a city and the administrative center of Cherkassy Oblast, Ukrainian SSR. Railroad and highway junction; port on the right bank of the Kremenchug Reservoir. Population, 229,000 (1977; 52,000 in 1939, 85,000 in 1959, 158,000 in 1970). Cherkassy is divided into two raions.

Cherkassy was first mentioned in 1394 as part of the Kievan Principality, then ruled by Lithuania. After the Union of Lublin in 1569 it was seized by Poland. On several occasions the population took part in the peasant and cossack uprisings of the 16th and 17th centuries, and the city supported B. Khmel’nitskii. In 1648, Cherkassy became the headquarters of the Cherkassy Cossack Regiment. Under the Armistice of Andrusovo in 1667 it remained under Polish rule. Cherkassy became part of the Russian empire in 1793, a district capital in 1795, and part of Kiev Province in 1797.

Soviet power was established in Cherkassy on Jan. 16 (29), 1918. During the Civil War the city fell to the Germans and A. I. Denikin’s forces; Soviet power was reestablished in December 1919. In 1932, Cherkassy became the administrative center of a raion in Kiev Oblast. The city was occupied by fascist German troops from Aug. 22,1941, through Dec. 14,1943. It became an oblast administrative center in 1954.

The economy of Cherkassy is dominated by machine building, the chemical industry, light industry, and the food-processing industry. Enterprises of the machine-building industry manufacture machinery for the food-processing industry. The chemical industry is represented by a chemical combine and plants for the production of chemical fibers and yarn and chemical reagents. The city’s light industry is represented by a silk-fabric combine, a garment production association, and plants for the production of absorbent cotton and knitwear. Enterprises of the food-processing industry include a sugar refinery, a milk plant, a brewery, a cannery, and a meat-packing plant.

Enterprises built after the war include a prefabricated-housing combine and plants for the production of telegraph equipment, silica bricks, and construction machinery and equipment. Plants of light industry and the food-processing, chemical, metalworking, and building-materials industries were modernized.

Cherkassy has retained the regular street plan it was given in 1828 by the architect V. I. Geste. In the Soviet period multistory apartment buildings have been constructed, as well as such large public buildings as the House of Soviets (1959, architect V. I. Shtokman), the railroad station (1965, architects L. M. Chuprin and others), the T. G. Shevchenko Theater of Music and Drama (1964), the hotel Turist (1970, architects N. B. Chmutina and others, engineer A. V. Lozovskii), and an enclosed market (1971).

In addition to the Monument to Eternal Glory (1975, sculptors G. N. Kal’chenko, E. M. Kuntsevich, and B. P. Mikitenko, architects A. F. Ignashchenko and A. S. Ren’kas), the city has monuments to V. I. Lenin (1969, sculptor K. A. Kuznetsov) and T. G. Shevchenko (1964, sculptors M. K. Vronskii and A. P. Oleinik).

Cherkassy’s educational institutions include a pedagogical institute, the department of general technology of the Kiev Construction Engineering Institute, and technicums of electrification and agricultural construction, finance, Soviet trade, and cooperation. The city has medical, music, and fire-fighting schools. Cultural institutions include a theater of music and drama, a puppet theater, a philharmonic society, a planetarium, and a museum of local lore.