Lubny

Lubny or Lubni [Лубни or Лубні]. Map: III-13, 14. A city (2012 pop 47,827) and raion center in Poltava oblast. It was founded as a fortified frontier town in 988 by Grand Prince Volodymyr the Great of Kyiv. In 1107 the Rus’ princes defeated the Cumans in battle there. Lubny was destroyed by the Mongols in 1239. Rebuilt in the latter half of the 16th century by the Wiśniowiecki family, Lubny was granted the rights of Magdeburg law. In May 1596 the Polish army crushed the Cossack-peasant rebellion led by Severyn Nalyvaiko and Hryhorii Loboda in the Battle of Solonytsia near Lubny. In 1637–8 the town was a center of Cossack-peasant unrest. In the Hetman state it was a regimental capital (1648, 1658–1781) (see Lubny regiment) and then a county town in Poltava gubernia in the Russian Empire (1802–1917). A botanical garden with medicinal plants and the first field apothecary in Ukraine were established there in the early 18th century.

Today Lubny is an industrial city with machine building and metalworking as its chief industries: the largest plants are the Shlifverst Machine-Tool Plant, Avtomash Machine-Building Plant, and Lichmash Computing-Machine Plant. Among the city’s educational institution is the Lubny Vocational Lyceum. The city has an art gallery and a regional studies museum (est 1897). The Mhar Transfiguration Monastery is located nearby.

[This article was updated in 2013.]