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Brody

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The tower of former district court building in Brody. Today it houses Pedagogical College.
A church in Brody

Brody (Ukrainian: Броди, Polish: Brody, Russian: Броды, Yiddish: בּראָד, translit. Brod) is a city in the Lviv Oblast (province) of western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Brodivskyi Raion (district), and is located in the valley of the upper Styr River, approximately 90 kilometres northeast of the oblast capital, Lviv. As of 2004, its population is 23,239.

During July-August 1944 (World War II), Brody and the nearby areas saw the battles of a strategically important Lvov-Sandomierz Operation where the Soviet army successfully encircled and destroyed German forces. During the Cold War, Brody air base served Soviet Air Force regiments.

Brody is the junction place of the Druzhba and Odessa-Brody oil pipelines. The city is located at 50°05′00″N 25°09′0″E / 50.08333°N 25.15000°E / 50.08333; 25.15000.

History Of Brody

The first mention of a settlement on the site of Brody is dated 1084 (Instructions by Volodymyr Monomach). It is believed to have been destroyed by Batu Khan in 1241.

From 1441 Brody was property of different feudal families (Jan Sieniński, from 1511 - Kamieniecki).

Brody was granted Magdeburg rights and city status in 1546. At this time it was known under the name Lubicz (Любич, Polish: Lubicz) that gave name to the Lubicz Coat of Arms of the owner, Stanisław Żółkiewski (not to be confused with Lubech, Lubecz).

From 1629, the city became the property of Stanisław Koniecpolski, who transformed it into a fortress (1630-1635). In 1648, Bohdan Khmelnytsky was unable to capture it for about 8 weeks. The fortress was designed by the French military engineer Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan.

Since the 17th century, the city was populated not only by Ukrainians and Poles, but with a significant number of Jews (70% of the town's population), Armenians, Greeks and Scots.

In 1704 Brody was purchased by Potocki family. In 1734 fortress was destroyed by Russian troops and rebuilt again by Stanisław Potocki in baroque style. In 1772 Brody became a part of Habsburg Empire (from 1804 - Austrian Empire). In 1812 Wincenty Potocki was forced by the Austrian government to remove the city's fortifications.

A crossroads and a Jewish trade center in the nineteenth century, the city is considered to be one of the shtetls. It was particularly famous for the Brodersänger or Broder singers, who were among the first to publicly perform Yiddish songs outside of Purim plays and wedding parties.

The promulgation of the May Laws, and the massive exodus of Russian Jews which was its result, took the leaders of Western Jewry completely by surprise. Throughout 1881, hundreds of immigrants… kept arriving in Brody daily. Their arrival placed Austrian and German coreligionists in a quandary… the comfortable middle-class Jewish community of Central and Western Europe looked instinctively to the Alliance Israelite Universelle, the world's largest and most respected Jewish philanthropic agency, to bring order out of chaos, to cope with the huge influx of newcomers. (Howard M. Sachar)

The town was the site of heavy destruction by both Polish and Russian forces in the 1920 war and is described extensively in stories of the Red Cavalry by Isaac Babel.

There is Brody museum of history and district ethnography in Brody, Scott Brody, curator with history.


Famous Jews Associated with Brody

Jewish tombstones at New Jewish Cemetery in Brody. The Cemetery numbers ca. 20.000 burials
The old synagogue (ruins) of Brody

Nearby towns

Brody Weld a stupid horrny pice of shit

References

  • Howard M. Sachar, The Course of modern Jewish history. Vintage Books (a division of Random House) Chapter 15