Pavlohrad, one of the oldest modern settlements in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast appears in documents from the 17th century. Pavlohrad is located in the territories known as the
Wild Fields, which belonged to the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th and 17th centuries. At the beginning of the 1770s,
Zaporozhian Cossack Matvii Khizhnyak built winter quarters, which soon became known as
sloboda Matviivka (). In 1779, Matviivka was renamed to
Luhanske, as the latter became headquarters of the Luhanske
pikemen regiment headed by
M. I. Golinishchev-Kutuzov. With the establishment of
Yekaterinoslav Viceroyalty in 1783, the city became a part of this administrative unit as a
district town, and then renamed to
Pavlohrad. In 1784, Pavlohrad received city status. There were 426 homes and 2419 inhabitants in the city at the end of the 18th century. The citizens of Pavlohrad lived in
wattle and daub huts. The first stone building was the Holy Ascension Cathedral on Soborna Square. The first
coat of arms of the city was affirmed on 29 July 1811, the second one on 26 September 1979. The first citizens were
Cossacks of and
Palankas and
demobilized military. The city plan by Scottish architect
W. Geste was affirmed by emperor
Nicholas I on 31 July 1831. In 1871, local merchant A.K. Shalin was elected the first head of the city. The central street was named after him (Shalinska Street), later renamed
Leninska Street. In 2015, the
Ukrainian government approved
laws that outlawed
communist symbols and street names. the street is named Soborna. Merchant of ІІ
Guild A.V. Permanin was elected as
city governor in 1892. Under his
leadership the city started to develop rapidly: several churches, temples, barracks, gymnasiums, factories and plants were built. In the 1870s, a railway connecting
St. Petersburg and
Simferopol passed through Pavlohrad. In 1896, the Golenishchev-Kutuzov family built the "Earl's Theatre". In 1930, an uprising against
Soviet rule took place in Pavlohrad. From 1780 to 1941, a significant
Jewish community existed in the city. The pre-
Holocaust Jewish population was approximately 4,000.
World War II The city was destroyed in 1941 during the German occupation. The German occupying forces operated the Dulag 111 and Dulag 124 transit
prisoner-of-war camps and a
Jewish ghetto in Pavlohrad. A large part of the community died during the war and during the mass executions. The Pavlohrad Jewish cemetery contains not only Jewish, but also Christian burials, which the leaders of the local Jewish community agreed to in 1995. On 22 May 2011 it was reported that unknown persons had desecrated the cemetery in the town - tombstones were turned over and broken in an apparently anti-Semitic act. Following the German retreat in February 1943, the
Wehrmacht recaptured Pavlohrad during a counteroffensive, planning to use the city as a base for a future attacks on the entire southern Red Army. This period was marked by the persecution of civilians, including arrests, executions, and forced labour.
Recent history Until 18 July 2020, Pavlohrad was incorporated as a
city of oblast significance and served as the administrative center of Pavlohrad Raion though it did not belong to the raion. In July 2020, as part of the administrative reform of Ukraine, which reduced the number of raions of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast to seven, the city of Pavlohrad was merged into Pavlohrad Raion. During the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Pavlohrad — an important railway transportation hub — was subjected to Russian attacks. On 22 March, a missile strike destroyed the Pavlohrad-2 train station in the city, killing at least one person. On 20 March 2024, the in
Verkhovna Rada stated their support for renaming the city to Matviiv (). On 9 October 2024, the proposed name Matviiv did not get enough votes in the
Verkhovna Rada. ==Industry==