Kozelets (redirected from Koselets')

Kozelets 

an urban-type settlement; administrative center of Kozelets Raion, Chernigov oblast, the Ukrainian SSR. Located on the Oster River in the Dnieper Basin, it is 40 km from the Bobrovitsy Railroad station (on the Kiev-Nezhin Line). There is a flax mill, a brickyard, and a creamery in Kozelets. Peat is extracted near the settlement. A veterinary technicum is located in Kozelets.

The time of Kozelets’ founding is unknown. However, at the beginning of the 17th century the settlement was an important trading center. After the liberation of the Left-bank Ukraine by peasant-cossack troops, the settlement was the headquarters for the Kozelets cossack sotnia (military unit) from 1648 to 1708. From 1708 to 1781 it was the administrative center for the Kiev regiment. The settlement became the center of Kozelets District of the Kiev vice-gerency in 1782. In 1797 it became part of Malorossiia Province and in 1802, part of Chernigov Province. Soviet power was established in the settlement in January 1918.

Many architectural monuments have been preserved in Kozelets, including the Rozhdestva Bogoroditsy Cathedral (1751–63), a Ukrainian baroque structure that was probably built by the architects V. V. Rastrelli, A. V. Kvasov, and I. G. Grigorovich-Barskii. Its bell tower dates from 1766–70. The magistrate’s building is representative of early classicism (c. 1756; architects, I. G. Grigorovich-Barskii, and A. V. Kvasov). Also of interest are the remains of a country estate in Pokorshchina, including the Church of St. Nicholas (1745), the park, and the fortified stone storehouse (18th century). Among the buildings erected during the Soviet period are the bus station (1967; architect Iu. P. II’chenko; murals by T. A. Liashchuk and A. I. Semenko), the motion-picture theater (1969–70), and the Palace of Culture (1967–71).

REFERENCE

Tsapenko, M. Po ravninam Desny i Seima, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1970. Pages 104–20.