History of Kalush
Kalush is an old industrial town close to the mountains. Here you can find picturesque nature and the peace of a small town. The name of the town comes from the word "puddle". Kalush has been famous for beer, salt and bells since ancient times. The streets carefully preserve their history and over time accumulate memories of the town.
The first written mention of Kalush is dated 27 May 1437 and was found in the twelve-volume Halytskyi Grodskih books. It was about "the trial on the next Tuesday after the Trinity with the participation of the royal man Dragush of Kalush against Mytko of Kurosh".
On 19 February 1549, the Polish king Sigismund Augustus authorised the governor of Belz, crown hetman and Galician starost Mykola Senyavskyi to found the town of Kalush with a stroke of his pen. From that year Kalush became a "free town" in the Magdeburg right with its own coat of arms. It shows three salt furnaces on a red background. According to the descriptions of the royal estates for the years 1565-1566, there were ten salt springs in the town and several in the surrounding villages.The king ordered the construction of a castle surrounded by walls. The buildings belonging to the castle had underground passages. Kalush, like other towns in Galicia, was transformed into a fortress to defend against Turkish and Tatar attacks.
Unfortunately, neither the castle grounds nor the defensive walls with their gates, towers and old buildings have survived to the present day, but the landscape of the central part of the town still bears witness to its former presence.
The people of Kalush made great efforts to free themselves from Polish oppression. It was during the war of liberation of the Ukrainian people led by Bohdan Khmelnytskyi. In the autumn of 1648 the Ukrainian self-government was established in the town under the leadership of the mayor Hryts Volykovych. But in December of the same year, a terrible tragedy befell the Ukrainian officials in Kalush: they were all executed by the Poles.
In 1772 Kalush, along with the whole of Galicia and part of Volhynia, came under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The architecture of the historical part and the boundaries of the town changed. The town grew. In 1848, the lordship of Galicia was abolished. With the advent of democratic institutions, children were allwed to be taught in their mother tongue and reading rooms were opened.
In 1884, Ivan Franko visited our town and gave a lecture on Samiil Kishka at the People's House during a festival of literature and art. In 1903 a branch of "Prosvita" was opened in Kalush. In 1917 a branch of the Union of Ukrainian Women was founded under the leadership of Maria Tysovska and Stefiniya Chornita.
In 1918, after the October Revolution, when the ZUNR was established, the people of Kalush, under the leadership of Father Andrii Bandera (Stepan Bandera's father), made an attempt to free themselves from Polish oppression. They took power into their own hands almost painlessly. The state and district office of the ZUNR secretariat was established in the town, the newspaper "Golos Kalusha" was published, and a Ukrainian gymnasium was organised.
In 1920 Kalush, along with the rest of Galicia, officially came under Polish rule again, and in 1939 under the Soviet Union.
On 1 July 1941 the inhabitants of Kalush proclaimed the Act of Restoration of the Independent State of Ukraine. On 2 July, Hungarian units entered Kalush, which later handed over power to the German occupiers. On the orders of the head of the Kaluga Gestapo, about 7,000 Jews were shot in the town, and many of the townspeople were deported to Germany for forced labour. At that time, the OUN underground, and later the UPA divisions, actively resisted the occupiers.
During the Soviet Union, Kalush became an industrial giant, which allowed the city to expand its boundaries. In the 70s, there was a time when a house was put into operation every month.
The local elections of 4 March 1990 broke the CPSU-CPU monopoly on power. 96 out of 100 deputies were elected to the Kalush City Council by the residents of the city, and re-elections were held in 4 electoral districts. Most of these deputies are representatives of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, active social and political figures with a clear pro-Ukrainian orientation.
Contribution to the development of the future of the community - the establishment of the Kaluga Gymnasium on 22 August
1990 by the decision of the Kalush City Council of the first democratic convocation. The initiators of the establishment of the gymnasium were the well-known teacher Dmytro Bakhmatyuk and the deputy of the city council Oleksandr Pidlisnyuk, who found support for the idea from the then mayor Roman Sushka and the deputy corps of the city council.
With the adoption of the Law on the Independence of Ukraine and the nationwide referendum on the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine, the Kalush City Council took over the powers of the local self-government body of independent Ukraine.
After the reconstruction, changes in the state system took place, but industry remained a reliable backbone and source of income for a large part of the population.
In 2004, many residents of Kalush expressed their civic attitude by taking part in the "Orange Revolution" protests.
In 2011 Kalush was included in the list of the 22 best cities of Ukraine in terms of quality of life, according to the results of the research of the analytical centre "Universitas".
An important stage in the history of Ukraine was the Revolution of Dignity in 2013. Many city residents, who could not accept the arbitrariness of the state, went to Kyiv to support Euromaidan. One of them, Ihor Dmytriov, died giving his life for the European future of our country.
At the beginning of the anti-terrorist operation, many people from Kaluga went to the front, some of them never came back alive.
The fertile land of Kalush has given Ukraine and the world many outstanding public and political figures, representatives of the clergy, medicine, science, culture and sport.
Kalush has experienced many ups and downs, but the "heart of the city" keeps beating.
KALUSH CRAFTS AND INDUSTRY
In the 15th century Kalush became a large settlement with important salt mines.
Kalush beer has been brewed in the town since 1656. Which is, after all, older than Lviv. At one time, Lviv brewers used tricks to gain markets, but the local beer was also famous in Europe. It was exported in special containers to Poland, Hungary and France. Kaluska "Cisarske" competed with Bavarian, Czech and Lviv beers, and even the Austro-Hungarian Emperor himself liked to taste it.
In 1771 the Kaluga Salt Works had 12 wells. There were 33 craftsmen working here (including 5 coopers). Artisans, specialists in various branches of industrial production were engaged in the production of salt, saltpetre, potash, etc. here.
There was a smithy near the saltworks, where iron was smelted and pans for the saltworks were made. Later, the Austrian government introduced a state monopoly on salt and prohibited the use of subsoil. At the end of the 18th century, the export of salt decreased and the process of closing down the saltworks began. However, the saltworks survived until 1848.
In May 1804, while deepening a mine near Kalush, workers found "bitter" salts - kainite and sylvinite. And in 1867 in the centre of the district, which at that time consisted of 90 villages, a joint-stock company was established for the development of potash deposits. Two years later, a factory for processing potash ores was built in the town. And from that time the chemical industry was started, which reached its greatest development in the 50s and 60s of the 20th century.
Our region is famous for bell casting. It was started by the Felchynski brothers in 1808. Felchisky bells won the Grand Prix at the World Exhibitions in Liege, Belgium (1927) and Paris (1928). And 12 bells called "Harmony" were cast for one of the cathedrals in the USA.
Today, about one percent (0.72%) of all industrial production of Ukraine is produced in Kalush (according to the official statistics of 2019).