Kherson Governorate Explained

Kherson Governorate
Native Name:	Херсонская губерния
Native Name Lang:	ru
Settlement Type:	Governorate
Mapsize:	225px
Subdivision Type:	Country
Subdivision Name:	Russian Empire
Established Title:	Established
Established Date:	1803
Extinct Title:	Abolished
Extinct Date:	1920
Seat Type:	Capital
Seat:	Kherson
Area Total Km2:	71936
Population As Of:	1897
Population Total:	2,733,612
Population Density Km2:	auto
Population Urban:	28.86%
Population Rural:	71.14%
Total Type:	Total

Kherson Governorate, known until 1803 as Nikolayev Governorate, was an administrative-territorial unit (guberniya) of the Russian Empire, with its capital in Kherson. It encompassed 71936km2 in area and had a population of 2,733,612 inhabitants. At the time of the census in 1897, it bordered Podolia Governorate to the northwest, Kiev Governorate to the north, Poltava Governorate to the northeast, Yekaterinoslav Governorate to the east, Taurida Governorate to the southeast, Black Sea to the south, and Bessarabia Governorate to the west. It roughly corresponds to what is now most of Mykolaiv, Kirovohrad and Odesa Oblasts in Ukraine and some parts of Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk Oblasts.

The economy of the governorate was mainly based on agriculture. During the grain harvest, thousands of agricultural laborers from the parts of the Empire found work in the area. The industrial part of the economy, consisting primarily of flour milling, distilling, metalworking industry, iron mining, beet-sugar processing, and brick industry, was underdeveloped.

Administrative divisions

The governorate bordered Bessarabia Governorate to the west, with Kiev and Poltava Governorates to the north, to the east could be found Yekaterinoslav Governorate, and in the southward direction was located Taurida Governorate.

From 1809, the governorate consisted of five uyezds: Khersonsky Uyezd, Aleksandriysky Uyezd, Ovidiopol, Tiraspolsky Uyezd, and Yelisavetgradsky Uyezd. The city of Odessa carried a special status. In 1825, Odessky Uyezd and in 1834, Ananyevsky Uyezd were added into the territorial division of the Kherson Governorate. A seventh uyezd – Bobrynets, existed from 1828 to 1865. The cities of Odessa and Nikolayev (in 1803–1861) and their surrounding vicinity were governed separately: Odessa by a gradonachalnik (Russian: градоначальник), answerable directly to the tsar and (from 1822) the governor-general of Novorossiya and Bessarabia, and Nikolayev by a military governor.

In 1920, while being under the Bolshevik rule, the governorate's territory, 706000NaN0, was divided to form the newer Odessa Governorate. The Kherson Governorate was renamed Mykolaiv Governorate in 1921, and in 1922 – merged with the Odessa Governorate. In 1925, the Odessa Governorate was abolished, and its territory was divided into six okruhas: Kherson, Kryvyi Rih, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Pershotravneve, and Zinoviivske. In 1932, much of this territory was incorporated into the new Odesa Oblast, now an administrative division of the modern Ukrainian nation, which was divided to form the Mykolaiv Oblast.

		Capital	Arms of capital	Area	Population (1897 census)
	Russian Cyrillic
	Александрійскій			11165disp=brNaNdisp=br	327,199
	Ананьевскій			10289.2disp=brNaNdisp=br	187,226
	Елисаветградскій			15866.8disp=brNaNdisp=br	507,660
	Одесскій			10552.1disp=brNaNdisp=br	532,729
	Тираспольскій			7228.9disp=brNaNdisp=br	206,568
	Херсонскій			19553disp=brNaNdisp=br	532,956
Nikolayev War Governorate	Николаевское воѣнное губернаторство			197.3disp=brNaNdisp=br	92,000

