Prehistory Archaeological discoveries of stone tools and carvings, dating to 5000 BCE were made in the Ruzhyn area. This was termed the
Trypillian culture.
Antiquity The nomadic
Scythians controlled the area from approximately 500-300 BCE, replaced by the
Sarmatians, who were based on the western banks of the
Dniester. Later, a
Hellenistic Antiv culture built a defensive wall near Ruzhyn, and extended its territorial reach to all the area between the Dniester & Dnieper Rivers. Traces of this culture have been found with discoveries of coins, glassware, and ceramics, which date up to the 5th century.
Middle Ages to early modern period A 12th-13th century cross was found in Ruzhyn, attesting to the arrival of Christianity in the area.
Sherbiv (as Ruzhyn was then known) was the home of a
Mongol khan, along with his 13 slaves. Ruzhyn's history is that of Ukraine, as a whole: • founding of
Kyivan Rus in 885 by prince
Oleg • occupation by the Mongol
Golden Horde in the mid-13th century • occupation by
Lithuanian nobles from 1398 to 1449 • the "Independence War" against Poland, led by
Bogdan Chmielnitski from 1648 to 1657, in which tens of thousands of
Jews were massacred Polish noblemen began to wield influence in the western Ukraine. In 1596, one – Count Kirik Ruzhynsky – changed the name of the town from Sherbiv to
Ruzhyn. In 1608, Kirik's brother Adam aided
Dmitri – a false pretender to the throne in Moscow – to raise an army which consisted of a thousand horsemen. To raise the funds, he leased some of his lands and mortgaged the town of Ruzhyn to Kristof Kevlitch. With the defeat of Dimitri's revolt, the Ruzhynsky properties fell into disarray.
Modern period In the mid-17th century, a cathedral was built in nearby
Bilylivka. Chmielnicki's
Cossacks marched through Ruzhyn for the first time in December 1648. The land was subsequently partitioned and granted to Cossack officers. Forests were cleared for farming. By 1651, Ruzhyn was prospering. With a peace treaty signed between
Russia,
Ukraine and
Poland in 1667, lands including Ruzhyn reverted to Polish control. Ruzhyn was controlled soon after by prince
Wiśniowiecki (ukr. Vyshnevetsky). In 1736, the local manager of Pavolich had 35 Jewish citizens killed, and their properties, valued at 180,000
zlotys, were confiscated. The first burials in Ruzhyn's Jewish cemetery are thought to date to 1776. Meanwhile, the Catholic cathedral was built in Ruzhyn, and in 1845 a 6-bed hospital was added to its holdings. The fabric industry, with the establishment of two factories, became a cornerstone of industry in the town. A leather factory, owned by August Wolf, started operations in 1862. Subsequently, brick factories, liquor distilleries, oil processing plants & steam-powered mills sprung up throughout Ruzhyn; as did a post office, another hospital, an Orthodox church and a
synagogue. By 1906, Ruzhyn's population consisted of Ukrainians, Poles and Jews and surpassed 4,000 residents. Including the suburb of Balamutivka would have brought the total to over 6,000. Ukrainians were educated in state-run schools; Jews in
heders and
yeshivas; and Poles in clandestine Polish schools (in Balamutivka). The town, by 1908, had established a theatre, cinema, Catholic cathedral and its own electric power station.
First World War With the onset of
World War I, the army mobilized many citizens – and provisions and horses were demanded for the war effort. Following a brief period of Ukrainian independence (1917–18), the Germans marched into Ruzhyn on February 27, 1918. They left one week after the Armistice, on November 18, 1918. In a 1919 pogrom, Jews were robbed and beaten, and a large tribute was exacted from the community.
Soviet Union Throughout the 1920s and 1930s,
Joseph Stalin's
Bolshevik government and troops called for provisions from Ukraine, the "bread-basket of the Europe". Under this policy, the peasantry's produce was harvested, through mandatory quotas, only to be shipped to the population centers of
Moscow,
St. Petersburg etc. During the period known today as the
Ukrainian Famine of 1932–33, between 6-7 million Ukrainians were starved to death. Many protests against this policy shook Ruzhyn. A top-secret report by the
NKVD (precursor to the KGB) entitled "Counter-Revolutionary Activities in Ruzhyn District" reported that 70% of Ruzhyn and
Balamutivka's 543 farmers had been grouped into a
kolkhoz (a collective) and that there was a marked increase of "banditism", as people stole & scrounged for anything to eat. During this period, cannibalism was witnessed in various places throughout Ukraine, among them, the Ruzhyn District. By 1939, the Jewish community dropped to 1,108 people. ==Jewish and Hassidic history==