Uman

Uman was first mentioned in historical documents in 1616, when it was under Polish rule.[4] It was part of the Bracław Voivodeship of the Lesser Poland Province of the Polish Crown. Its role at this time was as a defensive fort to withstand Tatar raids, containing a prominent Cossack regiment that was stationed within the town. In 1648 it was taken from the Poles by Ivan Hanzha, colonel to Cossack leader Bohdan Khmelnytsky, and Uman was converted to the administrative center of cossack regiment for the region.[4]

Poland retook Uman in 1667, after which the town was deserted by many of its residents who fled eastward to Left-bank Ukraine.[4] From 1670–1674, Uman was a residence to the Hetman of right-bank Ukraine.. It was part of Ottoman Empire between 1672 and 1699.

Under the ownership of the Potocki family of Polish nobles (1726–1832) Uman grew in economic and cultural importance. A Basilian monastery and school were established in this time.[4]

The Uman region was site of haidamaky uprisings in 1734, 1750, and 1768.[4] Notably during the latter, Cossack rebels Maksym Zalizniak and Ivan Gonta captured Uman during the Koliyivshchyna uprising against Polish rule. During this revolt, a massacre took place against Jews, Poles and Ukrainian Uniates.[4] On the very first day large numbers of Ukrainians deserted the ranks of Polish forces and joined the rebels when the city was surrounded. Thousands from the surrounding areas fled to the Cossack garrison in Uman for protection. The military commander of Uman, Mladanovich, betrayed the city's Jews and allowed the pursuing Cossacks in, in exchange for clemency towards the Polish population. In the span of three days an estimated 20,000 Poles and Jews were slain with extreme cruelty, according to numerous Polish sources, with one source[5] giving an estimate of 2,000 casualties.

With the 1793 Second Partition of Poland, Uman became part of the Russian Empire and a number of aristocratic residences were built there. In 1795 Uman became a povit/uezd center in Voznesensk Governorate, and in 1797, in Kyiv Governorate.[4]

Into the 20th century, Uman was linked by rail to Kyiv and Odesa, leading to rapid development of its industrial sector.[4] Its population grew from 10,100 in 1860 to 29,900 in 1900 and over 50,000 in 1914.[4] According to the Russian census of 1897, Uman with a population of 31,016 was the second largest city of Podolia after Kamianets-Podilskyi.

In 1941, the Battle of Uman took place in the vicinity of the town, where the German army encircled Soviet positions. Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini visited Uman in 1941. Uman was occupied by German forces from August 1, 1941, to March 10, 1944.

In January 1989 the population was 90,596 people.[6][7]

As of 2011, the city has optical and farm-machinery plants, a cannery, a brewery, a vitamin factory, a sewing factory, a footwear factory, and other industrial enterprises. The main architectural monuments are the catacombs of the old fortress, the Basilian monastery (1764), the city hall (1780–1782), the Dormition Roman Catholic church in the Classicist style (1826), and 19th-century trading stalls.[4]

Sofiyivsky Park in Uman

Uman's landmark is a famous park complex, Sofiyivka (Ukrainian: Софiївка; Polish: Zofiówka), founded in 1796 by Count Stanisław Szczęsny Potocki, a Polish noble, who named it for his wife Sofia. The park features a number of waterfalls and narrow, arching stone bridges crossing the streams and scenic ravines.

Until 18 July 2020, Uman was designated as a city of oblast significance and did not belong to Uman 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 Cherkasy Oblast to four, the city was merged into Uman Raion.[8][9]

During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Uman was hit by Russian artillery on 24 February 2022 which led to the death of a cyclist. The incident was caught on camera.[10] Another Russian missile strike on 28 April 2023 hit a residential building in the city, killing at least 23 people including 6 children and injuring dozens more.[11][12] The airstrike was quickly followed by a Telegram post by the Russian Ministry of Defense of an image of a missile launch with the caption "right on target".[13]

Distribution of the population by native language according to the 2001 census:[14]

The tomb of Nachman of Breslov

Every Rosh Hashana, there is a major pilgrimage by tens of thousands of Hasidim and others from around the world to the burial site of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, located on the former site of the Jewish cemetery in a rebuilt synagogue.[16] Rebbe Nachman Me'Uman spent the last five months of his life in Uman,[17] and specifically requested to be buried there. As believed by the Breslov Hasidim, before his death he solemnly promised to intercede on behalf of anyone who would come to pray on his grave on Rosh Hashana, "be he the worst of sinners"; thus, a pilgrimage to this grave provides the best chance of getting unscathed through the stern judgement which, according to Jewish faith, God passes everybody on Yom Kippur.[18]

