Zamość

Zamość (Ukrainian: Замостя [Zamostia]). Map: III-4. A city (2006 pop 66,613) in the southwestern Kholm region in Lublin voivodeship in Poland. Zamość was founded in 1580 by the Polish chancellor Jan Zamoyski, and quickly became an important economic, military, and cultural center (particularly with the establishment of the Zamostia Academy in 1594). The town was besieged by Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky during the Cossack-Polish War in 1648 and taken by Hetman Ivan Mazepa in 1705. It was incorporated into the Russian Empire as part of Kholm gubernia. The 1918 Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was to have made Zamość part of Ukraine, but subsequent events established it as part of Poland. In 1920 Zamość was the site of a battle between the Sixth Division of the Sich Riflemen under Marko Bezruchko and the Bolshevik cavalry army under Semen Budenny. A small number of Ukrainians lived in Zamość until 1944; in 1945 there were approx 8,000 Ukrainians and over 10,000 Polonized Ukrainians living in the surrounding county.

Zamość was an important religious center in Ukrainian history. In 1589 Jan Zamoyski allowed the Orthodox residents of the town to build the Church of Saint Nicholas, which became renowned for its iconostasis painted by masters from Constantinople. A brotherhood established by the church was sanctioned by the patriarch Theophanes III. The brotherhood sponsored a brotherhood school. In 1699 the brotherhood adopted the Catholic faith, and the church was given to the Basilian monastic order, which ran a monastery there in 1706–1864. The Synod of Zamostia took place in 1720. A second Ukrainian church, the Church of the Dormition, was built in Zamość in 1592 and was taken over by the Basilians in 1758.

Arkadii Zhukovsky

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]