The capital of Bukovyna is truly a unique place. Local luminaries and famous guests — poets, emperors, and actors — dubbed it the “Little Vienna,” a city lying halfway between Paris and Istanbul. The nickname referred to the city’s ambiance, which was a unique blend of European intellectualism and Eastern mystique.
At the local coffee houses, where delicious coffee is still being brewed, there’s always a habitue eager to recount one of the city’s legends from the time when, to quote Georg Heintzen, “coachmen argued over Carl Krauss,” while “sidewalks were swept with bouquets of roses,” and “there were more bookstores than bakeries.” Witness to those days of glory are numerous memorial plaques hung on the facades of stone mansions and street names commemorating famous people, who are still the pride of Europe.
A special ambiance emanates from the names of streets in the old city center. The Central Square opens onto a street named after the titan of the Ukrainian renaissance, Ivan Franko, who often visited Chernivtsi and studied at the local university. This street will take you to another one that bears the name of a classical Romanian poet and native of Chernivtsi, Mikhai Eminescu. Nearby streets form a constellation of great names: the Germans Goethe and Schiller, whom the residents of this town upon the River Prut have revered since time immemorial, the Poles Adam Mickiewicz — one of the main streets in Chernivtsi has borne his name for almost a century — and Anton Kochanowski, one of the city’s most esteemed mayors, as well as the famous Jewish writers Eliezer Steinbarg and Sholom Aleichem, and the once popular Jewish actress Sidi Tahl. Central Chernivtsi has a street named after Academician Vavilov, a prominent Russian scholar who worked in Bukovyna before he was arrested by the NKVD. The former residence of the Bukovinian metropolitans is skirted by a street that bears the name of the creator of this stone masterpiece, the Czech architect Josef Hlavka.
The contemporary German publicist Georg Heintzen compares old Austrian Chernivtsi to an amusement ship with a Ukrainian crew, German officers, and Jewish passengers onboard; a ship that flew the Austrian flag and always steered a middle course between the West and East. What could be more chimerical and short-lived in Central-Eastern Europe of the early twentieth century than the company of a Ukrainian, a German, and a Jew on the same ship flying the flag of tolerance? Yet this was the reality of coexistence in culturally diverse Chernivtsi and Bukovyna in general. That ship must have felt lonely amidst an ocean boiling with ethnic intolerance.
Old Chernivtsi stood out among other cities of the then Danubian Empire for bringing forth a constellation of great names that have become part of the cultural heritage of many nations. A native of Tyrol, Johan Georg Obrist authored the first book in German about Taras Shevchenko, and the first German translations of his Kobzar were published in Chernivtsi in 1870, before anywhere else in Europe. Augusta Kochanowska, a Pole raised in the traditions of Austro-German culture, became the pride and joy of the local Ukrainian school of painting. In their youth, Yury Fedkovych, a native of the Hutsul region, and Moldavian-born Mikhai Eminescu studied the best of German poetry in the German gymnasium in Chernivtsi, under the tutelage of Professor Ernst Rudolf Neubauer, who was a native of German Moravia. Eventually, on the advice of their teacher and friends, both writers dedicated themselves to the poetry of their national homelands. An Austrian, Professor Theodor Gartner, together with the Ukrainian scholar, Professor Stepan Smal-Stotsky, published a series of Ukrainian- language grammars, including a Ukrainian grammar book for Germans. Similar parallels can be found in the spiritual domain.
Ancient Bukovyna was a land of religious tolerance, a rarity in that epoch. After Kaiser Joseph II issued his Tolerance Patent on June 19, 1783, guaranteeing freedom of conscience, communities of persecuted Jews, Russian Old Believers, and Armenians flocked to Bukovyna as if it were Noah’s Ark. Despite its mythical aura, the phenomenon of religious tolerance that arose in Bukovyna under Austrian rule is attributed to the historic and social state of affairs in this land at that time. On the one hand, it was nurtured by state-guaranteed freedom of conscience, and on the other, by the tolerant attitude to religious minorities, which was adopted by the main religious community of Orthodox, predominantly Ruthenians, i.e., Ukrainians. Perhaps the key role in the emergence of this phenomenon was played by two determining factors of social stability (or instability) in Bukovyna: religious and ethnic factors. Virtually none of the influential religions in Bukovyna was practiced by mono-ethnic parishes. Orthodoxy was the religion of the two largest ethnic communities in Bukovyna: Ruthenian Ukrainians and Wallachian Romanians. However, part of the Ukrainian community, especially in Chernivtsi, was Greek Catholic, while some Romanians were Uniates. Roman Catholicism, the empire’s state religion, was also practiced by many ethnic communities: Austrians, Germans, Poles, Slovakians, and Szekler Magyars. For a certain time, the Roman Catholic church in Chernivtsi was attended by both Ukrainians and Uniate Armenians. At the same time, some Germans were Lutherans. In a word, the ethno-confessional situation in Chernivtsi was a colorful mosaic, and this picture would be incomplete if even a single element were lost.
