Kuty

Kuty ( _ua. Кути, German: "Kutten", Polish: "Kuty", Romanian: "Cuturi") is a town in Ukraine, on the Cheremosh river, located in the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast. It is notable as one of the historical centres and the namesake of a historical region of Pokuttya. Population is 4,272 (2001).

The town was first mentioned in 1469 as a village of Jan Odrowąż, the archbishop of Lviv and a personal advisor to several Polish kings. With time the settlement grew and in 1715 Jan Potocki, the voivod of Kiev granted it with a city charter. Two churches were also founded for the local Uniates and Armenians. Thanks to fast growth and the proximity to Bukovina, the town soon became a seat of starost of the land of Halych and one of the administrative centres of the Ruthenian Voivodship of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The town remained a personal property of the family of Potoccy until the partitions of Poland. In 1772, however, it fell under Austrian administration and on May 1, 1782 Kuty lost its town privileges. As a result growth was halted and Kuty remained a provincial town inhabitated mostly by Jewish and Armenian merchants, without much significance. In 1849 the town had roughly 3700 inhabitants, in 1880, 6300 and in late 1920s - 8000. Around that time the town was linked with the rest of Galicia by the Kołomyja-Czerniowce railroad. However, as both Galicia and Bukovyna were under Austrian rule, the town could not capiltalize on its proximity to the border.

After the collapse of the Central Powers in 1918 the town was briefly under control of the West Ukrainian People's Republic. However, soon it was seized by Romania and then passed to Poland. The town became the most important center of Armenian minority in Poland as well as one of the main border crossings between Poland and Romania.

It was there that the Polish president Ignacy Mościcki spent his last days in Poland before he crossed the border into exile during the Polish Defensive War of 1939. Until September 20, 1939 the town was defended by the Polish Army. Among the last soldiers to be killed by the Red Army in heavy fights for the bridge across the Cheremosh river was a notable Polish writer, Tadeusz Dołęga-Mostowicz. After Kuty was annexed by the USSR, the area was administered by Soviet Ukraine. Since 1991 it is a part of Ukraine.

Notable people

* Edmund Charaszkiewicz

Nearby towns

* Kosiv, Galicia
* Vyzhnytsia, Bukovyna

Further reading

* [http://www.polishroots.org/slownik/kuty.htm PolishRoots Geography&Maps] (the fifth entry)
* [http://www.ibiblio.org/yiddish/Places/Kuty/ A historical outline of the Jewish Community of Kuty]