1538–1812: Ottoman–Polish–Moldavian Borderland

1538–1600: Ottoman power and an international market town

Sultan Süleyman I’s campaign in 1538 strengthened Ottoman authority over Moldavia, whose rulers continued to govern under Ottoman overlordship. Khotyn remained a fortress and trading town. The French traveler François de Pavie described its market in 1585.

1600–1711: Polish–Ottoman conflict and the fortress city

The battles of 1621 and 1673 made Khotyn famous across Europe. Polish-Lithuanian, Ottoman, Cossack, and allied armies fought for the Dniester frontier. Repeated campaigns damaged the town and interrupted trade, while garrisons required food, transport, and supplies.

Early eighteenth century: The Khotyn raya

In the early eighteenth century, the Ottomans brought Khotyn and its surrounding district under direct administration. This fortress district was called a raya, also spelled raia. Its enlarged defenses and garrison supported a market drawing people from Moldavia, Podolia, and neighboring regions.

By 1742, documents name Jewish merchants associated with the district.

29 July 1742: Avram and Boroh of the Khotyn raya

A Moldavian order dated 29 July 1742 names the Jewish merchants Avram and Boroh of the Khotyn district. Their names survive in the documents published by historian Nicolae Iorga, offering a glimpse of individual Jewish traders on the Ottoman–Moldavian frontier.

1763–1774: War, markets, and the first substantial Jewish list

Descriptions from the 1760s portray Khotyn as a busy Ottoman fortress and market. The Russo-Ottoman War of 1768–1774 brought renewed fighting. A published transcription of the 1774 fiscal census lists fifty-nine Jewish entries for the town.

The census identifies taxpayers by given name and, in many cases, a patronymic, meaning a name derived from their father’s name. Other identifiers include places of origin, occupations, kinship terms, and nicknames. These entries offer early details about individual Jewish households.

1774–1792: Migration on a militarized border

The historian Emre Mutlu’s study of late-eighteenth-century migration describes Ottoman efforts to repopulate, supply, and stabilize the Khotyn frontier. Jewish merchants and artisans moved through the region alongside villagers and displaced families.

The siege of 1788 brought another change in control of the fortress. Military maps show roads, river approaches, camps, and settlements used by soldiers and civilians during the conflict.

1792–1812: From Ottoman frontier to Russian annexation

By the early nineteenth century, reference works describe a substantial Jewish population in Khotyn. The community grew during the decades between the merchants named in 1742 and Russian annexation in 1812.

The Treaty of Bucharest in 1812 transferred Bessarabia, including Khotyn, to the Russian Empire. The town became a district center. Russian administration produced household tax registers known as revision lists, birth and marriage registers, census publications, and directories that now help trace local families.