This motley mosaic of different faiths and the idea of a polycultural environment are represented in the architectural ensemble of old Chernivtsi in which Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, a Lutheran kirche [church], an Armenian cathedral, and Jewish synagogues coexisted in harmony.
The assortment of churches and religions was formed over a period of many centuries. Written sources dating back to 1490 confirm the existence in Chernivtsi of two wooden Orthodox churches, which burned down in the fires of war that swept through Bukovyna time and again. The oldest monuments of religious architecture, which have survived to this day, are eighteenth-century house-type wooden Orthodox churches. Petro Sahaidachny (formerly Kushnirska) Street in downtown Chernivtsi features St. Michael’s Church built in 1748. According to local legend, it is a Cossack church and at least one century older.
Several stone churches were built in central Chernivtsi in the nineteenth century and are still regarded as the city’s architectural gems. At the corner of today’s Zankovetska and Holovna streets stands Chernivtsi’s first stone Orthodox church of St. Paraskeva. Designed by the local architect A. Pavlovsky and built on the site of a wooden eighteenth-century church, it was consecrated on February 5, 1862. On March 29, 1864 (Old Style) nationally-minded Ukrainian students from the local Chernivtsi gymnasium and seminary gathered in the newly-built church for a funeral mass for the Ukrainian prophet Taras Shevchenko. This event evolved into the cult of the Kobzar in Bukovyna, and for many years thereafter our fellow countrymen commemorated Shevchenko during annual festive gatherings.
The main religious edifice for Orthodox believers in Bukovyna was the architectural ensemble of the residence of the Orthodox metropolitans of Bukovyna and Dalmatia (1864-1882). Today it is home to Yury Fedkovych National University of Chernivtsi. While it was primarily a concrete manifestation of the Orthodox church, the metropolitan residence also symbolized dialog and cooperation among different cultures and peoples. This architectural masterpiece was built on the initiative of Bishop Yevhen Hakman, who was ordained the first archbishop of Chernivtsi and metropolitan of Bukovyna. A Ukrainian from the village of Vaslovivtsi in Bukovyna, he sympathized with the Romanians of Bukovyna, and in general worked to raise the authority of the Orthodox faith in this land. The residence was designed by Academician Josef Hlavka, a Catholic by faith and a Czech by birth. All the residents of Chernivtsi take pride in the ensemble, nationalities and faiths notwithstanding. As proud residents used to say about this architectural monument, to be in Chernivtsi and not see the residence is like visiting Rome and not seeing the pope.
In 1778 a wooden Roman Catholic church with a tower was built next to the first stone house in Chernivtsi — an administrative building dubbed the General’s House, which still stands at the corner of Sholom Aleichem and Shkilna streets. In the early days it catered to the religious needs of the Chernivtsi garrison, with a military chaplain ministering to the military administration. With the influx of Austrian officials and mostly Catholic settlers from the western provinces of the empire, the garrison church proved too small for the fast growing congregation. During a visit to Chernivtsi by Kaiser Joseph II, a new site across the road was selected for the construction of a new stone church, which began in 1787. The Exaltation of the Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church was consecrated only on July 29, 1814, and on September 14 that year the parish celebrated the dedication festival for the first time. Thanks to the loyalty of the parish, the church continued to function throughout the Soviet period. It is interesting to note that masses in this Roman Catholic church are celebrated in three languages: Polish, German, and Ukrainian. This multilinguism in one of the oldest churches of Chernivtsi invariably delights city guests, for it is another vivid illustration of the polycultural phenomenon that continues to define the face of this city on the River Prut.
The followers of Moses’ faith formed one of the largest religious communities in old Chernivtsi. The first wooden synagogue appeared in the town during the period of Turkish domination. In the early twentieth century there were over fifty synagogues, bethauses (Jewish prayer houses), and other religious facilities. Their large number was due to the fact that the Jewish community of Chernivtsi was not a monolith. In the mid-nineteenth century it splintered into two communities: an Orthodox one, which believed in the strict observance of the holy scriptures of the Talmud, and a reformist one.
