History
The town was founded in 1032 as Yuriev by Yaroslav the Wise, whose Christian name was Yuri. The present name of the city, literally translated, is "White Church" and may refer to the (no longer existing) white-painted cathedral of medieval Yuriev.
Since 1363 it belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and since 1569 to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Was granted Magdeburg Rights in 1620 by Sigismund III Vasa.
A peace treaty between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Ukrainian Cossack rebels under Bohdan Khmelnytsky was signed here in 1651.
Beginning in the second half of the 18th century, Bila Tserkva (Biała Cerkiew), then the seat of the sub-prefecture (starostwo), was the property of the Branicki family. Franciszek Ksawery Branicki, Poland's Grand Hetman, built there his urban residence – the Winter Palace complex and a country residence with the park "Alexandria" (named after his wife). He founded a Catholic Church of John the Baptist and started construction of the Orthodox church which was completed by his successor - count Władysław Grzegorz. The latter one built also the gymnasium-school complex in Bila Tserkva. Aleksander Branicki, the grandson of the hetman, renovated and finished the Mazepa's Orthodox church. Under the rule of count Władysław Michał Branicki, Bila Tserkva developed into a regional commercial and manufacturing centre.
Bila Tserkva was annexed into Russian Empire as a result of the Second Partition of Poland in 1793.
After 1861, the Tzarist authorities converted the Roman Catholic church into an Orthodox Church. During the Soviet times Bila Tserkva became a large industrial hub (machine building and construction industry).
Preceding the Russian Revolution and until the 1930s, there was a significant Jewish community here. Some were driven out by Cossacks and Tzarist policies. Many were driven out in the Stalinist purges. Most remnants were destroyed during the Holocaust and other losses during the Second World War.
Read more about this topic: Bila Tserkva
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“The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)