Kozelets

Kozelets [Козелець; Kozelec’]. Map: III-12. Town smt (2005 pop 8,900) and raion center in Chernihiv oblast. First mentioned in 1098, it was a fortified town in Kyivan Rus’. In 1656 it was granted the rights of Magdeburg law. It was a company town in the Pereiaslav regiment (1648–67) and the Kyiv regiment (1667–1782), and from 1708 served as the administrative center of the latter. It then was a county town in Kyiv vicegerency (1782–97), Little Russia gubernia (1797–1802) and Chernihiv gubernia (1802–1917). It has a flax-processing plant, a food industry, a mixed-feed industry, and a veterinary tekhnikum. Several of the town's architectural monuments have been preserved: the baroque Cathedral of the Nativity of the Mother of God (designed by Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli and built by Andrei Kvasov and Ivan Hryhorovych-Barsky in 1752–63) with a finely engraved bronze iconostasis, the Regimental Chancellery building (today town hall) (designed and built by A. Kvasov and I. Hryhorovych-Barsky in 1756–60), and the Darahan building.

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