It appears that when the land surveyors composed these plans, they questioned the local residents and landowners about the folk names of the places.<\/p>\n

Subsequently, the names Vovchyi Yar and Zmiinyi Yar ceased to refer to Babyn Yar. Already in 1870 \"A Copy from the General Plan of Kyiv\" showed the \"Ravine Babyn Yar\" extending to the upper reaches of the western branch, which in 1852 had been designated as the \"summit of the Vovchyi Yar.\" [26]<\/a> Perhaps the reason for this was that the folk name \"Vovchyi Yar\" was associated with other parts of the city.<\/p>\n

On the Plan of the City of Kyiv of 1902, compiled by the city surveyor I. Tairov, the name the \"Babyn Yar Tract\" appears on the spot of the western branch and the name \"Babyn Yar\" refers to the ravine's upper reaches. [27]<\/a> The same plan has an additional name for the lower part of Kyrylivskyi Yar\u2013 Repiakhiv Yar. Later plans show Babyn Yar and Repiakhiv Yar with their present-day meanings. [28]<\/a><\/p>\n

It is widely accepted that the name Repiakhiv <\/em>is derived from the thickets of brambles that grew there. As for the toponym Babyn Yar<\/em>, one can assume the influence of the ancient microhydronym Babyne Cherevo<\/em>, which according to Mykola Zakrevskyi was the name given in the nineteenth century to one of the muddy lakes located in the Obolon meadows. [29]<\/a> In fact, Babyne Cherevo is a kind of generic name that applies to several bodies of water (lakes and swamps) in various parts of Ukraine. The most likely explanation of the name Babyne Cherevo (literally: Woman's Belly) is the external similarity between the contours of the basin and the swollen belly of a pregnant woman.<\/p>\n

The principal landowner on the territory of Babyn Yar was the city of Kyiv, whose government leased parcels of land to private individuals. It was only in 1910 that for the first time municipal agencies defined the precise borders of city lands. [30]<\/a> Erosion eventually led to the formation of gullies and clefts in the soil, forcing the city government to carry out in 1890\u20131891 comprehensive engineering works to strengthen the ravine's slopes [31]<\/a><\/p>\n

Recently, the Jewish civic activist Ilya Levitas, head of the Memory of Babyn Yar Foundation, put forward an original view that \"Babyn Yar itself was a small branch (up to 180\u2013200 meters long) of St. Cyril's Ravine, which stretched nearly parallel to today's Olena Teliha Street (formerly Korotchenko Street). Babyn Yar angled off the ravine toward this street.\" [32]<\/a> Yet, elsewhere, he states something completely different: \"Babyn Yar is a huge ravine with a branch that led toward Kurenivka, to St. Cyril's Church, for nearly three and a half kilometers.\" [33]<\/a> Despite this major discrepancy between Levitas's two versions that are based on a single source, historical plans (beginning at least in 1870) leave no doubt that the entire, deep, bifurcated depression on the northwest of the complex of the St. Cyril charitable institution complex was called the \"Babyn Yar Tract.\"<\/p>\n

Reminiscence about the Jewish philanthropy<\/span>
\n<\/strong>A study of Kyiv's general condition in the latter years of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries reveals that during this period the city, thanks to its unofficial status as the \"sugar capital\" of the Russian Empire among other factors, experienced extensive development. One result was the accelerated development of surrounding areas, which was sparked by comparatively low land prices. Important initiatives were undertaken by various civic and charitable associations, as well as the municipal government, which capitalized on the expansive plots of land to carry out various kinds of social projects.<\/p>\n

In this context it is not surprising that a large number of charitable complexes were established in Kyiv's Lukianivka district. Among these were the Dehterov philanthropic institutions founded by the municipal authorities in the early 1900s, thanks to funds willed for this purpose by the millionaire businessman Mykhailo Dehterov\/Mikhail Degtiarev. A 500-bed hospice for the elderly and infirm, an orphanage, elementary school, hospital, and other institutions were housed in specially built structures designed by the architect Vladimir Nikolaev. These included St. Michael's Church, which occupied the largest building. [34]<\/a> The Dehterov complex faced the former Staro-Zhytomyr Road, renamed as Dehtiarivska Street in 1908.<\/p>\n

Even earlier an equally important philanthropic institution, the Jewish Hospital, began operating in a manor house on Bahhovutivska Street in direct proximity to Repiakhiv Yar. Founded in 1862 by the local Jewish community, it was originally housed in rented accommodations. The Jewish Hospital complex on Bahhovutivska Street, with a hundred beds, was built in 1884\u20131885 with funds donated by Jewish patrons, above all, by the founder of the leading national sugar trust, Izrail Brodsky. The complex consisted of one- and two-storey brick buildings designed by Vladimir Nikolaev, the largest of which housed the surgical and therapeutic departments. Subsequent expansions of the hospital in the 1880s\u20131910s were funded by various wealthy Jewish families in Kyiv, each of which had its \"own\" named building devoted to a certain specialization. For example, the Frenkel family donated funds for a neurology building; the Halperin family funded the pulmonary and urology buildings; the sugar factory owner Leon Brodsky (one of Izrail Brodsky's sons) honored the memory of his late wife by donating funds to build an obstetric-gynecological building; and Leon's descendants built an infectious diseases building in honor of his elder brother, the sugar magnate Lazar Brodsky. The ophthalmology building (which no longer exists) funded by the Zaks family, housed a hospital synagogue. The city's leading physicians as well as university professorial staff were invited to provide free medical care. The Jewish Hospital was especially popular among Kyivites of various nationalities and religions. No one was ever turned away. According to estimates compiled in 1921, 17 percent of visitors to the stationary clinics and 35 percent of visitors of the hospital's outpatient clinic were Christians. [35]<\/a><\/p>\n

