Ternopil

Ternopil, known until 1944 mostly as Tarnopol, is a city in western Ukraine, located on the banks of the Seret River. Ternopil is one of the major cities of Western Ukraine and the historical regions of Galicia and Podolia. The population of Ternopil was estimated at 225,004 (2022 estimate).

The city is the administrative center of Ternopil Oblast (region), as well as of surrounding Ternopil Raion (district) within the oblast. It hosts the administration of Ternopil urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine.

The city was founded in 1540 by Polish commander and Hetman Jan Amor Tarnowski. Its Polish name, Tarnopol, means 'Tarnowski's city' and stems from a combination of the founder's family name and the Greek term polis. The city served as a military stronghold and castle protecting the eastern borders of Polish Kingdom from Tatar raids. On 15 April 1540, the King of Poland, Sigismund I the Old, in Kraków gave Tarnowski permission to establish Tarnopol, near Sopilcze (Sopilche). In 1570, the city passed to the Ostrogski family, and in 1623 to the Zamoyski family. During the Khmelnytsky Uprising, many residents of the city joined the ranks of the Cossack forces. During the 1672–1676 Polish–Ottoman War, Tarnopol was almost completely destroyed by Turkish forces of Ibrahim Shishman Pasha in 1675, then rebuilt by Aleksander Koniecpolski.

In 1772, after the First Partition of Poland, the city came under Austrian rule. In 1809, after the War of the Fifth Coalition, the city came under Russian rule, incorporated into the newly created Ternopol krai [uk], but in 1815 returned to Austrian rule in accordance with the Congress of Vienna. In 1870 Tarnopol was connected by railway with Lemberg.

During World War I, the city passed from German and Austro-Hungarian forces to Russia several times. In 1917, the city and its castle were burned down by fleeing Russian forces. After the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the city was proclaimed as part of the West Ukrainian People's Republic on 11 November 1918. After Polish forces captured Lwów during the Polish-Ukrainian War, Tarnopol became the country's temporary capital. After the act of union between the West Ukrainian Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic, Ternopil formally became part of the UPR. On 15 July 1919, the city was captured. by Polish forces. In July and August 1920, the Red Army captured Ternopil in the course of the Polish-Soviet War, and the city served as the capital of the short-lived Galician Soviet Socialist Republic. Under the terms of the Riga treaty, the area remained under Polish control.

As a consequence of the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, Ternopil was incorporated into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic as part of Ternopol Oblast.

On 2 July 1941, the city was occupied by the Nazis. Between then and July 1943, 10,000 Jews were killed by Nazi Germans with the help of ukrainian militia, and another 6,000 were rounded up and sent to Belzec extermination camp. A few hundred others went to labor camps. During most of this time Jews lived in the Tarnopol Ghetto. Many Ukrainians were sent as forced labour to Germany. Following the act of restoration of the Ukrainian state, proclaimed by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in Lviv on 30 June 1941, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) was active in the Ternopil region and battled for the independence of Ukraine, opposing the Polish underground Armia Krajowa and People's Army of Poland as well as the Nazis and the Soviets. In 1942 the Germans operated the Stalag 323 prisoner-of-war camp for French POWs in the city. During the Soviet offensive in March and April 1944, the city was almost completely destroyed by Soviet artillery. It was occupied by the Red Army on 15 April 1944. After the second Soviet occupation, 85% of the city's living quarters were destroyed.

Following the Potsdam Conference in 1945, Poland's borders were redrawn and Ternopil was incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union. The ethnic Polish population of the area was forcibly deported to postwar Poland. In the following decades, Ternopil was rebuilt in a typical Soviet style and only a few buildings were reconstructed.