Dnepropetrovsk (redirected from Dnipropetrovs'k)

Dnepropetrovsk: see Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine.

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Dnepropetrovsk

a city in E central Ukraine on the Dnieper River: a major centre of the metallurgical industry. Pop.: 1 036 000 (2005 est.)

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Dnepropetrovsk 

(until 1926, Ekaterinoslav), a city; administrative center of Dnepropetrovsk Oblast, Ukrainian SSR. Port on the Dnieper. The main part of Dnepropetrovsk is located along the high right bank of the Dnieper, and the smaller part, including Amur-Nizhnedneprovsk Raion, on the left bank. The city is a railroad junction. Its population was 882,000 in 1971 (113,000 in 1897, 233,000 in 1926, and 660,000 in 1959). The growth of Dnepropetrovsk and its territorial connections with the surrounding regions created the Dnepropetrovsk-Dneprodzerzhinsk conurbation. With a population of 1.3 million, the conurbation stretches dozens of kilometers along the Dnieper and Samara rivers as far as the city of Novomoskovsk. Dnepropetrovsk is divided into six districts.

The city was founded in 1783, and its industrial development began with the construction of the Donbas-Krivoi Rog railroad in 1884. A blast furnace was put into operation at the Aleksandrovskii (now G. I. Petrovskii) Plant in 1887, and a pipe-rolling plant was built in 1889. A Marxist circle was founded in Dnepropetrovsk in 1890, and the Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class was founded in 1897. The union, whose organizers included I. V. Babushkin and P. A. Morozov, became the Ekaterinoslav Social Democratic Committee after the First Congress of the RSDLP (1898). Mass workers’ demonstrations occurred in the city in 1898, 1901, 1902, and 1903, and the workers of the city actively participated in the Revolution of 1905-07. They set up a soviet of workers’ deputies and a combat strike committee headed by G. I. Petrovskii. In October 1905 the committee led a general strike that turned into an armed uprising in December. The rebels occupied the workers’ district of Chechelevka and held it until Dec. 27, 1905. In 1912 the Bolshevik G. I. Petrovskii was elected a deputy to the Fourth State Duma as a representative of the city’s workers. Soviet power was established in the city on Dec. 29, 1917 (Jan. 11, 1918), and in 1926, Ekaterinoslav was renamed Dnepropetrovsk in honor of Petrovskii. During the Great Patriotic War (1941-45), Dnepropetrovsk was occupied by the fascist German invaders from Aug. 25, 1941, to Oct. 25, 1943. Destroyed during the occupation, it was reconstructed in the early postwar years.

Present-day Dnepropetrovsk is an important center of heavy industry in the coal and metallurgical region of the Ukrainian SSR. The main branches of industry are ferrous metallurgy, machine building, chemicals, and building materials. The city’s industrial development is based on a powerful energy system (the Dnieper and other district hydroelectric power plants, part of the Dnieper power system [Dneproenergo]), on the metal ores of the Krivoi Rog region, on Donbas and local coal, and on Shebelinka gas, as well as on the produce of the surrounding agricultural regions.

Many major enterprises have been built and rebuilt in the Soviet period; including the G. I. Petrovskii and Comintern metallurgical plants, the V. I. Lenin and K. Liebknecht pipe-rolling plants, and plants for the production of equipment for metallurgy, metal structural components, heavy presses, agricultural machines, electric engines, machine tools, radios, paper-making machines, and automobile tires. Dnepropetrovsk is also the site of enterprises of the building materials industry, the woodworking industry, the paper industry, the food-processing industry, and light industry, including leather footwear, knitted goods, and clothing.

The city was built in 1790 according to a plan by the architect I. E. Starov. Most of the early buildings are in the classical style (G. A. Potemkin’s palace, 1787-89, designed by I. E. Starov; the cathedral, 1830-35, designed by A. D. Zakharov). Late 19th- and early 20th-century buildings are in an eclectic style (the city hall and apartment buildings). The modern reconstruction of Dnepropetrovsk (Lenin Komsomol Square and K. Marx Avenue) created new residential districts, including the Vuz District (1959-65), Novomoskovsk District (1961-66), and Zapadnyi District (1969-71), as well as major public buildings. Dnepropetrovsk has a V. I. Lenin Monument, made of bronze and granite in 1957 by the sculptors M. K. Vronskii and A. P. Oleinik and the architect A. A. Sidorenko, and the monument to the heroic students, which was executed in 1968 by the sculptors A. S. Sytnik, K. V. Chekanev, and V. I. Shchedrova and the architect V. K. Neskromnyi.

Dnepropetrovsk is one of the major cultural centers of the Ukraine. Its educational establishments include eight institutions of higher learning (compared to one before the October Revolution), including a university, institutes of mining, metallurgy, chemical engineering, railroad engineering, and medicine, and 25 specialized secondary schools (mechanics and metallurgy, metallurgy, automation and telemechanics, and machine-building technicums). Dnepropetrovsk has a museum of history and local lore, an art museum, and four theaters, including the Ukrainian T. G. Shevchenko Theater and the Russian Gorky Theater.

REFERENCES

Shvidkovskii, O. A. Dnepropetrovsk. Moscow, 1960.
Shatrov, M. A. Gorod na trekh kholmakh: Kniga o starom Ekaterinoslave, 2nd ed. Dnepropetrovsk, 1969.
Shatrov, M. A. Stranitsy kamennoi knigi: 60 pamiatnykh mest Dnepropetrovska. Dnepropetrovsk, 1969.
Vatchenko, A. F., and G. I. Shevchenko. Dnepropetrovsk: Putevoditel’-spravochnik. Dnepropetrovsk, 1970.

L. M. KORETSKII and S. K. KILESSO