Stryi

Stryi (Ukrainian: Стрий, IPA: [strɪi̯]; Polish: Stryj) is a city in Lviv Oblast, western Ukraine. It is located the left bank of the Stryi River, approximately 65 kilometres (40 mi) south of Lviv in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. It serves as the administrative center of Stryi Raion within the oblast. Stryi also hosts the administration of Stryi urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine.[1] Its population is approximately 59,425 (2022 estimate).[2]

For the river in western Ukraine, see Stryi (river).
Stryi
Стрий
City
Flag of Stryi
Flag
Coat of arms of Stryi
Coat of arms
Motto: 
Semper fidelis
Stryi is located in Lviv Oblast
Stryi
Stryi
Stryi is located in Ukraine
Stryi
Stryi
Coordinates: 49°15′22″N 23°51′1″E
Country Ukraine
Oblast Lviv Oblast
Raion Stryi Raion
Founded13th century
Magdeburg law1431
Government
 • MayorRoman Shramovyat
Area
 • Total16.95 km2 (6.54 sq mi)
Elevation
296 m (971 ft)
Population
 (2022)
 • Total59,425
 • Density3,500/km2 (9,100/sq mi)
Time zoneUTC+2 (EET)
 • Summer (DST)UTC+3 (EEST)
Postal code
82400
Area code+380-3245
Licence plateBC (before 2004: ТА,ТВ,ТН,ТС)
Websitehttp://stryi-rada.gov.ua/index.php

Name
Stryj postcard, 1915

The city takes its name from that of the river Stryi, a tributary of the Dniester.

The river's name is very old and means "stream".[3] Its etymology stems from the Indo-European root *sreu. [note 1] The area was inhabited by the White Croats and it has been established that name Horvat (Croat) is likewise of Iranian (Sarmatian) origin.

In different times the name was written differently, and in various old documents we can find such names: Stryg, Stry, Stryj, Stryjn, Stryjia, Strig, Strigenses, Stryi, Strey, Striig, Strya, Sthryensis, Sthrya, Stryei, and Stri. The inhabitants take pride in the fact that the city has managed to keep its original name over time.

History
Church of Our Lady Protectress
Relics of the blessed Josaphat Kotsylovsky
Magistrate of the Royal city of Stryi

Stryi was mentioned for the first time in 1385 (see: Red Ruthenia). Already then its territory was incorporated in the Kingdom of Poland after the decline of Ruthenian Kingdom. In 1387 the Polish king Jogaila gave the city as the present to his pro-Tsarist brother Švitrigaila. In 1431 it was given the Magdeburg Rights, and it was located in the Ruthenian Voivodeship, which from the 14th century until 1772 was a part of Poland.[4] The city was governed by the local magistrate headed by a burgomaster.

Its geographical location had a positive influence on its development and growth. The city became a flourishing trade center being located on the major trade route between Halych and Lviv and especially during the 15th to 16th century due to support from the Polish king John III Sobieski. It also was destroyed during one of the Tatars raids in 1523. The city was later rebuilt and included a castle for defense purposes which later in the 18th century was demounted by the Austrian authorities. In 1634 the city was destroyed once again by another Tatar raid. In times of the Khmelnytsky Uprising the Cossack Hetmanate army was reinforced here by the Hungarian regiments of prince Rákóczi of Transylvania. After the partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772 the city became a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (see: Partitions of Poland). During the revolutionary times in the empire the Ruthenian Council was created in the city in 1848. During 1872-1875 the city was connected to a railroad network. Its first wooden train station was built in 1875. At this time it started to industrialize. Among the most influencing citizens of the city were Doctor Yevhen Olesnytsky, Father Oleksa Bobykevych, and Father O.Nyzhankivsky.

Stryj tombs of Ostap Nyzhankivskyj (1862-1919) and Helen Nyzhankivskyj (1868-1927)

In 1886 a large fire burned almost the entire city to the ground. From October 1914 to May 1915 Stryi was occupied by the Russian Empire. In 1915 a bloody World War I battle took place in the Carpathian Mountains, around the peak of Zwinin (992 metres above sea level), a few kilometres south of Stryi in which some 33,000 Russian soldiers perished.

