Chernivtsi - Demographics

Demographics

According to the latest All-Ukrainian population census in 2001, the population of Chernivtsi was approximately 236,700 people of 65 nationalities. Among them, 189,000 (79.8%) are Ukrainians; 26,700 (11.3%) Russians; 10,500 (4.4%) Romanians; 3,800 (1.6%) Moldovans; 1,400 (0.6%) Polish; 1,300 (0.6%) Jews; 2,900 (1.2%) other nationalities.

Based on the last available Soviet data, the population of the city, as of January 1, 1989, was approximately 295,000 residents. Among these, there are some 172,000 Ukrainians, 46,000 Russians, 16,000 Romanians, 13,000 Moldovans, 7,000 Poles and others.

The Romanian population in Chernivtsi started decreasing rapidly after 1950. Many Romanians fled to Romania or were deported to Siberia (where most of them died), and the remaining Romanian population quickly became a minority and assimilated with the majority. Nowadays, the Romanian minority in Chernivtsi is still decreasing as a result of cultural assimilation and emigration to Romania.

Chernivtsi once had a Jewish community of over 50,000, less than a third of whom survived World War II. Romanian lawyer and reserve officer Theodor Criveanu, as well as the then city mayor Traian Popovici, supported by General Vasile Ionescu saved 19,689 Jewish people. Initially, Governor of Bukovina Calotescu allowed only 190 Jewish people to stay, but Traian Popovici, after an incredible effort, obtained from the then dictator of Romania Marshal Ion Antonescu an allowance of 20,000. After World War II, the city was a key node in the Berihah net, which helped Jews to emigrate to the then Mandate Palestine from the difficult conditions after the War. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the majority of the remaining Jewish population emigrated to Israel and the United States. A famous member of this latter emigration is the actress Mila Kunis.

In Chernivtsi lived Ukrainians, Romanians, Poles, Ruthenians, Jews, Roma, and Germans. Their Culture and Prosperity, experienced the town during its affiliation to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy as the capital of the crown land Bukovina. By the murder of the Jews and the resettlement and expulsion of the whole ethnic groups, above all of the Germans and the Romanians, this tradition got lost after the Second World War to a great extent. The population group dominating today are the Ukrainians.

The mixing of the city by many population groups becomes recognizable in accompanying or following population statistics below. Thus Romanians and Ukrainians did the majority of the population, however, the Yiddish-speaking or German-speaking Jews removed the Romanians from 1870 as the biggest population group of the town. From 1880 the Romanians were removed from the Ukrainians also as a second largest population group.