It should be noted here that the centuries-long history of Kyiv is inextricably tied to the history of the local Jewish community, whose emergence dates to pre-Christian Rus' <\/em>lands. Scholars disagree about the exact place where the Jews of Kyiv came from, but the earliest period of Jewish settlement may date to the existence, simultaneously with Kyivan Rus'<\/em>, of the Khazar Kaganate, whose official religion was for a time Judaism. According to the historians Norman Golb and Omeljan Pritsak, the so-called \"Kyivan letter,\" written by the Jewish community of Kyiv to their coreligionists, dates to this very period (the first half of the tenth century). [36]<\/a> Medieval Rus' <\/em>chronicles record the existence of a Jewish quarter in Kyiv called Zhydove, as well as a \"Jewish gate\" in the fortress wall near it. [37]<\/a> Both the Jewish quarter and gate were located in the northwestern part of Kyiv \u2014 near present-day Lvivska Ploshcha\/Lviv Square \u2014 during the reign of Grand Prince Yaroslav I (\"the Wise,\" r. 1036\u20131054). [38]<\/a><\/p>\n

The Mongol invasion caused heavy casualties in Kyiv, including among Jewish residents. But in the late thirteenth century the Jewish community revived, and during the period of Lithuanian and Polish rule from the fourteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries, Kyiv became an important cultural and religious center for Jews throughout eastern Europe. This was eloquently attested by a Jewish proverb from those times: \"It is from Kyiv that knowledge and enlightenment derive.\" [39]<\/a><\/p>\n

During the second half of the seventeenth century, Kyiv's Jewish community practically came to an end in large part because Jews were not allowed to reside in the Tsardom of Muscovy, which after 1654 ruled the city. [40]<\/a> It was only in the late eighteenth century after Poland was partitioned, that the large Jewish communities living in numerous cities and towns of Right-Bank Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania now found themselves in the Russian Empire. Consequently, Empress Catherine II was forced to create a territory open to Jewish settlement, which came to be known as the \"Pale of Settlement.\" Kyiv and the surrounding region ended up in the Pale, where the Jewish community was soon revitalized with the arrival of Jewish artisans and traders who began constructing residential and religious buildings. [41]<\/a><\/p>\n

The Jewish revival was interrupted, however, by the restrictive policies of Tsar Nicholas I (r. 1825\u20131855), whose government forcibly expelled many Jews from Kyiv. Nicholas's successor, Alexander II (r. 1855\u20131881), introduced a series of reforms, some of which allowed Jews to return to Kyiv. Consequently, a wide range of entrepreneurs and businessmen, engineers and scholars, lawyers and physicians, and writers and artists of Jewish background functioned productively in Kyiv during the second half of the nineteenth\u2013early twentieth centuries. Nevertheless, discriminatory antisemitic legislation remained on the books in the Russian Empire until the February Revolution of 1917, so that Kyivan Jewry suffered from periodic acts of violence. For example, in 1911\u20131913 Kyiv was rocked by the events connected with the infamous \"Beilis trial,\" whose organizers sought to accuse the Jewish people of committing blasphemous, bloody rituals. The main actors in this case, the modest Jewish civil servant Menahem Beilis and the key witnesses, all lived in the Lukianivka district. It was there where the body of the Christian boy Andrii Yushchynskyi, of whose ritual murder Beilis was accused, was discovered in the spring of 1911 in a clay cave on the Yurkovytsia hill near Kyrylivska (Kurenivska) Street. [42]<\/a><\/p>\n

Zone of burials and military exercises<\/span>
\n<\/strong>In 1891 the City Duma allocated a large plot of land (5 dessiatin or 5.5 hectares) to the members of the Jewish community for a new Jewish cemetery situated close to the Jewish Hospital. [43]<\/a> Planning for the new burial complex known as the Lukianivka Jewish Cemetery commenced in 1892\u20131893, when Vladimir Nikolaev made architectural drawings and drew up estimates that were approved by the gubernial administration. [44]<\/a> But the project was reviewed in due course, and Nikolaev finally built a one-storey building for washing (it no longer exists) opposite the main entrance, and to its left, a two-storey brick building to house the office, the guard, and other services. [45]<\/a> Enlarged during the Soviet era, presently this building is located at 44 Iliyenko Street. The cemetery, which began operations in 1894, was maintained by a portion of the funds that Kyiv's Jews paid to the city treasury in the form of an integrated tax on the use of kosher meat (known as korobochnyi zbir<\/em>). Other funds came from donors, who were found by a specially created board that oversaw the cemetery.<\/p>\n

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Main entrance to the Jewish Cemetery in Lukianivka (Kyiv, 1910).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Lukianivka Jewish Cemetery was situated in a vacant spot bounded by Melnikova Street, the slopes of the Repiakhiv Yar and Babyn Yar, and the boundary of the much older St. Cyril's Orthodox Cemetery (attached to St. Cyril's Church and the hospital). A brick wall, featuring two large, arched gates designed by Nikolaev, extended along a significant portion of the perimeter of the Jewish Cemetery. According to data compiled in 1929, the cemetery covered 23.3 hectares. [46]<\/a> Tens of thousands of people were buried here, including a considerable number of well-known Jewish entrepreneurs and civic and religious figures. Among them was the famous sugar magnate and multimillionaire Lazar Brodsky. [47]<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1888, Kyiv's municipal government allocated another plot of land measuring 1,670 sazhens <\/em>(approximately 7,250 meters) near the western edge of the Jewish Cemetery, not far from Babyn Yar. This allotment was for the Karaite community, whose religious beliefs, while based on Judaism, reject the rabbinical-Talmudist tradition. Kyiv's Karaite community dated only from the mid-nineteenth century. Their cemetery in the city's Lukianivka district was expanded in 1902 and 1910 eventually fronting Melnikova Street. [48]<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1902 land was allocated (1926 sq. sazhen\/8765 sq. m) for a Muslim cemetery. It was situated just to the west of the Karaite Cemetery. [49]<\/a> The location of this plot corresponded to a narrow parcel of land overlooking the slope of a spur of Babyn Yar. Because of its inconvenient location, the Muslim community used it only on a limited basis.<\/p>\n

