Boguslav in the Past and Now
by Ilya Zeldes copyright 2021
Boguslav ("God's Glory" or "Praise God"), 49°33'N 30° 53'E, is located seventy miles south-southeast of Kiev, Ukraine1, at the
confluence of the Boguslavka and Ros Rivers2. Count Jaroslav established it in 1032. The first time Boguslav was mentioned is
in Chronicle in 1195 when Grand Count of Kiev Rurik presented Vsevolod Susdalsky with the town3. In 1240, the
Mongols of Genghis Khan destroyed Boguslav; the town remained a ghost town for several centuries.
In the seventeenth century, the Boguslav Castle, surrounded by a moat, was located on a hill at the Ros River. The Castle had three
buildings and a wooden gate. One building had four living rooms, while other buildings were used for storage, stables,
kitchen, cellars, etc. Between the ninth and seventeenth centuries, Boguslav was under the rule of various Polish princes4. As the
result of the Second Partition of Poland in 1793, Boguslav passed to Russia from Poland. Soon after that, in 1796,
Boguslav became the seat of a uezd. However, in 1837, the uezd government was moved to Kanev, a larger town a few miles to
the East.
In 1856, in Boguslav, there were 848 dvorov (households)5. According to another source, in 1860 there were 850 houses,
a school, three churches, forty shops, a hospital, several factories, and mills (brewery, brickyard, tobacco plant, water
mills)6. In 1885, the Kiev Governor decreed that a market be permitted in Boguslav on every other Wednesday
(biweekly)7. In 1895, there were post and telegraph offices. By 1897, Boguslav population reached about 13,0008. In
1900, in Boguslav there were 1,234 households with population of 16,2719.
Today's Boguslav has a number of modern multilevel buildings, a hydroelectric power plant, a large modern cotton mill,
and a granite quarry among other industrial establishments10.
Jews were living in Boguslav from the beginning of the seventeenth century. To avoid using the "God" part of the town name,
Jews preferred a slightly different pronunciation of its name — Boslov11. An imposing synagogue was built there soon after
the community was founded. In 1620, Jews were restricted in leasing property and owning a brewery, because the
burghers complained that Jews had taken over most of the houses and stores in the marketplace and were competing with
the local traders. In 1765, there were 123 Jews permanently living in Boguslav. They had eighteen shops made of brick in the middle of the Market Square12.
The Jews in Boguslav suffered from the Haidamak revolts. During the uprising of 1768 they fled from the
city; their homes were destroyed and their property looted.
In 1789 the Jews complained to the city government: "you should not allow the citizens to push us out of town when the
crown allowed us to live here; we are useful for the country when we export local products and import things necessary
for the people; we're paying custom duties to the Treasury. We have never double-crossed or betrayed the country. We
create no obstacles for citizens to trade; we import goods from other countries and sell them which no Catholics would
do"13.
The Jewish community developed again after Boguslav became part of Russia in 1793. A Hebrew printing press was
established in Boguslav in 1820 - 1821. Jews owned several enterprises, including textile and tanning factories. In 1820, a
Jewish philantropist, named Yampolsky, built a "Yellow School". Jews also engaged in handicrafts and dealt in grain and fruit.
The Jewish population numbered 5,294 in 1847 and 6,980 in 1860. At that time there were two synagogues and eight Jewish
houses of prayer. By the end of the nineteenth century there were 7,445 Jews and seven synagogues. Jews owned and managed
several enterprises — a distillery, a brewery, a brick factory, five fulling (cloth) mills, and more14. In the beginning of the twentieth
century there was a Jewish hospital, a religious school for 130 pupils, three private boys' schools, three girls' schools for 150 pupils, and over twenty
cheders (religious schools) for 400 students15.
The expansion and improvement within the Jewish community of Boguslav came to an end with the onset of the Russian
Revolution.
In November 1917 Vladimir I. Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized power and pulled Russia out of World War I. They
set up a "dictatorship of the proletariat", which was opposed by Russian aristocrats and others. This opposition
included many military officers, who formed the "White" armies that fought against the "Red" communist regime. Thus
the civil war started.
