Novhorod-Siverskyi Novhorod-Siverskyi Ninlil Category="History of Russia"Category="History of Ukraine"Category="Towns in Ukraine"Novhorod-Siversky (Ukrainian: Новгород-Сіверський) or Novgorod-Seversky (Russian: Новгород-Северский) is a historic town in the Chernihiv Oblast (province) of Ukraine, on the bank of the Desna River, 200 km from the capital Kiev and 45 km south from the Russian border. Its population is around 15,000.

History

The town was first chronicled in 1044. Since 1098 it is the capital of Siverian Principality, which served as a buffer zone against incursions of the Cumans (Polovtsy) and other Steppe peoples. One of numerous campaigns of local princes against Cumans gave birth to the great monument of early East Slavic literarure, the Tale of Igor's Campaign.

After the town's destruction by Mongols in 1239, it passed to the princes of Bryansk and then to the Grand Dukes of Lithuania. Muscovy obtained the area following the Battle of Vedrosha in 1503, but had to return it back to Poland after the Time of Troubles. The town finally passed to Russia under terms of Andrusovo armistice (1667). It was made a capital of a separate namestnichestvo in 1782–97. Thereafter its importance steadily declined.

Architecture

The main point of interest in the town is the former residence of the Chernihiv (Chernigov) metropolitans, the monastery of the Saviour's Transfiguration. It features a ponderous Neoclassical cathedral (1791–96, design by Giacomo Quarenghi), seventeenth-century stone walls, and several ecclesiastic foundations, also dating from the seventeenth century. Other landmarks include the Baroque Assumption cathedral, a Triumphal arch (1787), and the wooden church of St. Nicholas (1760).