Drohobych

Drohobych (Дрогобич, ; Drohobycz ; דראָהאָבּיטש) is a city in the south of Lviv Oblast, Ukraine. It is the administrative center of Drohobych Raion and hosts the administration of Drohobych urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. In 1939–1941 and 1944–1959 it was the center of Drohobych Oblast.

Drohobych was founded at the end of the eleventh century as an important trading post and transport node between Kyiv Rus' and the lands to the West of Rus'. After extinction of the local Ruthenian dynasty and subsequent incorporation of the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia into the Polish Kingdom by 1349, from the fifteenth century the city developer as a mercantile and saltworks centre. Drohobych became part of the Habsburg Empire in 1772 after the first partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the mid-nineteenth century it became Europe's largest oil extraction center, which significantly contributed to its rapid development. In the renascent, interwar Poland it was the center of a county within the Lwów Voivodeship. As an outcome of World War II, the city was incorporated into the Ukrainian part of the Soviet Union, which in 1991 became the independent Ukraine.

The city was the birthplace of such well-known personalities as Elisabeth Bergner, Yuriy Drohobych (Kotermak), Ivan Franko and Bruno Schulz. The city has several oil refineries. The Drohobych saltworks are considered to be the oldest in Europe. The estimated population of Drohobych is, making it the second largest city in Lviv Oblast.

History
While there are only legendary accounts of it, Drohobych probably existed in the Kievan Rus' period. According to a legend, there was a settlement, called Bych, of salt-traders. When Bych was destroyed in a Cumanian raid, survivors rebuilt the settlement in a nearby location under its current name which means a Second Bych. In the time of Kievan Rus', the Tustan fortress was built near Drohobych. However, scholars perceive this legend with skepticism, pointing out that Drohobych is a Polish pronunciation of Dorogobuzh, a common East Slavic toponym applied to three different towns in Kievan Rus'.

The city was first mentioned in 1387 in the municipal records of Lviv, in connection with a man named Martin (or Marcin) of Drohobych. Furthermore, the same chronicler's List of all Ruthenian cities, the farther and the near ones in Voskresensky Chronicle (dated 1377–82) mentions Другабець (Druhabets') among other cities in Volhynia that existed at the same time such as Холмъ (Kholm), Лвовъ Великій (Lviv the Great).

In 1392 Polish king Vladislav II ordered the construction of the first Roman Catholic municipal parish church (Kosciół farny), using the foundations of older Ruthenian buildings. In the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the city was the center of large rural starostvo (county within the Ruthenian Voivodeship).

Drohobych received Magdeburg rights some time in the 15th century (sources differ as to the exact year, some giving 1422 or 1460, or 1496 but in 1506 the rights were confirmed by King Alexander the Jagiellonian). The salt industry was significant in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. From the early seventeenth century, a Ukrainian Catholic brotherhood existed in the city. In 1648, during the Khmelnytsky Uprising, the Cossacks stormed the city and its cathedral. Most of the local Poles, as well as the Greek Catholics and the Jews, were murdered at the time, while some managed to survive in the Bell tower not taken in the raid. The 1772 partition of Poland gave the city to the Habsburg monarchy. In the 19th century, significant oil resources were discovered in the area, making the city an important center of the oil and natural gas industries.

After World War I, the area became part of the short-lived independent West Ukrainian People's Republic (ZUNR). The ZUNR was taken over by the Second Polish Republic after the Polish–Ukrainian War and Drohobych became part of the Lwów Voivodeship in 1919. In 1928 the still extant Ukrainian private gymnasium (academically oriented secondary school) opened in the center of the city. The population reached some 40,000 in the late 1920s, and its oil refinery at Polmin became one of the biggest in Europe, employing 800 people. Numerous visitors came there to view the wooden Greek Catholic churches, among them the Church of St. Yur, which was regarded as the most beautiful such construction in the Second Polish Republic, with frescoes from 1691. Drohobych was also a major sports center (see: Junak Drohobycz).

In September 1939, after the German and Soviet invasion of Poland and according to the Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement, the city was annexed to Soviet Ukraine. After the invasion Nazi Germany wanted to incorporate the city into its General Government due to its oil fields, but the USSR refused and annexed it. In Soviet Ukraine, Drohobych became the center of the Drohobych Oblast (region). Its local Polish boy scouts created the White Couriers organization, which in late 1939 and early 1940 smuggled hundreds of people from the Soviet Union to Hungary across the Soviet-Hungarian border in the Carpathian Mountains. In early July 1941, during the first weeks of the Nazi invasion of the USSR, the city was occupied by Nazi Germany.

