Khotyn (Ukrainian: Хотин; Polish: Chocim; Romanian: Hotin; Russian: Хотин, Khotin) is a town in the Chernivtsi Oblast of Ukraine. In former times the town was part of the Bessarabia region, which between the 15th and the 20th centuries belonged successively to Moldavia, the Ottoman Empire, Russia, Romania, the Soviet Union, split between Ukrainian SSR and Moldavian SSR), and remaining split between Ukraine and Moldova. Due to the change of control the official name also changed, and there are a multitude of spellings for the town's name, including but not limited to Khotyn, Chocim, Chotyn, Hotin, Choczim, or Khotin. The city is famous for its history and archaeology, and also for the [ Khotyn Fortress].
In the 14th century Khotyn passed first to Hungary, then to Moldavia in the 15th century. It changed hands frequently over the next 200 years as rival empires sought to gain control of the strategic river crossing. During the 17th century and 18th century, its history was dominated by the war between the Christian powers of northern Europe and the expanding Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Turks suffered two decisive defeats at Khotyn in the 17th century at the hands of the army of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, in 1621 by Hetman Jan Chodkiewicz, and again in 1673 by King Jan Sobieski. In 1739 a Russian army under Burkhard Christoph von Munnich seized the town. The Russians were themselves defeated by the Turks in 1768 but rallied the following year to recapture the town. Khotyn fell to Austria in 1788 but finally passed to Russia permanently, along with Bessarabia, in 1812 in the Russo-Turkish War.
The collapse of the Russian Empire in the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922 prompted Romania to annex territories along its border, including Khotyn. Shortly after the town became part of Romania in January 1919, Ukrainian Bolshevik troops dressed as civilians entered Khotyn and encouraged the ethnic Ukrainians to revolt. An insurrection took place against the Romanians (see Khotyn uprising). The Romanian Army defeated the Bolsheviks within a month. It remained under Romanian rule until June 1940, when the town passed to the Soviet Union with the rest of the Chernivtsi region under the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Khotyn thus became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. It was under German occupation from 1941 to 1944, and in 1991 became part of the newly independent country of Ukraine.
In the 1621 battle of Khotyn, an army of 160,000 Turkish veterans were led by Sultan Osman II from Adrianople towards the Polish frontier. The Turks, after their victory at the Cecora, had high hopes of conquering Poland altogether. Their opposing military commander Jan Karol Chodkiewicz crossed the Dniester in September 1621 and entrenched himself in the Khotyn Fortress right in the path of the Ottoman advance. Here for a whole month the Commonwealth hetman held the sultan at bay, till the first fall of autumn snow compelled Osman to withdraw his diminished forces. But the victory was dearly purchased by Poland. A few days before the siege was raised the aged grand hetman died of exhaustion in the fortress on September 24, 1621. The Commonwealth forces held under the command of Stanisław Lubomirski. The battle is described by Wacław Potocki in his most famous work Transakcja wojny chocimskiej and ends the period of Moldavian Magnate Wars.
In the 1673 battle of Khotyn, the Polish Hussars again fought a major battle at this location.
In the Russo-Turkish War, the fortress was taken by Russian Field Marshal Burkhard Christoph von Munnich on August 19 1739. This victory is remembered primarily through the Ode on the Taking of Khotin from the Turks, composed by the young Mikhail Lomonosov. This ode produced a revolution in the Russian letters, often taken as a starting point of the modern Russian poetry.