Novograd-Volynskii

a city under oblast jurisdiction in Zhitomir Oblast, the Ukrainian SSR, on the Sluch’ River (Pripiat’ River basin). It is a railroad junction (with lines to Zhitomir, Korosten’, and Shepetovka) and a highway junction. Population, 44,000 (1974).

Novograd-Volynskii is first mentioned in the Hypatian Chronicle for 1257 as the town of Zviagel’ in the Galich-Volynia Principality. In the second half of the 14th century it was captured by Lithuanian feudal lords, and after the Union of Lublin (1569) it became part of gentry Poland. In 1648 the city was liberated by Cossack peasant troops led by B. Khmel’nitskii, and until 1667 it was the administrative center of the Zviagel’ Sotnia (territorial administrative unit) of the Kiev Polk (territorial administrative district). As a consequence of the Armistice of Andrusovo (1667), Zviagel’ was given to Poland. In 1793, as part of Volynia, it was incorporated into Russia and was made the administrative center of the Volynia Namestnichestvo (vicegerency); it was renamed Novograd-Volynskii. In 1804 it became the principal city of Volyn’ Province.

In 1823 the Society of the United Slavs was founded in Novograd-Volynskii. In 1904 a group of the RSDLP was organized there. Soviet power was established in the city in early 1918. After February 1918 the city was successively occupied by Austrian and German troops, the Ukrainian Directory, and bourgeois Polish troops, from which it was liberated on June 27, 1920. On July 8, 1941, the city was occupied by fascist German troops, which inflicted great damage on the city. Novograd-Volynskii was liberated on Jan. 3, 1944. Under the first postwar five-year plan, the city was completely reconstructed, and its economy restored.

Novograd-Volynskii has plants producing agricultural machinery and building materials and structures. It also has mixed-feed and fodder biomycin plants, a butter factory, a brewery, a bread-baking plant, and a meat-packing plant. The city’s light industries include a flax-processing mill and a furniture factory.

The city has a people’s amateur theater. There is also a museum in memory of the Ukrainian poet Lesia Ukrainka, who was born in Novograd-Volynskii and whose family, the Kosach family, lived in the city for a short time.