Dnipro (Дніпро) was renamed in 2016 following Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity. Now the fourth-largest city in Ukraine, Dnipro shares its name with the Dnipro River, the fourth-longest river in Europe. The city of Dnipro straddles its banks.
Novyi Kodak was the town's Ukrainian Cossack name before the Russians conquered the area in the 18th century. Since that time, political regimes have renamed it repeatedly:
Russian Empire Names: The Czarist regimes named the city Ekaterinoslav, “Glory of Catherine,” for Catherine the Great. The Yiddish version of this name is Yekaterinoslav, and a Polish version is Jekatierinosław. Briefly, during the reign of Czar Paul (1796-1802), the city was called Novorossiysk. The next Czar restored the name to Ekaterinoslav.
Soviet Era Names: In 1917, with Ukraine independent from the Russia, Ukrainians named the city Sicheslav. Less than two years later, the USSR gained control of Ukraine and changed the name back to Ekaterinoslav. However, in 1926 the USSR gave the city a whole new name, Dnepropetrovsk, a merger of the Ukrainian Communist Party leader Grigory Petrovsky's name with the name of the river.
Independent Ukraine: As part of Ukraine’s de-communization efforts, in 2016 Ukrainians removed Petrovsky’s name from the city’s name. It is now known simply as "Dnipro." The oblast, the province that surrounds it, is still named Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.
During the 1800s, the Russian Empire actively encouraged Jewish people to move from other parts of the Pale of Settlement to Ukraine as part of Russia’s colonization efforts. Jewish tradespeople, farmers, factory workers, and craftsmen brought their families with hopes of steady work and a better life. By the late 19th century, approximately one-third of the city’s inhabitants were Jewish.
Dnipro now has an active and vibrant Jewish community. For a deeper history of Dnipro's Jewish community, see our KehilaLinks Dnipro History Pages.
This shows:
the town's name in various languages,
political jurisdictions during different time periods, and
contact information for other researchers interested in this town via the JewishGen Family Finder (JGFF).
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Header photo by Олег Тоцкий (tov-tob), 2015. From Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA 3.0. This mini-site is built with gratitude to Sylvia Walowitz & Joseph Bekinschtein, the previous sponsors and creators of Dnipro's KehilaLinks page.