Horodenka


Horodenka is a city located in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, in Western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of Horodenka Raion. Population:. In 2001 the population was around 9,800.

History

The first mention of Horodenka was in 1195, when it was described as a village in the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia inhabited by farmers and craftsmen. It was later part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1772.
The 17th century saw a significant influx of Armenian immigrants to Horodenka. In 1706, a large Armenian Catholic church was erected in the town. In 1668 it became one of the Polish towns to be chartered under Magdeburg rights, through the use of a privilege known as "settlement with German law”.
From the first partition of Poland in 1772 until 1918, the town was part of the Austrian monarchy, head of the district with the same name, one of the 78 Bezirkshauptmannschaften in Austrian Galicia province in 1900. The fate of this province was then disputed between Poland and Ukraine, until the Peace of Riga in 1921.
In the period of the Second Polish Republic, it was a district capital within the Stanisławów Voivodeship.
During World War II the Jewish population of Horodenka, comprising about half of the town's population, were shot and killed in a mass grave by the Nazis. About a dozen Jews survived and formed a partisan combat unit which fought against the Nazis and hid in the forests. There is a synagogue in Salford, England named in honour of this community.

Famous people from Horodenka