Putivl
Putivl’
a city and the administrative center of Putivl’ Raion, Sumy Oblast, Ukrainian SSR. The city lies along the Seim River (Dnieper basin), 24 km from the Putivl’ railroad station, on the Bakhmach-Vorozhba line. Population, 16,800 (1974). Industries include a cannery, a butter factory, a plant producing mixed feed, and bread and food-processing combines. The city has a horticultural technicum and a teacher-training school.
Putivl’ is first mentioned in the chronicles under the year 1146 as a town in the Severskii Principality. In the 12th and early 13th centuries it was the capital of an appanage principality. The city is described in the Tale of Igor’s Campaign. Destroyed by Mongol Tatars in 1240, the city was absorbed by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1356. In 1500, Grand Prince Ivan III Vasil’evich incorporated Putivl’ into the Muscovite state. The peasant uprising led by 1.1. Bolotnikov began near Putivl’ in 1606. From the 18th to the early 20th century the city was a district capital (in Kursk Province from 1796).
Soviet power was established in the city in November 1917. After being included in the Ukrainian SSR in 1926, it belonged to Chernigov Oblast from 1932 to 1939, when it became part of Sumy Oblast. On Sept. 11, 1941, the city was occupied by fascist German invaders. A guerrilla detachment operated in the area under the command of S. A. Kovpak, chairman of the city executive committee between 1937 and 1941. The city was liberated by the Soviet Army on Sept. 3, 1943.
Noteworthy sites include the ruins of an ancient gorodishche (fortified town), the former Molchanskii Monastery (16th and 17th centuries), the Spaso-Preobrazhenskii Cathedral (17th and 18th centuries), and the Church of St. Nicholas Kazatskii (18th century). Putivl’ has a museum of local lore and a branch of the Museum of Partisan Glory (in the Spadshchanskii Forest). A monument to Kovpak was erected in 1971. It is made of iron, reinforced concrete, and bronze and was executed by the sculptor M. G. Lysenko and the architects A. I. Ignashchenko and S. P. Tutuchenko.
REFERENCES
Logvin, G. N. Chernigov. Novgorod-Severskii. Glukhov. Putivl’. Moscow, 1965.Nefedovskii, E. G. Putivl’: Istoriko-kraevedcheskii ocherk. Khar’kov, 1966.
Putivl’. Kiev, 1973. (Photo album.)