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Chernivtsi(chĭrnĭft`sē), Ger. Czernowitz, Romanian Cernauţi, Rus. Chernovtsy, city (1989 pop. 257,000), capital of Chernivtsi region, SW Ukraine, on the Prut River and in the Carpathian foothills. It is a rail junction and the economic, cultural, and scientific center of the region of BukovinaBukovina
, Rom. Bucovina, Ukr. Bukovyna, historic region of E Europe, in SW Ukraine and NE Romania. Traversed by the Carpathian Mts. and the upper Prut and Siretul rivers, it is heavily forested [Bukovina
..... Click the link for more information. . Industries, which include woodworking and food processing, are powered by a nearby hydroeletric station. One of Ukraine's oldest towns, Chernivtsi was part of Kievan RusKievan Rus
, medieval state of the Eastern Slavs. It was the earliest predecessor of modern Ukraine and Russia. Flourishing from the 10th to the 13th cent., it included nearly all of present-day Ukraine and Belarus and part of NW European Russia, extending as far N as Novgorod
..... Click the link for more information. . It passed to Austria in 1775 and in 1849 became the capital of Bukovina. During the 19th and early 20th cent., the city was a center of a Ukrainian nationalist movement. With the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918, Chernivtsi was transferred to Romania, which held it until the USSR seized N Bukovina in 1940. The city has a university (est. 1875), a 13th-century fortified castle, a 17th-century wooden church, and a 19th-century Orthodox Eastern cathedral.