Monastyrskyi Island

Monastyrskyi Island (Ukrainian: Монастирський острів) is an island within the boundaries of the Sobornyi district of the Ukrainian city of Dnipro near the right bank of the Dnieper River.

Monastyrskyi Island
Native name:
Монастирський острів
Monastyrskyi Island with a church and steep cliffs
Geography
LocationDnieper River
Area0.4 km2 (0.15 sq mi)
Highest pointN/A
Administration
Ukraine
Dnipro
Demographics
Population0

It is covered with granite rocks to the west which gradually turns into a sandy spit in the east of the island.

Part of the island belongs to the Taras Shevchenko city park. The island is connected to the city by a pedestrian bridge in its northern part.

History

According to archeological finds, in the Paleolithic period (7—3 thousand Anno Domini) human settlements appear on the island.[1] In 1961 there were found several scraps and sharpener of ancient Stone Age by archaeologists.[2]

The island got its name in the ninth century because of an unconfirmed belief that in that century Byzantine monks founded a monastery on the island, which in 1240 was destroyed by the Mongol-Tatars.[3]

In 1747 Ukrainian Cossacks did build a monastery on the island.[3]

The first monument to the ukrainian political, scientific and artistical figure Taras Shevchenko (1814 – 1861) on the island appeared in the mid-1920s (the exact date has been lost).[4]

In the 1930s the island had an "allée of writers" where several busts of prominent Ukrainian and Russian writers were located, including a simple gypsum bust of Shevchenko.[4] These two monuments did not survive the heavy fighting in Dnipropetrovsk during World War II.[4]

A new monument to Shevchenko was opened in 1949, only the pedestal has survived from this monument.[4]

The main alley on the island in the 1950s was completed by a monument to Joseph Stalin in the middle of a large flowerbed.[4]

In 1958 a new monument to Shevchenko was installed on the island that was unveiled on 5 November 1959.[4][5] This monument is several times larger than its 1949 predecessor.[4] This 1949 monument was then reinstalled in the Shevchenko neighborhood in Dnipro's Samarskyi District where it was located until October 2007, when it was destroyed.[4] Since then, the 1959 monument has become one of the city's most recognized landmarks.[4]

There is also a memorial cross to the Byzantine monks, erected in 1994.[6]

In 1999 an Orthodox church of St. Nicholas was built on the northern part of the island.[3]

From 17 October 1929 until 24 November 2015 the island was officially named Komsomolsky Island (Ukrainian: Комсомольський острів), after the Komsomol political youth organization of the Soviet Union.[7][3][nb 1] It was renamed to its current name to comply with decommunization law.[7]

  • 2019 aerial photograph of Monastyrskyi Island
    2019 aerial photograph of Monastyrskyi Island
  • Monument to Taras Shevchenko on Monastyrskyi Island
    Monument to Taras Shevchenko on Monastyrskyi Island
  • Monastyrskyi Island beach
    Monastyrskyi Island beach
  • St. Nicholas church on Monastyrskyi Island
    St. Nicholas church on Monastyrskyi Island
  • Waterfall on one of the island's steep cliffs
    Waterfall on one of the island's steep cliffs

Notes
  1. Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union from 1920 until Ukraine declared its independence from the Soviet Union on 24 August 1991.[8]

References
  1. Yuri Pakhomenkov (2000). "History of Nadporizhe – Prydniprovye (from the first people to the 17th century)". gorod.dp.ua (in Ukrainian). Retrieved 16 October 2022.
  2. "Исследование памятников палеолита на территории Приднепровья (Study of Paleolithic monuments on the territory of the Dnieper region)". Dmytro Yavornytskyi National Historical Museum (in Russian). 12 June 2018. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 7 July 2019.
  3. Monastyrsky (Komsomolsky) island. Historical background, Dmytro Yavornytskyi National Historical Museum (in Ukrainian)
  4. Maxim Kuvan [in Ukrainian] (c. 2014). "Three Cobzar monuments in the park on bottom-up circles". gorod.dp.ua (in Ukrainian). Retrieved 2 November 2022.
  5. "В Днепропетровске есть подземное царство и "захоронен" Сталин?". kp.ua (in Russian). Retrieved 7 July 2019.
  6. "Памятный крест византийским монахам в Днепропетровске. Парковый комплекс имени Т. Г. Шевченко. – Путеводитель по Днепропетровcкой области". tourdnepr.com (in Russian). Retrieved 7 July 2019.
  7. In Dnipropetrovsk, 57 place names were "decommunized" – streets, island and subway, Ukrayinska Pravda (24 November 2015) (in Ukrainian)
  8. A History of Ukraine: The Land and Its Peoples by Paul Robert Magocsi, University of Toronto Press, 2010, ISBN 1442610212 (page 563/564 & 722/723)
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48°27′48″N 35°04′47″E

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