The choice of the Lukianivka district and the area of Babyn Yar for Kyivan cemeteries had a long tradition. As noted earlier, the Jewish Cemetery was adjacent to the much older St. Cyril Orthodox Christian Cemetery. At first the Orthodox Christian cemetery was directly adjacent to the former St. Cyril Monastery, but in 1871 its territory was expanded considerably in a southwesterly direction,[50]<\/a> by 1929 growing to 9.7 hectares. [51]<\/a> The graves in St. Cyril's Cemetery were not laid out close to one another. Prominent among them was a concrete crypt in the modern style (damaged but still standing), built in 1912 for a famous Kyiv physician named P. E. Kachkovskyi and his younger brother, A. E. Kachkovskyi. [52]<\/a> From the late nineteenth century the small Kopylivskyi Cemetery began functioning on the opposite slope of Babyn Yar, where residents of the Kurenivka and Syrets districts were buried. This cemetery was destroyed in 1961 as a result of the Kurenivka mudslide catastrophe.<\/p>\n

In 1878 the municipal cemetery for Orthodox Christians was established on the northwestern periphery of the Lukianivka district. Known as the Lukianivka Municipal Cemetery, it was on the site of former public pastureland (between today's Dorohozhytska, Oranzhereina, and Dehtiarivska streets). [53]<\/a> In 1887 a cemetery chapel was consecrated and subsequently was known as St. Catherine's Church (no longer existing). A significant number of distinguished Kyivites \u2014 civic activists, businessmen, engineers, scientists, writers, artists \u2014 are buried there. Today the Lukianivka Municipal Cemetery is recognized as a state historical and commemorative preserve. [54]<\/a><\/p>\n

Another former vacant city plot, located between Melnikova (today's Iliyenko) and Dorohozhytska streets, also became a burial zone. In 1910, land was allocated there for the future expansion of the Orthodox Lukianivka Municipal Cemetery and for cemeteries designated for other religions: Protestant Evangelicals and Maronites (Lebanese Eastern Catholics). [55]<\/a> Even earlier, in the late nineteenth century, there was for soldiers an Orthodox Brotherhood\/Bratske Cemetery sometimes called Military Cemetery (the graves have not been preserved). [56]<\/a> After World War II this cemetery formed the basis of the current War Cemetery.<\/p>\n

The presence of a military cemetery next to Babyn Yar is explained by the following. In the spring of 1869, the city allocated a huge plot of land (several hundred desiatynas) in the Syrets district, specifically at the summit of Babyn Yar and the old Zhytomyrska Road, to the military for housing the Kyiv garrison's summer camps. Numerous, lightly constructed residential buildings, a hospital, parade grounds, firing ranges, and a training field were built there. [57]<\/a> In 1895, a divisional church for the Syrets camps was built for soldiers attending religious services, as well as for holding solemn liturgies. This took the form of a wooden building with a tent-like dome and bell tower that was constructed cost-free by the builder Andrei Krauss. The church did not have a name because it was, in fact, only a shell of a building. [58]<\/a> A moveable field altar and the antimins of the division that was based in the camp were placed inside. Kyiv's municipal administration also took into account the location of the camps when it earmarked parcels of land and the premises for the garrison's winter barracks. In the early twentieth century a set of buildings designated for military purposes was constructed in the Lukianivka district for the personnel of the 131st Tyraspil Infantry Regiment on Velyka Dorohozhytska Street and the 165th Lutsk Infantry Regiment on Dehtiarivska Street.<\/p>\n

The impression of the area occupied by the Syrets camps is described in the memoirs of the distinguished Ukrainian scholar and government official Serhii Yefremov who completed his military service here in 1901:<\/p>\n

A line of trees stretched endlessly in an even line along both sides, among which gleamed a whitely soldiers' canvas, sharp-peaked tents, packed at the bottom with earth and sod. In front of the line was a clean, empty field on which stood a small wooden structure, the camp church, at a distance of some two hony<\/em>. Farther away, behind the Lukianivka camp, fog-bound Kyiv was visible with its solid buildings, golden church domes, spires, and orchards still enveloped in the early morning blue-gray mist that was already starting to fluctuate and dissolve beneath the sun. The officers' 'ruler' \u2014 a path planted on both sides with trees on which only officers could walk and under no circumstances the 'lower ranks' (as I found out right away) \u2014 stretched behind the four rows of soldiers' tents in an even string, from edge to edge of the endless camp. Behind that ruler, small buildings and pavilions were scattered in even rows, the architecture of some which was rather quaint; they served as officers' quarters. Even farther back amidst the green thickets of acacias, hornbeams, and elms rose the domes of the buildings of the officers' assemblies. [59]<\/a><\/p>\n

The military's use of those lands was constrained by adjacent city farm-steads that had been granted to private individuals for their long-term use. Hence, the Syrets camps was territorially defined and it did not expand past the summit of Babyn Yar.<\/p>\n