Pre-war Drohobych had a significant Jewish community of about 15,000 people, 40% of the total population. Immediately after the Germans entered the city, Ukrainian nationalists started a pogrom which lasted for three days, supported by the Wehrmacht. During 1942 there were several selections, deportations, and murders in the streets, again led by German troops and Ukrainian Auxiliary Police. In October 1942, Drohobych ghetto was established with approximately 10,000 prisoners, including Jews brought from neighboring localities. In June 1943, the German administration and troops liquidated the ghetto. Only 800 Jews from Drohobych survived. On 6 August 1944, the German occupation ended and the Red Army entered the city. Despite the large Jewish population prior to the war, a current resident has stated that he was one of only two Jews who came back to his village to live after 1945. After the war, the city remained an oblast center until the Drohobych Oblast was incorporated into the Lviv Oblast in 1959. In Soviet times, Drohobych became an important industrial center of Western Ukraine, with highly developed oil-refining, machine building, woodworking, food, and light industries.

Until 18 July 2020, Drohobych was designated as a city of oblast significance and belonged to Drohobych Municipality but not to Drohobych Raion, even though it was the center of the raion. As part of the administrative reform of Ukraine which reduced the number of raions of Lviv Oblast to seven, Drohobych Municipality was merged into Drohobych Raion.

Demographics
The population of Drohobych over the years was:
 * 1931 – 32,300
 * 1959 – 42,000
 * 1978 – 65,998
 * 1989 – 77,571
 * 2001 – 79,119
 * 2010 – 78,368
 * 2022 – 73,682

Drohobych district
In 1931, the total population of the Drohobych Raion was 194,456, distributed among various languages:
 * Polish: 91,935 (47.3%)
 * Ukrainian: 79,214 (40.7%)
 * Yiddish: 20,484 (10.5%)

In January 2007, the total population of the metropolitan area was over 103,000 inhabitants.

Economy
Industries currently based in the city include saltworks, oil-refineries, chemicals, machinery, metallurgy, and food processing. Drohobych has rich salt deposits and for that reason salt is one of the most popular symbols of the city and is depicted on its emblem.

Universities

 * Drohobych State Pedagogical University of Ivan Franko

Colleges

 * Drohobych Mechanical Technological College
 * Drohobych Petroleum and Gas College

Sport
The city was home to one of Poland's best pre-war football clubs; Junak Drohobycz. It was disbanded in 1939 due to the Soviet invasion of Poland.

Halychyna Drohobych, founded in 1989 as Naftovyk Drohobych currently represents the city.

Sights

 * St. George's Church (c. 1500)
 * St. Bartholomew Church (1392–16th century)
 * its bell tower, former castle tower (late 13th century and 15th century)
 * Ascension Church (late 15th century)
 * Holy Cross Church (early 16th century)
 * Choral Synagogue (1842–1865)
 * Progressive Synagogue
 * Town Hall (1920s)
 * St. Peter's and Paul's Monastery
 * Drohobych salt plant (in continuous operation since at least 1390; buildings of 19th–20th centuries)
 * Drohobych Museum

Politics

 * Zenon Kossak, Ukrainian military and political leader (born here)
 * Andriy Melnyk, Ukrainian military and political leader (born near Drohobych)
 * David Horowitz (economist), Israeli economist and the first Governor of the Bank of Israel.
 * Leon Reich (1879–1929), lawyer and member of the Sejm of Poland (born here)

Arts

 * Elisabeth Bergner, Oscar-nominated Austrian-German stage and screen actress
 * Ivan Franko, Ukrainian poet and writer, born in Nahuievychi, near Drohobych
 * Irene Frisch, Jewish-Polish writer and memoirist
 * Leopold Gottlieb, Jewish-Polish painter
 * Maurycy Gottlieb, Jewish-Polish painter
 * Diana Reiter, Jewish-Polish architect, victim of Holocaust
 * Ephraim Moses Lilien, Jewish-Zionist painter
 * Alfred Schreyer, Jewish-Polish vocalist and violinist
 * Bruno Schulz, Polish-Jewish writer, graphic artist, and literary critic
 * Kazimierz Wierzyński, Polish poet and writer

Other fields

 * Tadeusz Chciuk-Celt, Polish war hero
 * Yuriy Drohobych, first doctor of medicine in Ukraine, 1481–1482 rector of the University of Bologna
 * Yaroslav Popovych, cyclist (born here)
 * Józef Schreier, Polish-Jewish mathematician
 * Viktor Vekselberg, Russian oligarch

Twin towns and sister cities
Drohobych is twinned with: