"Volga Blue Granite" (anorthosite), a popular decorative stone quarried between the cities ofKorosten and Zhytomyr, central Zhytomyr Oblast
Zhytomyr Oblast (Ukrainian:Житомирська область,romanized: Zhytomyrska oblast), also referred to asZhytomyrshchyna (Ukrainian:Житомирщина), is anoblast (province) in northwesternUkraine. Theadministrative center of the oblast is the city ofZhytomyr. Its population is approximately1,179,032 (2022 estimate).[4]
The oblast covers territories of the historic regions ofPolesia,Volhynia, andPodolia, which are reflected on the oblast's coat of arms.
Before the 18th century the larger half of the oblast belonged to theKyiv Voivodeship (Polish:Kijów), while the smaller western half around the city ofZviahel belonged to theVolyn Voivodeship. Following theTreaty of Andrusovo, the city of Zhytomyr (Polish:Zytomierz) continued to act as an administrative center of the Kyiv Voivodeship.
Following thesecond partition of Poland, on the newly annexed territory was formed an oversized Izyaslav Vice-royalty (Russian:namestnichestvo) which included former Polish territories in Volhynia, Podolia, and Kyiv land and centered inIzyaslav. However, a couple of years later theRussian Empire annexed more territories of the Polish Kingdom during thethird partition of Poland, contributing to the complete disappearance of the Polish statehood. The Izyaslav Vice-royalty was reformed and the territory of today's Zhytomyr Oblast predominantly ended up in the RussianVolhynian Governorate and the city ofZviahel which was renamed as Novohrad-Volynskyi (Russian:Novograd-Volynskiy) became its administrative center. Later the administrative center was transferred to the bigger city of Zhytomyr (Russian:Zhitomir).
According to the2001 Ukrainian census,Ukrainian was the native language for over 93% of Zhytomyr Oblast's population: it was the dominant language in all of the city, town, and village councils of the oblast.
Due to theRussification of Ukraine during the Soviet era, the share of Ukrainian speakers in the population of Zhytomyr Oblast gradually decreased between the 1970 and 1989 censuses, while the share of Russian speakers increased.[12] Native language of the population of Zhytomyr Oblast according to the results of population censuses:[13][14][15][16][17][18]
Ukrainian is the only official language on the whole territory of Zhytomyr Oblast.[20]
On 20 December 2018, a moratorium on the public use of Russian-language cultural products was imposed in Zhytomyr Oblast by a decision of theZhytomyr Oblast Council.[21]
According to a poll conducted byRating from 16 November to 10 December 2018 as part of the project «Portraits of Regions», 74% of the residents of Zhytomyr Oblast believed that the Ukrainian language should be the only state language on the entire territory of Ukraine. 14% believed that Ukrainian should be the only state language, while Russian should be the second official language in some regions of the country. 9% believed that Russian should become the second state language of the country. 3% found it difficult to answer.[22]
On 18 November 2022, Zhytomyr Oblast Military Administration approved the «Oblast programme for the development of the Ukrainian language in all spheres of public life in Zhytomyr Oblast for 2022—2025», the main objective of which is to strengthen the positions of the Ukrainian language in various spheres of public life in the oblast.[23]
According to the research of theContent Analysis Centre, conducted from 15 August to 15 September 2024, the topic of which was the ratio of Ukrainian and Russian languages in the Ukrainian segment ofsocial media, 84.0% of posts from Zhytomyr Oblast were written in Ukrainian (76.1% in 2023, 73.5% in 2022, 24.6% in 2020), while 16.0% were written in Russian (23.9% in 2023, 26.5% in 2022, 75.4% in 2020).[24][25]
After Ukraine declared independence in 1991, Zhytomyr Oblast, as well as Ukraine as a whole, experienced a gradualUkrainization of the education system, which had beenRussified[26] during the Soviet era. Dynamics of the ratio of thelanguages of instruction in general secondary education institutions in Zhytomyr Oblast:[27][28][29][30][31][32][33]
According to theState Statistics Service of Ukraine, in the 2023—2024 school year, all 133,037 pupils in general secondary education institutions in Zhytomyr Oblast were studying in classes whereUkrainian was the language of instruction.[34]
The northern part of the province is highly affected by theChernobyl disaster: some of thetowns andraions are devastated and are included in theChernobyl zone, while others are prohibited from producing their own agriculture.
Most of Ukraine's oblasts are named after theircapital cities, officially referred to as "oblast centers" (Ukrainian:обласний центр,translit.oblasnyi tsentr). The name of each oblast is arelativeadjective, formed by adding a femininesuffix to the name of respective center city:Zhytomyr is the center of theZhytomyrs'ka oblast' (Zhytomyr Oblast). Most oblasts are also sometimes referred to in a feminine noun form, following the convention of traditional regional place names, ending with the suffix "-shchyna", as is the case with Zhytomyr Oblast,Zhytomyrshchyna.
^Barbara A. Anderson and Brian D. Silver, "Equality, Efficiency, and Politics in Soviet Bilingual Education Policy, 1934-1980," American Political Science Review 78 (December 1984): 1019-1039.
^«Статистичний щорічник України за 1998 рік» — К., 1999."Джерело".pics.livejournal.com. Retrieved2024-12-26.
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