Transportation routes in the northern outskirts<\/span>
\n<\/strong>The activities at the huge military camp complex and the gradual urban development of the Lukianivka district prompted an improvement in transport links. A network of roads was created in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Lagerna Street (today an extension of Dorohozhytska Street) passed right next to the summit of Babyn Yar along the eastern side of the military camps. The Syrets and Kurenivka districts were linked by a meandering road that bypassed the spur of Babyn Yar and the Syrets ravine. Today's Syretska Street was gradually created at the rear of the camps. Initially it was an inconvenient road that began behind the Jewish Cemetery and led to the St. Cyril Hospital complex from the upland side. In 1910 the director of St. Cyril's Hospital sought to have a new main entrance built for his institution, for which purpose the summit of the spur of Repiakhiv Yar was crossed by levees and a roadway was built. [60]<\/a><\/p>\n

The introduction of Kyiv's streetcar system in the early 1890s left its mark on the transport situation near Babyn Yar. By 1896 a streetcar line was created to connect the Lukianivka and Syrets districts, although in contrast to the great majority of urban streetcar lines powered by electricity, here steam cars were used. The route operated only in the warm seasons and according to the schedule of operations of the military camp. The line started at Lukianivka's St. Fedir Church (at the intersection of Bahhovutivska\/Sichneva and Ovrutska streets), and from there it headed to Lagerna Street. [61]<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1904, the route between the Lukianivka and Kurenivka districts was shortened with the help of the streetcar. The new, now electric, Lukianivka line went from St. Fedir's Church to Makarivska Street and continued along the slope of Repiakhiv Yar to Kyrylivska Street. Passengers could admire the extraordinarily picturesque panorama of Repiakhiv Yar and Babyn Yar, beyond which were the slender silhouettes of St. Cyril's Church and its bell tower. This landscape gave rise to the popular name \"Kyiv's Switzerland.\" [62]<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Panorama of the \"Kyivan Switzerland\" with streetcar route. Postcard, early 20th century.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Railroads also helped resolve the area's transportation problems. During the first decade of the twentieth century, the question of building a railway loop around the historic part of the city was raised. The idea was to extend railway tracks to the Dnieper River and construct a new bridge to the other side. Consequently, large-scale work began on a railway near Syrets Yar through the Kurenivka and Obolon meadows. Improvements to Kyiv's logistical system became especially important following the outbreak of World War I in 1914. By 1917\u20131918 sections of the railway and a stop near the present-day Pochaina Station in the Kurenivka district were already in operation. It is interesting to note that as of 1918 Babyn Yar was one of the orientation landmarks featured in the plans for various segments of Kyiv's railway system. [63]<\/a><\/p>\n

Even with the creation of the railway loop, urgent needs fueled by the war forced the municipal and railway administrations to build an additional freight station in order to supply Kyiv more conveniently with firewood and food. The chosen site was located near Dehtiarivska Street, to which the Lukianivka district branch line was connected from the main railway line. At the junction of this branch and the Brest-Litovsk Road (today: Peremoha Avenue), a transport solution known as a crossing had to be organized. Necessary work was completed in 1915, so that the Lukianivka freight station began functioning the following year. [64]<\/a> Food storage facilities (kahaty<\/em>) were established nearby, on the site of a former zoo and animal nursery, the so-called Society for Correct Hunting which was near the southeastern edge of Lukianivka Cemetery. Initially, the Lukianivka freight station was planned as a temporary, auxiliary measure during wartime. But, as the saying goes, there is nothing so permanent as a temporary solution, and the station remained in use until the 1960s.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a considerable part of the land on the periphery of the Lukianivka district and the Kyryliv ravines remained for all intents and purposes as vacant spaces dotted here and there with small houses, gardens, and pastureland for goats. The \"original\" appearance of this area with its now convenient link to the city center led to the rise of educational nature excursions. The natural scientist Mykola Sharleman wrote at the time: \"These places are not well known to sightseers. Nevertheless, there are amazing corners here, and you cannot believe that you are right near the city, separated from a streetcar by only a 15- to 20-minute walk.\" [65]<\/a> Another researcher of Kyiv's suburbs, the pedagogue V. Kistyakovskii, wrote a lengthy description of the natural features of Repiakhiv Yar and Babyn Yar, which create a wonderful sense of immediacy.<\/p>\n

The ridge on which the Jewish Cemetery is situated divides a space that by its form resembles a square with a side of over two versts <\/em>[3.4 kilometres] on two sloping depressions of gullies that descend swiftly as one approaches the steep cliff in the valley of the Dnieper River. At the present time both of them are covered with an abundant network of ravines that are expanding rapidly. Skirting the fence of the Jewish Cemetery, which necessitates getting across a whole number of small but deep potholes that break into the last branch of the system situated to the left, we approach the steep (50-degree) slope of a very deep ravine that splits off from the last branch. The opposite slope, created by weakly cemented sandstone and dense loam, is higher and steeper. In flatter areas, rocky outcrops are covered with a layer of scree on which one cannot gain access. Here and there the steep walls reach 3\u20135 sazhens. For this reason, they have no vegetation. We are moving along the somewhat bulging spine that rises in a northeasterly direction to its highest point. This elevation, sloping from the southwest, ends abruptly to the northeast. Its dominant position allows one to take in at a glance the entire system of northern ravines; the view from here of the Dnieper valley is partly obscured by the hill of St. Cyril's Hospital and the elevated rim of the plateau. Later, when you descend the terrace-like slope to the bottom of the left branch with which we are already familiar, it is very interesting to explore both toward the summits and depressions. The bottom narrows toward the upper reaches, becoming step-like and steeper; the side slopes also become more precipitous, the scree on them disappears and bedrock appears; the valley turns into a canyon. Moving in the opposite direction, the same phenomena are repeated in reverse order. Farther away or closer, depending on the place of descent, the sand that covers the bottom of the ravine becomes more moist; it moves beneath one's feet, and water splashes through an opening made with a cane. A bit farther and we reach the spot where the ravine cuts into the aquifer: Water comes to the surface, and within a few dozen paces you can see the weak current of a brook. [66]<\/a><\/p>\n

On the eve of World War II<\/span>
\n<\/strong>The tumultuous events of the Revolutionary and the Civil War era (1917\u20131920) brought few changes to the area around Babyn Yar. The first noticeable innovations were the appurtenances connected with the plots of and buildings that were placed at the disposal of the state organs under Bolshevik rule. The former Jewish Hospital was turned into the First Workers' Hospital (today the Regional Hospital). All of the St. Cyril's charitable institutions were re-profiled, becoming a psychoneurological hospital (for some reason bearing the name of Ukraine's national poet Taras Shevchenko until 1936 when it was renamed the Pavlov Psychiatric Hospital). [67]<\/a> In 1929, the former monastic farm lands were reconfigured as the Kyiv-St Cyril State Preserve, while St. Cyril's Church was deconsecrated. The bell tower was dismantled in 1937, and that significantly impoverished the architectural ensemble of which only a small fragment and one tower was left.<\/p>\n

Some of the old cemeteries in the Lukianivka district began to be closed to further burials. Thus, St. Cyril's Orthodox Christian Cemetery ceased operations in 1929 allegedly because of disorder,[68]<\/a> while the Lukianivka Jewish Cemetery was forced to close in 1937 because of a shortage of space. [69]<\/a> Documents from that time reveal that in 1932 a new plant obtained permission from the Kyiv municipal council to dismantle the brick wall surrounding the Jewish Cemetery and to use the bricks for its own building needs. In return, the factory managers promised to install a fence made of another type of material, but they were in no hurry to fulfill their promise. As a result, after part of the wall fronting on Melnikova Street was dismantled, it proved impossible to prevent the cemetery from being overrun by cattle and vandals. When the presidium of Kyiv's municipal council learned of this outrageous situation, it put a stop to the further destruction of the wall and issued a resolution ordering the plant director \"in the next ten days to erect a new enclosure in the place of the old one.\" [70]<\/a> Finally, the brick wall of the cemetery facing Melnikova Street was replaced by a wooden fence. These details need to be considered when analyzing the recollections of the participants of the tragic events that took place on 29\u201330 September 1941.<\/p>\n

The cemeteries in the Lukianivka district were struck by horrific events that took place in the 1930s. Archival testimonies reveal that in 1933 the Orthodox Brotherhood\/Military Cemetery was the site of mass burials of nameless victims. They were the \"homeless declassed element,\" that is, refugees from the Ukrainian countryside, who perished during the Great Famine\/Holodomor. Their corpses were found on the city streets, brought to Zhovtnevyi Hospital to be autopsied, and then transported in batches to the Brotherhood\/Military Cemetery near Babyn Yar. [71]<\/a> The Lukianivka Municipal Cemetery was for executed \"enemies of the people\" who had been brought from the torture chambers of the NKVD in Lukianivka Prison on Dehtiarivska Street and buried secretly at night. [72]<\/a> The camps at Syrets remained at the disposal of the defense ministry, and the military presence continued to grow in Lukianivka district. In the 1930s the former Dehtiariv charitable institutions were transformed, creating a garrison town where a tank brigade was stationed. A tank training technical school was also established there. [73]<\/a> Nearby, on both sides of the first segment of Lagerna (Dorohozhytska) Street, there was a repair shop servicing automobiles and armored vehicles. Some of the buildings that are still standing today housed a motorcycle factory and garages. After the Soviet regime abolished the private use of land, the territory of the Syrets camps expanded significantly. In the years leading up to World War II armored tank units trained there, and a testing site was also based there.<\/p>\n

Municipal improvements in the Lukianivka district took place gradually, especially after capital-city status was restored to Kyiv in 1934. Large-scale construction work was carried out on Melnikova Street. In the 1930s the city built a residential building and a physician's dormitory (today Iliyenko Street, no. 12), another residential building for NKVD employees (no. 75), and yet a third residential building for the command personnel of the Dnieper navy flotilla (no. 32).<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the natural environment still defined the area's character. Although the streetcar route that ran through \"Kyiv's Switzerland\" was scrapped after 1920, many Kyivites still loved to visit the Kyryliv ravines. In an article about \"the little Kyivan grove\" published in the local magazine Hlobus <\/em>(1929), the author calls the space around the ravines \"a comprehensive monument of nature,\" and he lists the variety of popular names for the area's most distinctive corners: \"Great Caucasus,\" \"Small Caucasus,\" \"Zhiguli Mountains,\" and \"Happy Valley,\" among others. [74]<\/a> In his novel Babi Yar<\/em>, the writer Anatoly Kuznetsov mentions a brook with clear water at the bottom of Babyn Yar, where he swam as a child. [75]<\/a> A nursery to acclimatize plants, founded by the Academician Mykola Kashchenko, was established not far from the ravines (the site of today's Institute of International Relations on Iliyenko Street).<\/p>\n

