More recently, the name “Donetsk” has been associated with football for millions of people in all corners of Europe. But 2014 was a period of difficult trials for this city, whose inhabitants were at the forefront of the war, unleashed by a bunch of adventurers against civilians. As one of the great ones said: to understand the present and predict the future, you need to look into the past. Therefore, for those who want to understand the events that have occurred in recent months in eastern Ukraine, a lot can tell the history of Donetsk. So by whom and when was this city founded and why did its inhabitants not want to submit to the Kiev authorities conducting anti-Russian politics?
Background
In the capital of Donbass, people have lived since time immemorial. This is evidenced by archaeological finds found during excavations made in some areas of the city over the past century. Scientists believe that at different periods there were temporary or permanent settlements of Scythians, Cimmerians, Sarmatians, Goths, and, somewhat later, Slavs. However, in the period from the 13th to the 16th centuries, people left these places due to raids by nomads, and new settlements began to appear there after these lands came under the control of the Don Cossacks.
History of Donetsk from the middle of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th
Active settlement of the Kalmius river basin and adjacent lands began in the 18th century by order of Catherine the Second. In 1760, on the territory of the Kiev region of modern Donetsk, the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda was founded , which later became a village. Around the same time, the settlements of Krutoyarovka and Grigoryevka appeared in the neighborhood. Their inhabitants, along with agriculture, were engaged in coal mining, the large deposits of which became known after an expedition sent to explore the minerals by Peter the Great on the banks of the Kurdyuchya River. In 1820, the first small mines appeared directly next to Alexandrovskaya. It was then that the history of Donetsk as one of the largest coal mining centers in Europe began.
Yuzovka Foundation
In 1841, 3 mines of the Alexandrovsky mine were built, and by the middle of the 19th century the number of enterprises engaged in coal mining in the region reached 10. A few years later, the government of the Russian Empire concluded an agreement with S.V. Kochubey. According to the terms of this transaction, a large plant for the manufacture of iron rails was to be built in the Donbass. In 1869, Kochubey sold the concession for 24 thousand pounds to the English industrialist John Hughes, who began the construction of a metallurgical enterprise near the village of Aleksandrovka. In addition, he founded the village of Yuzovka for the workers of the new plant. Thus began the history of Donetsk, the year of foundation of which is considered to be 1869. Three years later, blast furnaces were commissioned, and the Yuza plant became one of the most important industrial centers in Russia. In just 15 years, the population of the working village of metallurgists has grown 50 times, it has turned into an industrial city, where there was a telegraph, a hospital, several hotels and a school. There was even their own, as they would say today, an elite microdistrict in which engineers and other specialists who came to Yuzovka to work under a contract lived. Locals called it the English colony and envied it to the inhabitants, who were available to such benefits of civilization as plumbing and electricity.
Donetsk: the history of the city after the October Revolution
At all times, miners' collectives were distinguished by their cohesion and organization, therefore it is not surprising that from time to time mass demonstrations of workers took place in the city, requiring better working conditions and higher wages. In particular, in 1892, 15,000 miners started a clash, which was brutally crushed by the government. Therefore, it is not surprising that in March 1917 elections of the Council of Workers' Deputies took place in Donetsk, and after the October events in Petrograd, this self-government body announced its support for the government led by V. Lenin. After this, the city repeatedly passed from hand to hand and only in December 1919 became part of the Ukrainian SSR. Moreover, even after this, the map of eastern Ukraine, or rather the borders of this country with the RSFSR, were considered controversial. The fact is that a significant part of the population and many political figures and representatives of the intelligentsia expressed great doubts about the legality of Donetsk belonging to the Ukrainian SSR.
Stalin
Photos of Donetsk in the first years of Soviet rule show that intensive construction began already in the city. So, after it was renamed Stalin in 1924, the “Standard” housing estate was built there for metallurgists and miners, and in 1932 the first master plan in the history of Donetsk was adopted. However, he did not take into account the rapid increase in population due to the commissioning of new industrial enterprises. Therefore, in 1938 it was finalized and about a dozen neighboring villages were included in the city limits, forming the Kirov, Petrovsky and Proletarsky districts of Donetsk (Ukraine).
Thus, by the beginning of the WWII, the population of Stalin was 50,000 people, there were 223 industrial enterprises, including union subordination, which produced 7% of coal, 5% of steel and 11% of coke from the total number of these types of products mined in the USSR.
Donetsk during the years of occupation
In July and August 1941, a partisan detachment and the 383rd mining division were formed in the city, which participated in its defense. However, at the end of October, formations of the Wehrmacht and parts of the Italian army entered Stalin. Thus, like all of Ukraine, Donetsk found itself in occupation. The "new authorities" first hastened to restore the work of mines and industrial enterprises, whose products were important for achieving victory in the war. At the same time, the Germans organized a ghetto for representatives of the Jewish community, who were subsequently destroyed and dumped into a 4-4 bis mine and a concentration camp for Soviet prisoners of war. There were also punitive detachments designed to suppress acts of disobedience to the occupation authorities. In particular, it is known that in the case of the murder of one German soldier, 100 were ordered to be shot from among the townspeople, regardless of sex and age. However, such measures did not give the result that the Nazis expected, and more than 20 partisan detachments and sabotage groups successfully inflicted huge damage on the enemy in Stalin.
The liberation of Stalin and the postwar years
September 8, 1943, as part of the Donbass operation, Soviet troops entered the city. Thus, the occupation of Stalin was completed, which lasted about 700 days. Almost immediately, work began to restore the industry that Donetsk has always been proud of. The history of the city in subsequent years is full of interesting events, mainly related to the commissioning of new mines, industrial enterprises and residential areas.
In 1961, it was decided to change the name of the city. By decision of the Supreme Council of the Ukrainian SSR, it became known as Donetsk, by the name of the Seversky Donets River. After 17 years, the city already had more than a million inhabitants, it became the fifth largest in the country. Significant changes were made to the map of Donetsk, on which several new microdistricts appeared.
History of the city as part of independent Ukraine
After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, in the Donetsk region for the first time they started talking about the formation of autonomy. However, the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Ukraine adopted in Kiev reassured the Russian-speaking population of the region, forcing to forget about the nationalist appeals, which from time to time were heard from Kiev. Thus, until 2014, the map of Donetsk and Donetsk region, more precisely, the borders of Eastern Ukraine with Russia, remained the same as during the existence of the Ukrainian SSR.
As part of the DNI
The unrest began after the well-known events of Euromaidan in Kiev. In the photo of Donetsk, taken from mid-March to the end of April 2014, you can see tens of thousands of protesters who participated in protests against the actions of the Kiev authorities and the appointment of new governors in the regions. In particular, on April 6, residents seized the building of the Regional Council of People’s Deputies, and the next day, Ukraine was the focus of world media attention. Donetsk became the capital of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic. In addition, the day of the referendum was fixed on the same day, at which residents were supposed to answer the question of the self-determination of the DPR. As a result of the will of the majority of residents, the sovereign Donetsk People’s Republic was proclaimed in Donetsk on May 12. This was followed by military operations involving heavy equipment and artillery. In particular, the city began to be constantly bombarded, its airport turned into an arena of heavy fighting, and a map of eastern Ukraine began to appear on television screens with marks indicating the clashes of Donbass militia fighters and Ukrainian security forces.
Today there is a ceasefire regime in the eastern regions of Ukraine, and there is hope that the inhabitants of Donetsk and the entire DPR will finally be able to return to peaceful life.