Kirovohrad Oblast

Kirovohrad Oblast (Кіровоградська область), also known as Kirovohradshchyna (Кіровоградщина), is an oblast (region) in central Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Kropyvnytskyi. Its population is It is Ukraine's second least populated oblast, behind Chernivtsi.

In 2019, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine approved the change of the oblast's name to Kropyvnytskyi Oblast (Кропивницька область, unofficially Kropyvnychchyna (Кропивниччина)). The change is not yet implemented. The largest cities of the region are Kropyvnytskyi, Oleksandriia, Znamianka and Svitlovodsk.

Geography
The area of the province is 24600 km2.

The city of Dobrovelychkivka is the geographical center of Ukraine.

Most of the region is located within historic Right-bank Ukraine and Zaporizhzhia, and the western outskirts are part of historic Podolia.

History
The lands of the modern Kirovohrad Oblast were first inhabited by Scythians. In the Middle Ages, during the time of Kyivan Rus', the East Slavic tribe of Ulichis lived here. After the liberation of the former Kyivan Rus' from the Tatars in the Battle of Blue Waters and the unification of the principalities of Kyiv, Pereyaslav, and Chernihiv with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, there was a need to protect the southeastern borders from attacks by the Crimean Khanate and Moscovy - states that were formed after the collapse of the Golden Horde at the end of the 15th century. For this, Dmytro Vyshnevetsky founded the first Zaporozhian Sich on the island of Khortytsia, thus the Ukrainian Cossacs appeared. On the territory of the modern Kirovohrad region the Zaporozhians founded many villages. From 1569, the territory formed of the Kingdom of Poland within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

These lands were under the rule of the Ukrainian Cossacks of Hetmanate and Zaporozhian Sich from XV to XVIII century.

As a result of the destruction of Ukrainian Cossacks and the enslavement of Ukrainians by the Russian government at the end of the 18th century, these lands came under the direct power of Russia. In 1752, the territory of New Serbia was founded with the capital in Novomyrhorod.

In the 1800s, majority of the landed was owned by the noble Skarżyński family. They played a large role in the development of the region. An emphasis was placed on the development of its agriculture and the Skarzynskis opened a school in Migeya dedicated to this.

The oblast was created as part of the Ukrainian SSR on January 10, 1939 out of the northern raions of Mykolaiv Oblast. Before establishment, its territory was part of Kherson Governorate (most of it) and Podolia Governorate (smaller portion) until 1925. Earlier before occupation of Ukraine in 1920s, in 1918 there were plans to introduce own Ukrainian administrative territorial division with territory of modern Kirovohrad Oblast being split between lands of Nyz (Lower land), Pobozhia (Boh land), and Cherkasy.

During the Soviet repressions, over 40,000 residents of the region were killed.

In 1954, the oblast lost some raions to the newly created Cherkasy Oblast, but later that year received its western raions from the Odesa Oblast.

Between 1939 and 2016, the oblast administrative center, Kropyvnytskyi, was called Kirovohrad and was named after the First Secretary of the Leningrad City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Sergei Kirov. Due to decommunization laws (on 14 July 2016) the name of the city was changed to Kropyvnytskyi. Kirovohrad Oblast was not renamed because as such it is mentioned in the Constitution of Ukraine, and the Oblast can only be renamed by a constitutional amendment by the Verkhovna Rada.

On 20 June 2018, the Committee on State Building, Regional Policy and Local Self-Government of the Ukrainian parliament backed the proposal to rename Kirovohrad Oblast to Kropyvnytskyi Oblast. In February 2019, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine declared constitutional the bill on renaming Kirovohrad Oblast to Kropyvnytskyi Oblast. The renaming was supported by the local Oblast Council in March 2021. The process then stalled in the parliament, with the oblast council asking the Verkhovna Rada to speed up the process in September 2022.

Points of interest
The following sites were nominated for the Seven Wonders of Ukraine: The oblast also has a number of archaeological sites, such as Nebelivka site and Melgunov Kurgan.
 * Khutir Nadiia, outskirts of Mykolaivka village

Administrative divisions


Before the July 2020 reform, Kirovohrad Oblast was administratively subdivided into 21 raions (districts) as well as 4 cities (municipalities) which were directly subordinate to the oblast government: Oleksandriia, Svitlovodsk, Znamianka, and the administrative center of the oblast, Kropyvnytskyi.

Language
According to the 2001 Ukrainian census, Ukrainian was the mother tongue of 88.9% of the population, for 10.0% it was Russian, and for 1.1% it was another language.

According to a survey "Is the language (ir)relevant?" ("Мова (не) на часі?"), which took place in Kirovohrad Oblast from 12 to 22 October 2023, 96.7% of respondents named Ukrainian as their mother tongue, while 2.6% named Russian as their mother tongue. In everyday life, 66.4% of respondents spoke Ukrainian, 29.4% spoke Surzhyk, and 3.4% spoke Russian.

Age structure

 * 0-14 years: 14.3% (male 72,646/female 68,970)
 * 15-64 years: 68.7% (male 324,698/female 355,058)
 * 65 years and over: 17.0% (male 55,718/female 111,666) (2013 official)

Median age

 * total: 41.2 years
 * male: 37.7 years
 * female: 44.5 years (2013 official)

Nomenclature
Most of Ukraine's oblasts are named after their capital cities, officially referred to as "oblast centers" (обласний центр, translit. oblasnyi tsentr). The name of each oblast is a relative adjective, formed by adding a feminine suffix to the name of the respective center city: Kirovohrad was the former name of the center of the Kirovohrads’ka oblast’ (Kirovohrad Oblast). Most oblasts are also sometimes referred to in a feminine noun form, following the convention of traditional regional place names, ending with the suffix "-shchyna", as is the case with the Kirovohrad Oblast, Kirovohradshchyna.

Facts

 * Berestuvate Lake in the Black Forest near the Znamianka is one of the top 7 mystical places of Ukraine
 * It was in the territory of the modern Kirovohrad Oblast that Semen Klymovsky, the author of a famous folk song "The Cossack Rode beyond the Danube" died