Several recent articles claim that in the 1930s Babyn Yar was used as a place of execution by the NKVD. Such claims are not backed up by any real facts or dates. On the contrary, documentary sources reveal that during the 1920s and 1930s the ravine functioned as an open pit for extracting high-quality sand for use in cement works. [76]<\/a> At the same time Kyiv's municipal authorities considered Babyn Yar as a possible site for a sports complex. For instance, on the initiative of Tsoaviakhim (the Society for the Facilitation of Defense, Aviation, and Chemical Construction), Babyn Yar was for some time a site for marksmanship training. In 1935, Tsoaviakhim used explosives to create in the middle and widest part of the ravine \"a model shooting range.\" [77]<\/a> Two years later a report announced plans to build a shooting complex that would include stands for 1,500 to 2,000 spectators and a sharpshooter's school equipped with a dormitory and dining room. [78]<\/a> That plan was never realized, and in 1940 a new plan called for a ski resort and ski jump. [79]<\/a> Work actually began, but was interrupted because of the outbreak of war with Nazi Germany. Then, in September 1941, Babyn Yar was put to an entirely different \u2014 and tragic \u2014 use.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> See Petro Tolochko, Istorychna topohrafiia starodavnioho Kyieva <\/em>(Kyiv: Naukova dumka, 1972), p. 151.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> P. Boryskovs'kyi, Liudyna kam'ianoho viku na Ukra\u0457ni <\/em>(Kyiv: Vyd. AN URSR, 1940), pp. 78\u201388.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Litopys Rus'kyi za Ipats'kym spyskom<\/em>, translated by Leonid Makhnovets' (Kyiv: Dnipro, 1989), pp. 46, 200\u2013202, 233, 281, 295. Litopys Rus'kyi za Ipats'kym spyskom<\/em>, translated by Leonid Makhnovets' (Kyiv: Dnipro, 1989), pp. 46, 200\u2013202, 233, 281, 295.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Leonid Dobrovol'skii, Letopisnyi Dorogozhich: k voprosu o davnikh kievskikh prigorodnykh ukrepleniiakh <\/em>(Kyiv: Izd. Kievskogo otdela Imperatorskogo russkogo voenno-istoricheskogo obshchestva, 1914).<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Iryna Zhelezniak, Ky\u0457vs'kyi toponimikon <\/em>(Kyiv: Vydavnychyi dim \"Kyi,\" 2014), pp. 37\u201338.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Dobrovol'skii, Letopisnyi Dorogozhich<\/em>, pp. 21\u201322.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Nikolai Zakrevskii, , Vol. 1 (Moscow, 1868), p. 342.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Tolochko, Istorychna topohrafiia starodavnioho Kyieva<\/em>, pp. 150\u2013151.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Ibid., p.147.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Iryna Marholina and Vasyl' Ul'ianovs'kyi, Ky\u0457vs'ka obytel' Sviatoho Kyryla <\/em>(Kyiv: Lybid', 2005), pp. 239\u2013259.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> See Pavel Nechai, Kratkii ocherk Kirillovskikh bogougodnykh zavedenii v g. Kieve <\/em>(Kyiv, 1904).<\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> Marholina and Ul'ianovs'kyi, Ky\u0457vs'ka obytel' Sviatoho Kyryla<\/em>, pp. 284\u2013333<\/p>\n

[13]<\/a> Zakrevskii, Opisanie Kieva<\/em>, Vol. 1, p. 435.<\/p>\n

[14]<\/a> The descriptor Velyka (Great) was added to distinguish it from another street created at the time, Mala (Little) Dorozhytska. Kievlianin <\/em>(Kyiv), 14 August 1869; N. Taranovskii, comp., Kiev i ego okrestnosti: putevoditel' s topograficheskim planom i vidami Kieva <\/em>(Kyiv: Tipografiia Shtaba Kievskogo voennogo okruga, 1884), p. 97.<\/p>\n

[15]<\/a> Ts. Fradkina, comp., Putevoditel' po istoriko-revoliutsionnym pamiatnikam Kieva <\/em>(Kyiv: Politizdat pri TsK KP(b)U, 1940), pp. 7\u20139.<\/p>\n

[16]<\/a> Derzhavnyi arkhiv Ky\u00efvs'ko\u00ef oblasti, Kyiv (hereafter: DAKO), Fond R-111, Opys1, Sprava 375, Arkuch 12, 20. In 2018, the street was renamed Yurii Iliyenko after the contemporary Ukrainian film director.<\/p>\n

[17]<\/a> Sbornik materialov dlia istoricheskoi topografii Kieva i ego okrestnostei<\/em>. Part III (Kyiv: Izd. Vremennoi komissii dlia razbora drevnikh aktov pri Kievskom, Podol'skom i Volynskom General-Gubernatore, 1874), pp. 3\u20134.<\/p>\n

[18]<\/a> Lidiia Ponomarenko and Oleksander Riznyk, Ky\u0457v: korotkyi toponimichnyi dovidnyk <\/em>(Kyiv: Pavlim, 2003), pp. 94\u201395.<\/p>\n

[19]<\/a> Zakrevskii, Opisanie Kieva<\/em>, Vol. 2, p. 724.<\/p>\n

[20]<\/a> Galina Alferova and Viktor Kharlamov, Kiev vo vtoroi polovine XVII veka: istoriko-arkhitekturnyi ocherk <\/em>(Kyiv: Naukova dumka, 1982), appendix.<\/p>\n

[21]<\/a> Anatolii Kudryts'kyi, Lidiia Ponomarenko, and Oleksandr Riznyk, comps., Vulytsi Kyieva: dovidnyk <\/em>(Kyiv: Ukra\u0457ns'ka entsyklopediia imeni M.P. Bazhana, 1995), p. 265; compare Ponomarenko and Riznyk, Ky\u0457v<\/em>, p. 8 which states that the tavern keeper did not \"sell\" but \"bequeathed\" the land.<\/p>\n