Principal cities

From the Russian Census of 1897

• Odessa – 403,815 (Russian – 198,233, Jewish – 124,511, Ukrainian – 37,925)
• Nikolayev – 92,012 (Russian – 61,023, Jewish – 17,949, Ukrainian – 7,780)
• Yelizavetgrad – 61,488 (Jewish – 23,256, Russian – 21,301, Ukrainian – 14,523)
• Kherson – 59,076 (Russian – 27,902, Jewish – 17,162, Ukrainian – 11,591)
• Tiraspol – 31,616 (Russian – 14,013, Jewish – 8,568, Ukrainian – 3,708)
• Ananiv – 16,684 (Ukrainian – 7,205, Romanian – 4,174, Jewish – 3,514)
• Voznesensk – 15,748 (Jewish – 5,879, Ukrainian – 5,644, Russian – 2,583)
• Bobrinets – 14,281 (Ukrainian – 9,529, Jewish – 3,464, Russian – 837)
• Aleksandriya – 14,007 (Ukrainian – 7,658, Jewish – 3,687, Russian – 2,364)
• Beryslav – 12,149 (Ukrainian – 8,852, Jewish – 2,639, Russian – 524)
• Dubossary – 12,089 (Jewish – 5,326, Romanian – 3,383, Ukrainian – 2,841)
• Novogeorgiyevsk – 11,594 (Russian – 6,631, Ukrainian – 3,372, Jewish – 1,424)
• Ochakov – 10,786 (Ukrainian – 5,204, Russian – 3,508, Jewish – 1,430)
• Novomirgorod – 9,364 (Russian – 7,025, Jewish – 1,617, Ukrainian – 572)
• Grigoriopol – 7,605 (Romanian – 3,740, Russian – 1,832, Jewish – 832)
• Olviopol – 6,884 (Ukrainian – 5,022, Jewish – 1,480, Russian – 271)
• Ovidiopol – 5,187 (Ukrainian – 2,785, Russian – 1,997, Jewish – 387)
• Maiaky – 4,575 (Russian – 2,865, Ukrainian – 944, Jewish – 644)

Demographics

Until 1858, a third of the population (military settlers, admiralty settlements, foreign colonists, etc.) was subject to martial law. The gubernia had a population of about 245,000 in 1812; 893,000 in 1851; 1,330,000 in 1863; 2,027,000 in 1885; 2,733,600 in 1897; and 3,744,600 in 1914. In the 1850s it consisted of Ukrainians (68–75 %), Romanians (8–11 %), Russians (3–7 %), Jews (6 %), Germans (4 %), Bulgarians (2 %), Poles, Greeks, and Gypsies. In 1914, Ukrainians composed only 53% of the population, while Russians made up 22% and Jews – 12%. Urban dwellers made up 10 to 20 percent of the population until the 1850s, after which the proportion of urban dwellers increased, to about 30% in 1897. Migration within the Russian Empire mainly accounted for the area's population growth, with 46% of the population born outside of the governorate in 1897.

See also: Jewish agricultural colonies in the Russian Empire.

Russian Empire Census

According to the Russian Empire Census on, the Kherson Governorate had a population of 2,733,612, including 1,400,981 men and 1,332,631 women. The majority of the population indicated Little Russian to be their mother tongue, with significant Russian, Jewish, Romanian, and German speaking minorities.

Linguistic composition of the Kherson Governorate in 1897^[1]

Language	Native speakers	Percentage
	1,462,039	53.48
	575,375	21.05
	322,537	11.80
	147,218	5.39
	123,453	4.52
	30,894	1.13
	25,685	0.94
	22,958	0.84
	8,257	0.30
	3,152	0.12
	2,070	0.08
	1,671	0.06
	1,353	0.05
	1,351	0.05
	834	0.03
	662	0.02
	619	0.02
	508	0.02
	478	0.01
	475	0.01
	303	0.01
	201	0.01
	170	0.01
Other languages	919	0.03
TOTAL	2,733,612	100.00

Faith !! rowspan="2"

Male !	Female	Both
Number		Percentage
	1,123,860	1,067,219	2,191,079	80.15
	168,425	171,485	339,910	12.43
	53,140	42,087	95,227	3.48
	29,229	27,328	56,557	2.07
	13,923	14,131	28,054	1.03
	2,719	2,696	5,415	0.20
	2,734	2,652	5,386	0.20
	2,507	2,503	5,010	0.18
	1,964	403	2,367	0.09
	1,307	905	2,212	0.08
	954	1,054	2,008	0.07
	80	83	163	0.01
	59	19	78	0.00
	13	11	24	0.00
Other Christian denomination	64	55	119	0.00
Other non-Christian denomination	3	0	3	0.00
Total	1,400,981	1,332,631	2,733,612	100.00

External links

• • Kherson Guberniya – Article in Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary Kherson Guberniya – Historical coat of arms
• Kherson gubernia – Article in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine
• From Kherson Governorate to Kherson Oblast. Kherson regional universal science library of Oles Honchar.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Demoscope Weekly – Annex. Statistical indicators reference . 2023-03-22 . www.demoscape.ru.