Prehistory Presumably, Starobilsk traces its heritage to the
settlement of
Bielska Sloboda which originally might have been named after
Okolnichy Bogdan Belsky of
Litvin Bielsky family who at that time was a subject of the
Grand Duchy of Moscow. Bielsky arrived at the banks of
Siversky Donets to build a fortress at the southern borders
Tsare-Borisov (after Muscovite
Tsar Boris Godunov) which was erected not far away in 1598–1600. In 1602 Godunov became suspicious of Belsky and order him to be arrested, stripped of any estates, and exiled to
Siberia. After the death of Godunov Belsky was granted amnesty in 1605 due to the fact that his sister being the wife of the deceased Boris Godunov,
Maria Skuratova-Belskaya, became a regent. Belsky was sent as a
voivode to
Kazan where in 1611 was killed by a mob after refusing to pledge allegiance to
False Dmitry II. Sloboda gradually became abandoned, while the fortress was destroyed in 1612 in one of the Tatar raids.
Origin In 1686 the settlement was repopulated by servicemen of the Ostrohozk Sloboda Cossack Regiment who originally came from Poltava and Chernihiv regions and named their settlement after a town of
Bilsk,
Cossack Hetmanate that might have belonged to another Litvin who sided with Muscovites, Theodore Bielsky. Being runaway serfs, the Tsarist government allowed them to settle in the military frontier with the Crimean realm to carry out border guard functions. After the place became populated with serfs from the central regions of today's Russia, the Tsarist government took measures to find and return those fugitives. In 1701 the Ambassadorial
Prikaz decided to conduct a population census in new settlements along
Aidar and
Siversky Donets. Most population avoided the census. According to data of
stolnik M.Pushkin who in 1703 conducted a population census in 34 settlements, in
Bielsky was registered only 41 residents although in reality there were much more. Trying to meet the demands of Russian landlords who repeatedly turned to the Tsar with complaints and requests to return fugitives, on 6 July 1707
Peter the Great issued an edict (ukase) about the search of "newly arrived from Rus all ranks of people". To the Don was sent a punitive detachment under the command of Colonel Prince Yuriy Dolgorukiy. He was charged to search for fugitives and "take them to those landowners from whom they ran away". That action led to the well-known
Bulavin Rebellion. Struggling with the rebellion, Tsarist troops eventually burnt the settlement to the ground. In 1732 the settlement was repopulated again by peasants from around
Ostrogozhsk (Ostrohozk) turning it into a
sloboda Stara-Bila. Among the first of its new residents were again servicemen of the Ostrohozk Regiment led by
sotnik I. Senelnykov. In 1782 Staro-Bila was assigned to the Derkul stud of Bilovodsk district (
Voronezh Governorate). On Tsarist edict (ukase) from 1 May 1797 sloboda Staro-Bila was renamed into
Starobelsk and became the administrative center of
Starobelsk uyezd in
Kharkov Governorate of the
Russian Empire.
Modern era Founded on 12 October 1851, Starobilsk "Joy of All Who Sorrows" Convent (Свято-Скорботний жіночий монастир) became a spiritual center for the region. After the
Bolshevik revolution, the convent was restricted and, in April 1924, it was closed down. In 1992, the state returned it to the Orthodox Church. It was reconsecrated and opened in 1995. During the
Ukrainian War of Independence, the town was occupied by
Austrian troops during the
Central Powers' advance through Ukraine in the spring of 1918 but soon became a center of activity for the
Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine or Anarchists. A photograph in the City Regional Museum (Старобільський краєзнавчий музей) shows Anarchist leader
Nestor Makhno addressing the people of Starobilsk from a balcony on the main square in 1919. Afterwards, it was administratively part of the
Donets Governorate of Ukraine.
Prison camp for Polish POW officers During
World War II, the old convent was the site of a
Soviet prison camp for
Polish prisoners of war (POWs), especially officers. Forty-eight of those who died in the camp were buried at the Starobilsk cemetery. In 1994, their bodies were moved to the Polish War Quarter built by the
Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites at the
Chmyrivka cemetery. A plaque on the outside wall of the convent states that
more than 4,000 Polish prisoners of war were confined inside the convent and ultimately executed in 1940. The Starobilsk prisoners were executed at the District Directorate of the NKVD in
Kharkiv and later buried in the forest in
Pyatykhatky. These executions, together with executions of Polish officers held in POW camps at
Kozelsk,
Ostashkov, and some smaller camps, became known as the
Katyn massacre. The German
Wehrmacht entered Starobilsk in late 1942, and evacuated nine months later, destroying much of the city but neglecting to dynamite the milk factory. The Germans operated a Nazi prison in the city. The town was rebuilt around this factory, which in turn helped the region recover after the war.
21st century During the first phase of the
Russo-Ukrainian War many places in
Luhansk Oblast were taken over by
pro-Russian separatists; however, Starobilsk remained under Ukrainian control. The flag of the
Luhansk People's Republic was raised over the Hotel Aidar on 17 June 2014, but swiftly removed. The city was occupied by a military presence for two years thereafter, during which time the statue of Lenin in Starobilsk city park was toppled by a tank. In 2016, Lenin Street was renamed Monastery Street as it had been before the Bolshevik revolution.
Russian occupation On 24 February 2022, at the start of the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian Forces began
an assault on Starobilsk, consisting of an unspecified number of Tanks, BMPS, and infantry. On 6 March 2022, hundreds of locals gathered and took down the flag of the
Luhansk People's Republic, burning it and singing the
Ukrainian national anthem. The pro-Russian forces dispersed the pro-Ukrainian meeting with shots in the air. On 11 August 2022, Askyar Laishev, a former law enforcement officer and collaborator, was killed in a car bombing on Shevchenko Street. In early September 2022, Ukraine launched a major
counteroffensive in the region. On 13 September, Ukrainian
Governor of Luhansk Oblast,
Serhiy Haidai, stated that Russian forces had fled Starobilsk adding that the city was "practically empty". As for December 2022, the latter claim was proven to be false, as the Ukrainian counteroffensive has
stalled outside Svatove, around 60 km from Starobilsk. On 1 April 2024 a car bomb in the centre of Starobilsk killed the pro-Russian Deputy Head of the Centre for Servicing Educational Organisations of the Luhansk People’s Republic, Valerii Chaika. ==Demographics==