Sniatyn

For the eponymous town in Russia, see Ksnyatin

Sniatyn (Ukrainian: Снятин, Polish: Śniatyn, Armenian: Սնիատին, Hebrew: שניאטין‎) is a city located in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, in western Ukraine along the Prut river. It is the administrative center of Sniatyn Raion (district), and is located at around . Population: 10,106 (2013 est.). In 2001, population was around 10,500.

In the interbellum period, it was a rail border crossing between Poland and Romania.

History

The first mention of the town is in 1158. Ksniatyn was named after Kostiantyn Stroslavich, a boyar and general of Yaroslav Osmomysl. The town was given the Magdeburg Rights in 1448. As a result of the first of Partitions of Poland (Treaty of St-Petersburg dated 5 July 1772, Sniatyn (and Galicia) was attributed to the Habsburg Monarchy.

For more details, see the article Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria.

Austrian postal card sent in 1875 from Sniatyn, Polish version

In 1939 Sniatyn was the temporary seat of American embassy in Poland, as the diplomatic personnel abandoned Warsaw after the first German Nazi bombings.

Nearly all of Sniatyn's Jewish population was murdered during the Holocaust. Many were shot and buried in the local forest. Some died from disease and starvation in the ghetto. Approximately 1500 people were sent, via railway, to the Nazi Belzec Concentration Camp in German occupied Poland.

Gallery

• 

  Shevchenko Street in Sniatyn

• 

  Church of Ascension

• 

  Roman Catholic church

• 

  Holy Trinity Church

External links

• SNYATYN, (SNIATYN): A Jewish shtetl from the mid 16th century through the mid 1940s
• A polish-ukrainian project on the history of Sniatyn