The Rosh Hashana pilgrimage dates back to 1811, when the Rebbe's foremost disciple, Nathan of Breslov, organized the first such pilgrimage on the Rosh Hashana after the Rebbe's death. The annual pilgrimage attracted hundreds of Hasidic Jews from Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Poland throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, until the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 sealed the border between Russia and Poland. A handful of Soviet Hasidic Jews continued to make the pilgrimage clandestinely; some were discovered by the KGB and exiled to Siberia, where they died.

The pilgrimage ceased during World War II and resumed on a drastically smaller scale in 1948. From the 1960s until end of the Cold War in 1989, several hundred American and Israeli Hasidic Jews made their way to Uman, both legally and illegally, to pray at the grave of Rebbe Nachman. In 1988, the Soviets allowed 250 men to visit the Rebbe's grave for Rosh Hashana. In 1989, over 1,000 Hasidic Jews gathered in Uman for Rosh Hashana 1989. In 1990, 2,000 attended.[15][19] In 2008, attendance reached 25,000 men and boys.[20] In 2018, over 30,000 Jews made the Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage to Uman.[21]

In the mid-2010s, Israelis from many sectors of Israel's Ultra-Orthodox community, including many Mizrahi Jewish rabbis, make the pilgrimage. The event brings together a wide variety of Orthodox society, from Yemenite yeshiva students, to former Israeli prison inmates, and American hippies.[22] In 2022, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the number of pilgrims coming to Uman for Jewish New Year was approximately 10,000, or about one-third of the number in 2021.[23]

The annual pilgrimage is regarded as Uman's main economic industry.[24]

Personnel of Ben Gurion airport, other Israeli tourists and El Al pilots have complained about pilgrims abusing drugs and hard liquor and harassing fellow passengers to Ukraine.[25][26] Common complaints from Uman residents relate to the loud noise, singing, rowdiness, widespread drinking, drug use, and fighting the pilgrims cause.[27] Locals have also complained about the cordoning off of neighborhoods by police and the internal trade that has developed among pilgrims.[26]

Heavy alcoholic drinking and cannabis smoking is prevalent amongst the pilgrims, many of them young men, with some describing it as a party event.[28] Participants have been seen taking LSD on the pilgrimage.[22] Dancing in the streets to trance music is common and the event has been likened to the Burning Man festival.[24]

The pilgrimage has led to several clashes over the years. In September 2010, several cases of violence and riots broke out among pilgrims after members of the Evangelical Church arrived from Odesa to preach their faith, leading to 10 pilgrims being deported.[29] A few days later, ten pilgrims were deported back to Israel and banned from Ukraine for five years for disrupting public order and causing bodily harm to citizens.[29] At the end of September 2010, an Israeli was stabbed and killed in an altercation that broke out following the vandalism of a car owned by Jews. Allegedly, his stabbing was a retaliation for the stabbing and wounding of a local (Ukrainian) by an Israeli.[30][31]

In September 2013, three Israeli police officers were deported after getting involved in a bar brawl during the Rosh Hashanah gathering in Uman.[32] In the 2014 pilgrimage, organizers were fined $15,000 by the city of Uman for illegally operating a "tent city" to house 2,500 pilgrims.[33] The controversy is the subject of the 2015 documentary film, The Dybbuk. A Tale of Wandering Souls.[34] In 2015, pilgrims staying in a residential tower began tossing rocks and bottles from above onto a car, and when at one point a local policeman's hat was knocked off, police with German Shepherds were called to scatter the crowd.[27]

In 2010, an Israeli police officer sent to monitor security commented "people get drunk and act crazy in the streets, go out to pubs and hit on women and harass them. They do all types of things that they would never do in Israel, but they come out here and feel like they can do it."[35] Anshel Pfeffer reported for Haaretz in 2018 that an Israeli diplomat told him that "roughly only half of those who come to Uman do so for religious reasons, and the other half are simply the dregs who come to get drunk, take drugs and visit prostitutes," Pfeffer himself did not find any evidence of prostitution in Uman.[36]