Volhynia

Volhynia, Volynia, or Volyn (Ukrainian: Волинь, Russian: Волы́нь, Polish: Wołyń, Lithuanian: Voluinė or Volynė, German: Wolhynien or Wolynien, Yiddish: װאָהלין, Vohlin) is a historic region in Eastern Europe straddling Poland and Ukraine. It was annexed after the Second World War into the Soviet Union as Ukraine pushed its borders westwards replacing the Polish and Jewish populations, and, since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, it now forms a part of western Ukraine . It is located between the rivers Prypiat and Southern Bug, to the north of Galicia and Podolia. The region is named for the former city of Volyn or Velyn, said to have been located on the Southern Bug River, whose name may come from the Proto-Slavic root *vol/vel- 'wet.' In addition to Poles, Russians and Ukrainians, the region historically had one of the biggest Jewish populations in the world, almost all of whom were murdered in the Holocaust, or in pre-war pogroms by Ukrainian and Polish nationalists.

Territories of historical Volhynia now form the Volyn, Rivne, and parts of Zhytomyr, Ternopil and Khmelnytskyi Oblasts of Ukraine, as well as parts of Poland (see Chełm). Major cities include Lutsk, Rovno/Rivne, Kovel, Kremenets (Ternopil Oblast), Volodymyr-Volynskyi, and Starokostiantyniv (Khmelnytskyi Oblast). Many Jewish shtetls (villages) like Trochenbrod and Lozisht were once an integral part of the region.