Kovel

Kovel (kō`vəl, Rus. kô`vĭl), Pol. Kowel, city (1989 pop. 67,000), NW Ukraine, on the Tura River. A rail junction and agriculture center, it has food and peat processing plants, railroad shops, and sewing, flax, and woodworking industries. First mentioned in the 14th cent., Kovel belonged to Lithuania and passed to Poland when the two states were united in 1569. The city was taken by Russia during the third partition of Poland in 1795. It was again under Polish rule from 1921 to 1945, when it was absorbed by the USSR.

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Kovel’ 

a city in Volyn’ Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, on the Tur’ia River (a tributary of the Pripiat’). A railroad junction. Population, 36,000 (1972). It has enterprises serving railroad transport, a wood-products combine, and a meat-packing combine. Other plants include a reinforced-concrete articles factory, a flax-processing plant, a creamery, a starch plant, a farm machinery plant, a mixed fodder plant, and a garment factory. There is also a medical school.

Kovel’ was first mentioned in the 14th century. In 1518, the town received “Magdeburg rights” (that is, a civic constitution modeled on that of Magdeburg). In 1564, Sigismund Augustus gave Kovel’ to Prince A. M. Kurbskii, who had fled from Russia. In 1795, Kovel’ was the district center of Volyn’ Province. Under the Treaty of Riga of 1921, Kovel’ was turned over to bourgeois Poland. In October 1939 the town became part of the Ukrainian SSR. It was occupied by the Nazis from June 28, 1941, until its liberation by the Soviet Army on July 7, 1944.