Buchach

Buchach Бучач
Panoramic view of Buchach in 2012 Panoramic view of Buchach in 2012
Coat of arms of Buchach Coat of arms
Buchach Map of Ukraine with Buchach highlighted.
Coordinates:
Country	Ukraine
Oblast	Ternopil Oblast
Raion	Buchach Raion
First mention	1260
Magdeburg Rights	1393(first), 1515(second)
Government
• City Head	Iosyf Mostsipan
Area
• Total	9.98 km2 (3.85 sq mi)
Population (2001 census)
• Total	12,511
• Density	1,253.6/km2 (3,247/sq mi)
Time zone	EET (UTC+2)
• Summer (DST)	EEST (UTC+3)
Postal code	48400 — 48401
Area code(s)	+380 3544
Website	http://rada.gov.ua/

Buchach (Ukrainian: Бучач; Polish: Buczacz; Yiddish: בעטשאָטש‎; Turkish: Bucaş) is a town located on the Strypa River (a tributary of the Dniester) in Ternopil Oblast (province) of Western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Buchach Raion (district), and rests 135 kilometres (84 miles) south east of Lviv, in the historic region of Halychyna (Galicia). Prior to 1939, the city was located in Poland and Austro-Hungary. The estimated population was around 12,500, according to the 2001 Ukrainian census.

History

The earliest recorded mention of Buchach is in 1260 by Bartosz Paprocki in his book "Gniazdo Cnoty, zkąd herby Rycerstwa Polskiego swój początek mają", Kraków, 1578. In 1349, the region of Halychyna (Galicia) became part of the Kingdom of Poland. As a part of Ruthenian Voivodeship remained in Poland from 1434 until 1772 (see Partitions of Poland). It was during this time that the area experienced a large influx of Polish, Jewish and Armenian settlers. In the late 14th century, Polish nobleman (szlachta), Michał Awdaniec, Abdank coat of arms became the owner of the town on 1360-s or 1370-s. On July 28, 1379, M. Awdaniec founded here a Roman Catholic parish church, and built a castle. In 1393, King Władysław II Jagiełło agreed to grant Magdeburg rights to Buchach (Buczacz): it was first Magdeburg-style town, located in the Halych Land. In the early 15th century, the Awdaniec family of Buchach changed its last name into Buczacki, after its main residence. Frequent invasions of the Crimean Tatars brought destruction to the town, and in 1515, it once again received the Magdeburg rights. In 1580, local castle was rebuilt: the castle was twice besieged by the Tatars (1665, 1667), who finally captured it in 1672, during the Polish–Ottoman War (1672–76). Buchach was a temporary residence of Mehmed IV; here, on October 18, 1672, the Treaty of Buchach was signed between Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire. According to this treaty, Poland handed the provinces of Ukraine and Podolia to Turkey. As a result, until 1683 Buchach was divided into two parts: Polish and Ottoman.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Buchach belonged to the Potocki family. Mikołaj Bazyli Potocki, the Starosta of Kaniv, Bohuslav, the son of Stefan Aleksander Potocki, Voivode of Belz, who became a Greek-Catholic about 1758, built here Buchach townhall with a 35-meter tower (near 1751), a late Baroque Roman Catholic Church (1761–1763), and rebuilt the castle, destroyed by the Turks. With the unification of Poland and Lithuania in 1569, the newly united kingdom extended from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Owing to its importance as a market town, Buchach had become a prominent trading centre linking Poland and the Ottoman Empire.

File:Майдан Волі.JPG

The old town hall of Buchach, a joint work of architect Bernard Meretyn and sculptor Jan Jerzy Pinzel.

In 1772, Red Ruthenia, together with other areas of southwestern Poland, became a part of Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria — a crownland of the Habsburg Monarchy as part of the First Partition of Poland. Industry came to Buchach around the end of the 19th century. Among the small-scale industries there included a brickworks, and candle and soap factory, (modern) flour mills, a textile plant, and a necktie factory. The town also boasted a brewery and a winery. The largest factory was established early in the 1900s, when the Hilfesverein concern of Vienna set up a plant for the manufacture of wooden toys in Buchach employing some 200 workers, mainly young girls. In 1912 the Stanislaviv-based Savings and Credit Union opened a branch in Buchach, and this served as a bank for local industrialists and business.

Buchach remained a part of Austria and its successor states until the end of the First World War in 1918. The town was briefly a part of the independent West Ukrainian People's Republic before it was captured by the Republic of Poland in July 1919 after Ukrainian-Polish War. Also, between August 10 and September 15, 1920, it was occupied by the Red Army (see Polish-Soviet War). In the Second Polish Republic, Buchach was the seat of a county (powiat) in Tarnopol Voivodeship. In the 1920s, Buchach was inhabited by Jews (~60%), Poles (~25%), and Ukrainians (~15%). On September 18, 1939, during the Soviet Invasion of Poland, Buchach was occupied by the Red Army, and incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR (see Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact). In 1941, it was invaded by Nazi Germany. Before World War II, approximately 10,000 Jews (half of the local population) lived in Buchach. According to the Soviet Extraordinary Commission, approximately 7,000 Jews were killed in Buchach during the Nazi occupation. When Soviets retook the town on July 21, 1944, only about 100 Jewish survivors remained. Buchach was proclaimed Judenfrei town.