[22]<\/a> Zakrevskii, Opisanie Kieva<\/em>. Vol. 2, p. 560.<\/p>\n

[23]<\/a> DAKO, Fond 1542, Opys 1, Sprava 27 and others.<\/p>\n

[24]<\/a> DAKO, Fond 1542, Opys 1, Sprava 467, Arkush 1.<\/p>\n

[25]<\/a> DAKO, Fond 1542, Opys 1, Sprava 163, Arkush 1.<\/p>\n

[26]<\/a> DAKO, Fond 1542, Opys 1, Sprava 165, Arkush 1.<\/p>\n

[27]<\/a> I. Tairov, comp., Plan goroda Kieva so vsemi zemliami, sostoiashchimi v vedenii onogo po Kievskoi gubernii <\/em>(Kyiv, 1902).<\/p>\n

[28]<\/a> Plan goroda Kieva i predmestii: sostavlen v 1914 godu po poslednim svedeniiam Kievskimi Gorodskimi Zemlemerami<\/em> (\u041ayiv, 1914).<\/p>\n

[29]<\/a> Zakrevskii, Opisanie Kieva<\/em>, Vol. 2, p. 587.<\/p>\n

[30]<\/a> \"K voprosu o nanesenii na plan goroda Kieva gorodskikh zemel',\" Kievlianin (Kyiv), 9 September 1910.<\/p>\n

[31]<\/a> \"Kirillovskii ovrag,\" Kievskoe slovo<\/em> (Kyiv), 29 March 1891.<\/p>\n

[32]<\/a> Ilia Levitas, comp., Babii Iar: kniga pamiati (<\/em>Kyiv: Stal', 2005), p. 6.<\/p>\n

[33]<\/a> Ibid., p. 7.<\/p>\n

[34]<\/a> Blagotvoritel'nye uchrezhdeniia kommertsii sovetnika, potomstvennogo pochetnogo grazhdanina i pochetnogo grazhdanina g. Kieva Mikhaila Parfentievicha Degtereva i Priiut potomstvennoi pochetnoi grazhdanki Elizavety Ivanovny Degterevoi za desiatiletie 1902\u20131912 (Kyiv, 1913).<\/p>\n

[35]<\/a> Petr Neishtube, comp., Istoricheskaia zapiska v pamiat' 50-tiletiia sushchestvovaniia Kievskoi Evreiskoi Bol'nitsy. 1862\u20131912 g. (\u041ayiv, 1912).<\/p>\n

[36]<\/a> The letter subsequently turned up in the Genizah (manuscript repository) of the Cairo synagogue, and in the late nineteenth century it was transferred to the Cambridge University library. Norman Golb and Omeljan Pritsak, Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century <\/em>(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982).<\/p>\n

[37]<\/a> Litopys Rus'kyi<\/em>, pp. 171, 180, 200, and 243.<\/p>\n

[38]<\/a> Tolochko, Istorychna topohrafiia starodavnioho Kyieva<\/em>, p. 93.<\/p>\n

[39]<\/a> Cited in Izrail' Darevskii, K istorii evreev v Kieve ot poloviny VIII v. do kontsa XIX v<\/em>. (Kyiv, 1907), pp. 9\u201312.<\/p>\n

[40]<\/a> Ibid., pp. 87\u201393.<\/p>\n

[41]<\/a> Ibid., pp. 94\u2013103.<\/p>\n

[42]<\/a> See Aleksandr Tager, Tsarskaia Rossiia i delo Beilisa<\/em>. 2nd ed. (Moscow: OGIZ, 1934); Ezekiel Leikin, The Beilis Transcripts: The Anti-Semitic Trial that Shook the World<\/em> (London, 1993).<\/p>\n

[43]<\/a> DAKO, Fond 1, Opys 132, Sprava 279, Arkush 8. Earlier, the community had used a cemetery founded in the late eighteenth century, which was located in the Zvirynets district (no longer existing) close to Pechersk.<\/p>\n

[44]<\/a> See DAKO, Fond 1, Opys 228, Sprava 232.<\/p>\n

[45]<\/a> The architect planned to build three one-story brick structures on the cemetery premises. These included quarters for the cemetery caretaker and the guard; a building for washing the bodies of the deceased; and a building for performing ritual songs (the latter structure was supposed to stand opposite the main entrance, flanked on both sides by the other two buildings).<\/p>\n

[46]<\/a> Mykola Stel'mashenko, Kladovyshcha mista Kyieva<\/em> (Kyiv: Vyd. VUAN, 1929), p. 12.<\/p>\n

[47]<\/a> Kievskaia gazeta<\/em> (Kyiv), 22 September 1904.<\/p>\n

[48]<\/a> The 1902 addition measured 278 sq. sazhens\/1,265 sq. meters; the 1910 addition 313 sq. sazhens\/1,426 sq. meters. DAKO, Fond 163, Opys 38, Sprava 665, Arkush 8, 13, and Opus 41, Sprava 644.<\/p>\n

[49]<\/a> Ibid., Arkush 8 and 10.<\/p>\n

[50]<\/a> DAKO, Fond 163, Opys 7, Sprava 40, Arkush 7 and 8.<\/p>\n

[51]<\/a> Stel'mashenko, Kladovyshcha mista Kyieva<\/em>, p.13.<\/p>\n

[52]<\/a> Kievlianin<\/em> (Kyiv), 27 April 1912.<\/p>\n

[53]<\/a> Initially, the Kyiv City Council (Duma) allotted three desiatynas (nearly 3.3 hectares) of land to the Lukianivka Cemetery. Subsequently, it expanded considerably, so that by the early twentieth century it measured 17 desiatynas (over 18.5 hectares).<\/p>\n

