Khotin - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

KHOTIN, or Khoteen (variously written Khochim, Choczim, and Chocim), a fortified town of South Russia, in the government of Bessarabia, in 48° 30' N. and 26° 30' E., on the right bank of the Dniester, near the Austrian (Galician) frontier, and opposite Podolian Kamenets. Pop. (1897), 18,126. It possesses a few manufactures (leather, candles, beer, shoes, bricks), and carries on a considerable trade, but has always been of importance mainly as a military post, defending one of the most frequented passages of the Dniester. In the middle ages it was the seat of a Genoese colony; and it has been in Polish, Turkish and Austrian possession. The chief events in its annals are the defeat of the Turks in 1621 by Ladislaus IV., of Poland, in 1673 by John Sobieski, of Poland, and in 1739 by the Russians under Miinnich; the defeat of the Russians by the Turks in 1768; the capture by the Russians in 1769, and by the Austrians in 1788; and the occupation by the Russians in 1806. It finally passed to Russia with Bessarabia in 1812 by the peace of Bucharest.