A snapshot of Kaniv

Kaniv was founded sometime in the tenth century by Yaroslav the Wise. Initially it was part of the Kievan Rus, but since the fourteenth century it has been ruled in turn by Lithuania, Ottoman Turks, Poland and Russia. Apart from a few months in 1918, which were blighted by warring factions, Ukraine only became an independent nation in 1991.
In the last century Kaniv saw battles for its territory during WWI and WWII. In WWI the city remained behind Russian lines, but the Battle of Kaniv (or Kaniów in Polish), when rebelling Polish forces attacked their German masters from the rear, was fought just twenty miles away. In WWII Kaniv was occupied on 15th August 1941 by the invading German army and suffered atrocities before being liberated on 31st January 1944.

Today Kaniv is a culturally rich town on the banks of the River Dnieper in the Cherkasy oblast (region) with a population of around 25,000. Kaniv is renowned, because it is the burial site of Taras Schevchenko, Ukraine’s greatest poet, artist, humanist and national hero. In 1861 he was buried on Chernecha Hora (Monk’s Hill, since renamed Taras Hill) to grant his wish in his famous poem “My Testament”, the first verse of which, according to a translation by E.L. Voynich, is as follows:

Dig my grave and raise my barrow
By the Dnieper-side
In Ukraina, my own land,
A fair land and wide.
I will lie and watch the cornfields,
Listen through the years
To the river voices roaring,
Roaring in my ears.

Horror is rife in the history of the city. In 1678 Archimandrate Makarius, later St. Makarius of Kaniv, was tortured to death by invading Tatars and Turks for refusing to hand over church treasures. Another hero, Oleksa Hirnyk, committed suicide in 1978 by setting fire to himself on Chernecha Hora in protest against the suppression of the Ukrainian language by the Soviet authorities.

Renowned children's writer, Arkady Gaidar, acted as a war correspondent in WWII (or The Great Patriotic War as it is known in the former Soviet bloc). In the autumn of 1941, when cut off by the enemy forces, he joined a group of partisans as a machine gunner, but within weeks soon died in action. He was buried by a railway track, but his remains were taken to Kaniv for reburial after the war.

A key industry of Kaniv is the large hydro-electric power plant, situated at the Kaniv Reservoir on the River Dnieper. Other industries include several food processing plants.

Not far from Kaniv is the important Kaniv Nature Reserve, the habitat of many species of flora and fauna, including some endangered species listed in the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List.

For more information and views of Kaniv, click on Kaniv Picture Gallery