The Development of County Towns in Bukovyna in the second half of the XIX - early XX centuries

Abstract

The development of county towns in Bukovyna had its specific. The city of Chernivtsi, is not considered as the main city, because it had a completely different status and development. There were only 4 cities, at the time of Bukovyna’s accession to Austria. This was an indicative level of urbanization of the region. Settlements – trading villages were with a separate status, which made it possible to increase the number of cities. Such an important step was their transformation into county centers. The 19th and the beginning of the 20th century became significant for the growth of the number of inhabitants in county towns. Storozhynets and Radivtsi showed the highest level of population growth. There is also a change in religious and ethnic composition of the population during that period. If before the vast majority of the population were Jews and Germans, then before the World War I a significant part of the cities were Ukrainians and Romanians.

The first attempt to reform the city government was during the revolution of 1848. They have even begun to take the first steps in expanding the rights of cities. However, after the revolution, urban governance reform stopped. The final rules for the management of county towns were approved in 1862-1863. The governing bodies were determined: the public department and the public officer, the mayor headed the city. These progressive changes gave impetus to town development. It also gave impetus to the development of commercial villages and the transition to the status of the town. In the early XXth century, villages with markets that were county centers began to receive the status of the town.