Khotyn uprising

Khotyn uprising. An uprising from 23 to 31 January 1919 by the Ukrainian inhabitants of Khotyn county against the Romanian occupation of Bessarabia. It was directed by the so-called Khotyn Directorate, whose members (chairman: M. Lyskun; secretary: L. Tokan) established friendly relations with the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic. The representative of the Ukrainian National Republic Ivan Maievsky supplied the three insurgent regiments—Rukshyn, Anadoly, and Dankivtsi—with arms. The rebels captured the town of Khotyn and most of the county’s villages, and expelled the Romanian authorities from the region. After fierce battles the Romanian troops forced 4,000 rebels to retreat beyond the Dnister River together with about 50,000 refugees. The Romanian authorities subjected eight villages (Rukshyn, Nedoboivtsi, Shyrivtsi, Kerstentsi, Stavchany, Dankivtsi, Vladychna, and Ataky) to severe reprisals. About 5,000 (15,000 according to Soviet sources) people were executed, 500 of them in Khotyn.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dembo, V. Nikogda ne zabyt'. Krovavaia letopis' Bessarabii (Moscow 1924)
Okhotnikov, J.; Batchinsky, N. L’Insurrection de Khotine dans la Bessarabie et la paix européenne (Paris 1927)
Heroïchna Khotynshchyna. Materialy naukovoï sesiï, prysviachenoï 50-richchiu Khotyns'koho povstannia (Lviv 1972)
Khotinskoe vosstanie: Sbornik dokumentov i materialov (Kishinev 1976)

Arkadii Zhukovsky

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]