In 1945, its Polish residents were resettled into the Recovered Territories, and Communist authorities closed the parish church, turning it into a storage facility. Bones of the members of the Potocki family, kept in the church cellar, were thrown out, and later buried at the local cemetery. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Buchach became a part of independent Ukraine, and new, Ukrainian government returned the church to its rightful owners.

Coat of Arms

The coat of arms of Buchach originated from the Piława coat of arms, which was used by the Potocki family.

Education

• Saint Josaphat Institute

Religion

Churches

• St. Mykolay church (n. 1610)
• St. Pokrova church (n. 1763)
• Church of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross, or Church of the Elevation of the Cross (1771)
• St. Mykhaylo church (Nahirianka, 1910)
• St. Volodymyr church
• Procathedral church, UGCC
• Rome church (1763)

People from Buchach

File:Hnatiuk Volodymyr.jpg

Volodymyr Hnatiuk

Born in Buchach

Ukrainians

• Mykola Bevz, scientist, member of ICOMOS
• Yaroslav Padokh, scientist, President of Shevchenko Scientific Society in USA and President of Shevchenko Scientific Society's the World Council in 1982–1992
• Ihor Pylatiuk, scientist, musician, the rector and professor of the violin department of Lviv National Musical Academy named after Mykola Lysenko
• Bohdan Botsiurkiv, Ukrainian-Canadian scientist
• Nataliya Katser-Buchkovska, a member of the "People's Front" political party and is part of the Ukrainian Parliament (8th convocation of the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada).

Poles

• Leopold Pamula, Polish Air Force pilot, who fought in the Invasion of Poland
• Jan Franciszek Adamski, Polish film actor and writer
• Wladyslaw Zych, Polish scientist, geologist and soldier of the Home Army

Jews

Shmuel Yosef Agnon.

• Shmuel Yosef Agnon (1888–1970), Nobel Prize-winning author
• Simon Wiesenthal, an Austrian writer and Nazi hunter
• Emanuel Ringelblum, historian, politician and social worker
• Mina Rosner, a Canadian writer
• Ruben Feldschuh (Ben Shem) (1900–1980), Zionist author and political activist
• Max Nomad (1881–1973) is the pseudonym of Austrian author and educator Max(imilian) Nacht.

People associated with Buchach

Ukrainians

• Volodymyr Hnatiuk(1871–1926) — writer, literary scholar, translator and journalist, and was one of the most influential and notable Ukrainian ethnographers.
• Bohdan A. Futey, judge of the United States Court of Federal Claims from 1987 to 2002

Poles

• Dawid Buczacki, voivode of Podole in the late 15th century
• Jakub Buczacki, royal secretary and Bishop of Płock in the first half of the 16th century
• Michał Buczacki, Polish nobleman, the voivode of Podole, and the Castellan of Halicz in 1433–37
• Stefan Potocki, voivode of Bratslav, starost of Fellin
• Stefan Aleksander Potocki, with wife Joanna founder of Buchach monastery UGCC
• Mikołaj Bazyli Potocki, starost of Bohuslav, Kaniv, benefactor of the Buchach's townhall, churches, Pochayiv Lavra
• Jan Tworowski, voivode of Podole, owner of Buchach
• Antoni Opolski, physicist, rector of Opole University

Jews

• Abraham David ben Asher Anshel Buczacz, Rabbi of Buchach
• Alicia Appleman-Jurman, Holocaust survivor and author

Unknown nationality

• Johann Georg Pinsel, Baroque sculptor, named Halych's Michelangelo
• Bernard Meretyn, an architect of the late Baroque and rococo of (possibly of German origin)

Communications

The closest international airports are:

• Lviv International Airport, in Lviv (LWO), ca. 190 km (118 mi) away
• Ivano-Frankivsk International Airport, in Ivano-Frankivsk (IFO), ca. 50 km (31 mi) away
• Chernivtsi International Airport, in Chernivtsi (CWC), ca. 70 km (43 mi) away
• Rzeszów International Airport, in Rzeszów (RZE), Poland, ca. 220 km (137 mi) away

International relations

See also: List of twin towns and sister cities in Ukraine

Twin towns and sister cities

Buchach is currently twinned with:

• Złotoryja, Poland
• Kazimierza Wielka, Poland

External links

• Buchach in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).
• Verkhovna Rada website — city of Buchach, Buchatskyi Raion, Ternopil Oblast
• Buchach Today
• Buchach info site with photos and history
• The murder of the Jews of Buchach during World War II, at Yad Vashem website.

Sources

• (Polish) (Latin) Sadok Barącz, Pamiątki buczackie.— Lwów: Drukarnia «Gazety narodowej», 1882.— 168 s.