[54]<\/a> See Liudmyla Protsenko and Iurii Protsenko, Luk'ianivs'ke tsyvil'ne kladovyshche: putivnyk<\/em>, 2nd ed. (Kyiv: Interhrafik, 2001).<\/p>\n

[55]<\/a> DAKO, Fond 163, Opys 7, Sprava 1794, Arkush 17.<\/p>\n

[56]<\/a> Ibid., Arkush 4 reverse.<\/p>\n

[57]<\/a> See Osobennosti sluzhby v lagere na Syrtse (pri gorode Kieve)<\/em> (Kyiv, 1914).<\/p>\n

[58]<\/a> Kievlianin <\/em>(Kyiv), 7 May 1895. The church, situated within a block between today's Olena Teliha, Ivan Gonta, Tymofii Shamrylo, and Dorohozhytska streets, has not been preserved.<\/p>\n

[59]<\/a> Serhii Iefremov, Shchodennyk: pro dni mynuli (spohady)<\/em> (Kyiv: Tempora, 2011), pp. 496\u2013497.<\/p>\n

[60]<\/a> Zinov'iev-Ikonnikov, \"Kyrylivs'kyi haiok,\" Hlobus<\/em> 19 (Kyiv, 1929), p. 301.<\/p>\n

[61]<\/a> Serhii Tarkhov and Kost' Kozlov, Olander Aare, elektrotransport Ukra\u0457ny: Entsyklopedychnyi putivnyk<\/em> (Kyiv: VARTO, 2010), p. 282.<\/p>\n

[62]<\/a> Ibid., p. 284.<\/p>\n

[63]<\/a> Tsentral'nyi derzhavnyi istorychnyi arkhiv Ukra\u0457ny u Kyievi (hereafter: TsDIAK), Fond 693, Opys 2, Sprava 337, Arkush 2 and 3.<\/p>\n

[64]<\/a> \"K sooruzheniiu novoi tovarnoi stantsii Kiev-Lukianovka\", Kievlianin <\/em>(Kyiv), 11 June 1915; \"Osmotr tovarnoi stantsii Kiev-Lukianovka,\" Kievlianin<\/em> (Kyiv), 1 December 1915.<\/p>\n

[65]<\/a> Mykola Sharleman', Po Kyievu i ioho okolytsiakh<\/em> (Kyiv: Derzhavne vydavnytstvo, 1921), p. 20.<\/p>\n

[66]<\/a> V. Kistiakovskii, \"Fiziko-geograficheskie ekskursii v okrestnostiakh Kieva,\" Pedagogicheskaia mysl': izdanie Kollegii Pavla Galagana<\/em> II (Kyiv, 1905), pp. 72\u201375.<\/p>\n

[67]<\/a> Ves' Kiev. Spravochnaia kniga na 1926 god<\/em> (Kyiv: Izd-vo. Kievskogo gubkoma KP(b) U, 1926), pp. 89\u201390.<\/p>\n

[68]<\/a> Liudmyla Protsenko, Istoriia Ky\u0457vs'koho nekropolia<\/em> (Kyiv: Ukrblankvydav, 1995), pp. 195\u2013197.<\/p>\n

[69]<\/a> Derzhavnyi arkhiv mista Kyieva, Kyiv (hereafter: DAK), Fond R-1, Opys 8, Sprava 149, Arkush 99.<\/p>\n

[70]<\/a> DAK, Fond R-1, Opys 1, Sprava 4105, Arkush 1, 2, 3, and 6.<\/p>\n

[71]<\/a> DAK, Fond R-3, Opys 1, Sprava 187, Arkush 57.<\/p>\n

[72]<\/a> Leontii Forostivs'kyi, Ky\u0457v pid vorozhymy okupatsiiamy<\/em> (Buenos Aires: Vyd-vo. Mykoly Denysiuka, 1952), pp. 72\u201373.<\/p>\n

[73]<\/a> V. Ablesimov et al, Kievskoe vysshee tankovoe inzhenernoe ordena Krasnoi zvezdy uchilishche imeni Marshala Sovetskogo Soiuza Iakubovskogo I.I. Istoricheskii ocherk.<\/em> 1930\u20131990 (Kyiv, 1990), pp. 20\u201321.<\/p>\n

[74]<\/a> Zinov'iev-Ikonnikov, \"Kyrylivs'kyi haiok,\" pp. 301\u2013302.<\/p>\n

[75]<\/a> Anatolii Kuznetsov, Babii Iar: roman-dokument<\/em> (Zaporozhia: Interbook, 1991), pp. <\/em>14\u201315.<\/p>\n

[76]<\/a> \"Zabezpechennia ky\u0457vs'kykh budivnytstv dobroiakisnymy piskamy,\" Sotsialistychnyi Ky\u0457v<\/em>, 6 (Kyiv, 1937), p. 40.<\/p>\n

[77]<\/a> \"Hora zletila u povitria: vybukh amonalu v Babynim Iaru,\" Bil'shovyk<\/em> (Kyiv), 29 July 1935.<\/p>\n

[78]<\/a> \"Strilets'kyi stadion v Babynim iaru,\" Bil'shovyk<\/em> (Kyiv), 21 March 1937.<\/p>\n

[79]<\/a> DAK, Fond R-330, Opys 1, Sprava 2356.<\/p>\n

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