Using their opposition to the communists as an excuse "white" army leaders, such as the Ukrainian guerrilla Semen
Petliura, launched two wars simultaneously: one to oust the Bolsheviks and the other to decimate Russian Jewry.
From January 1919 Petliura's guerrillas attacked unarmed Jewish communities. At least 70,000 Jewish men, women, and
children perished, and an equal number were wounded during the more than 1,300 "white"-led pogroms that swept through
European Russia. The slaughter did not cease until Bolshevik forces finally defeated the "white" armies in 1921.
The Jews in Boguslav suffered severely during the civil war. In January 1918 Boguslav fell under Soviet rule. On 13 May
1919 gangs of marauding peasants attacked Jews. Later, on 27 August, Russian General Denikin's "white" army, which
occupied the city, pillaged all the houses there, and massacred about forty Jews.
Subsequently a Jewish self-defense force was formed in Boguslav (under the auspices of the Soviet government), which
comprised the entire male population of about 1,000 citizens. It fought off the gangs and also took part in punitive actions
in the neighboring villages. Boguslav then became an asylum for thousands of Jewish refugees from the towns and
villages of the surrounding area. The self-defense force was disbanded in 1923. The Jewish population numbered 6,432 in
1926 (53% of the total).
The Jewish community in Boguslav was annihilated after the Nazi occupation of the Ukraine in 194116.
The Gestapo used a Jewish school building in Boguslav as a local headquarters and small prison.
In 1974 Ilya Zeldes visited Boguslav and what was left of its Jewish cemetery. Practically all the graves were damaged
and overgrown with vegetation. According to a local old Jew, the cemetery was destroyed twice during World War II.
First, by the advancing Nazi tanks that moved gravestones from their original locations, then by the returning Red Army
plowing through the area.
In July 1997, Michael Tobin of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, visited Boguslav and described his impressions: "At the
very center of town is a World War II monument consisting of a small tank. There is one main street (Shevchenko Street)
about four blocks long with brick buildings and some shops... There are now just a few hundred Jews in Boguslav."17
- Kiev Gubernia: Spetsialnaia Karta (Special Map). Voenno-Topograficheskoe Depo, S-Pb, 1852
- Boguslav: Lippincott's New Gazetteer. Philadelphia, 1911, p. 237
- Bohuslav: Słownik geograficzny królestwa polskego i innych krajów słowiańskich, Warszawa, 1889, v.1, p. 288
- Kiev Gubernia: Pamiatnaia Knizhka na 1856 god (Kiev Gubernia Reminder Book). Kiev, 1856, p.130
- Bohuslav: Słownik geograficzny królestwa polskego i innych krajów słowiańskich, Warszawa, 1889, v.1, p. 289.
- Boguslav: Geografichesko-Statisticheskii Slovar Rossiiskoi Imperii. S-Pb, 1863, v.1, p. 287-288
- Kievskoe gubernskoe pravlenie ob'iavliaet... Kievskiia Gubernskiia Viedomosti #44 (Kiev Government News). Kiev, 2 November 1885
- Boguslav: Vsia Rossiia, S-Pb, 1897, v. 2, p. 771
- Kiev Gubernia: Spisok Naselennykh Mest (Kiev Gubernia List of Inhabited Places). Kiev, 1900, p. 729
- Boguslav: Fotoalbom. Mistetstvo, Kiev, 1983
- Cohen Chester G: Shtetl Finder. Heritage Books, 1989, p.9
- Boguslav: Encyclopedia Judaica. Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1972, p. 1173
- Bohuslav: Słownik geograficzny królestwa polskego i innych krajów słowiańskich, Warszawa, 1889, v.1, p. 290
- Kiev Gubernia: Spisok Naselennykh Mest (Kiev Gubernia List of Inhabited Places). Kiev, 1900, p. 729
- Богуслав Еврейская Знциклопедия. С-Пб, 1912.
- Boguslav: Encyclopedia Judaica. Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1972, p. 1173
- Tobin Michael: RE: Boguslav Visit. , 26 April, 1998