The reformists created a civic association to build a progressive synagogue, or temple — as the reformist Jewish houses of prayer were then called in Europe — for which reason the organization was named the Israelite Temple Association. With generous donations from the faithful, the Temple Association obtained a large plot of land in the center of the so-called “upper town,” where the foundation laying ceremony took place in 1873. The opening ceremony was held on September 4, 1877. In the mid-1910s, young Josef Schmidt (1904-1942), the future European-caliber soloist and native of Bukovyna joined the Temple choir.
During the Second World War, in July 1941, German-Romanian occupation forces burned down this splendid shrine, which stood in ruins throughout the war. When the Soviets returned, they tried to blow up this unique monument of religious architecture and raze it to the ground. But the walls of the synagogue, which were built with mortar mixed with egg yolks (according to legend), did not yield to the Red Army’s explosives. Old-timers say that the blast from the powerful explosion shattered all the windows in the nearby block, but the temple remained standing. Then the city fathers decided to restore the synagogue and used it for cultural and educational purposes. In 1959 a widescreen cinema opened in this building, dubbed “cinegogue” by Chernivtsi residents in remembrance of the old temple.
The ethno-confessional community of Armenians, who appeared in Bukovyna as far back as the 1360-1370s, was among the last to build its own cathedral. The Armenians were later forced to leave this land, but after Bukovyna was annexed to Austria, Armenians from Galicia and Bukovyna settled in Chernivtsi. They belonged to the Armenian Catholic Church, i.e., they recognized the authority of the pope. In 1869 Josef Hlavka began the construction of a cathedral in the historic Armenian neighborhood, in the vicinity of Armenian Street, which was consecrated on October 9, 1875, and named after the Apostles, Saints Peter and Paul. The architectural makeup of the Armenian Cathedral combines elements of Roman, Byzantine, and Gothic styles, which were typical of medieval monasteries in Bukovyna. Owing to its splendid acoustics, the cathedral served as a concert hall since its inception, hosting soirees of church singing and music with organ accompaniment.
City guests and researchers are most impressed by the relations among representatives of various confessions in old Chernivtsi and Bukovyna in general. In the past two centuries virtually no bloody conflicts on religious grounds have been recorded here, unlike in many neighboring and more distant multinational countries of Europe. Confessional disputes and problems were mostly resolved through negotiation.
Old-timers who remember prewar Chernivtsi talk enthusiastically about manifestations of religious tolerance at the grassroots level, among ordinary citizens. For example, Easter was normally celebrated three times in Chernivtsi: “our” (that is Orthodox or Greek Catholic) Easter, “Polish” (or “German,” i.e., Roman Catholic) Easter, and “Jewish” (i.e., Judaic) Passover. It was a custom to wine and dine with neighbors or friends of other religions and treat Jews to wheat kutia on Christmas, and Christians to hamantaschen cookies on the Jewish holiday of Purim. If Christians and Jews lived on the same block, the former observed Saturday as a holiday and the latter Sunday, and tried to do all their chores on weekdays.
Why was Chernivtsi an epoch-making city in terms of its polycultural environment? Today three-quarters of the middle-aged population of Chernivtsi are first-generation residents. Some ten years ago the names of the Pole Adam Kochanowski, the Ukrainian Stepan Smal-Stotsky, the Jew Eliezer Steinbarg, and the Romanian A. Onchul, and other outstanding residents of pre-Soviet Chernivtsi, which have now been restored to various streets, were alien to most of them, much like the very notion of polycultural Bukovyna. However, the very idea of reviving old traditions and the names of many undeservedly forgotten Chernivtsi residents of various nationalities has earned support and understanding from the democratic community.
Looking back from the heights of the new millennium at the tumultuous history of Chernivtsi, we return to the phenomenon of polycultural border regions. After all, this is an unusual way for civilizations to exist: whimsical history bringing together people of many nationalities on a single ship.
The Chernivtsi ship is setting out into the third millennium with the sails of tolerance flying high. Now it is a Ukrainian ship, and everyone onboard is now getting used to being a part of a single team — the Ukrainian political nation that has set sail toward the European Union. However, this does not prevent us from remembering the advice of the wise Stanislaw Vincenz, who urged us to return from our world journeys to our little Ithaca, to the better traditions of coexistence among people in this small part of the globe. Or maybe remembering this advice will keep the wind at our backs.