On November 1, 1918, an armed uprising took place in the city, after which it became a part of the West Ukrainian People's Republic. Stryi was passed to Poland in May 1919, and became part of Poland first by the Warsaw treaty of 1920 and then the Riga Peace treaty of 1921. In 1939, following the Soviet Union's invasion of eastern Poland, Stryi became part of the Ukrainian SSR. (see: Polish September Campaign). In interbellum Poland, it was the capital of the Stryj County (area 2,081 square kilometres (803 sq mi), pop. 152,600) of the Stanisławów Voivodeship. According to the Polish census of 1931, its population consisted of 35.6% Jews, 34.5% Poles, 28% Ukrainians and 1.6% Germans.

Stryi Air Base

In July 1941 the Nazis conquered Stryi. In a short time, Ukrainians and local Poles conducted a pogrom in the Jews of the settlement, killing about 300 people. Between then and August, 1943, the Nazis, with the assistance of the Ukrainian police, murdered most of the town's 11,000 Jews in a nearby forest or rounded them up to be sent to Belzec extermination camp.[5] Of a prewar population of 11,000, only a few Jews survived.

During the Cold War the town was home to Stryy Air Base.

Stryi is thought to have been the first city in Ukraine to display the blue-over-yellow Ukrainian national flag, when it was hoisted at the Stryi city hall on 14 March 1990, before the December 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.

Recent history

On April 9, 2009, the Lviv Oblast council decided to remove a Soviet-era statue to the Red Army soldier that was installed by the local Communist regime in the city of Stryi and move it to a museum of the Soviet totalitarianism, saying that the statue carries no historical or cultural value to the city.

Until 18 July 2020, Stryi was incorporated as a city of oblast significance and served as the administrative center of Stryi Raion even though it did not belong to the raion. In July 2020, as part of the administrative reform of Ukraine, which reduced the number of raions of Lviv Oblast to seven, the city of Stryi was merged into Stryi Raion.[6][7]

Population
Historical population
YearPop.±%
18438,000—    
188012,600+57.5%
190022,600+79.4%
191027,400+21.2%
193130,500+11.3%
195936,200+18.7%
YearPop.±%
197048,000+32.6%
197655,000+14.6%
198967,000+21.8%
200163,000−6.0%
200661,700−2.1%

Notable people

Notable people born in Stryi include the following:

Twin towns – sister cities
See also: List of twin towns and sister cities in Ukraine

Stryi is twinned with:[8]

Other forms of cooperation

Notes
  1. Other words with the same root are found in modern Ukrainian (струм, струя), Polish (struga, strumień), Irish Celtic (sruami), German (Strom, "large river"), Persian (struth, "river"), Sanskrit स्रवति sravati ("to flow"), Latvian (straume), Lithuanian (sriatas, strautas, "stream", "a thing that flows"), and other languages. The word is possibly related to the Styr, Ossetian for "big", and there is also a Styr River in Ukraine.

Sources
  1. "Стрыйская городская громада" (in Russian). Портал об'єднаних громад України.
  2. Чисельність наявного населення України на 1 січня 2022 [Number of Present Population of Ukraine, as of January 1, 2022] (PDF) (in Ukrainian and English). Kyiv: State Statistics Service of Ukraine. Archived (PDF) from the original on 4 July 2022.
  3. From the Stryi-city unofficial website (in Ukrainian)
  4. "History of Stryi". stryy.com.ua. 2008-06-01.
  5. Megargee, Geoffrey (2012). Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos. Bloomington, Indiana: University of Indiana Press. p. Volume II, 834–836. ISBN 978-0-253-35599-7.
  6. "Про утворення та ліквідацію районів. Постанова Верховної Ради України № 807-ІХ". Голос України (in Ukrainian). 2020-07-18. Retrieved 2020-10-03.
  7. "Нові райони: карти + склад" (in Ukrainian). Міністерство розвитку громад та територій України.
  8. "Міста-побратими міста Стрия". stryi-rada.gov.ua (in Ukrainian). Stryi. Retrieved 2020-03-30.
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49°15′N 23°51′E

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