KAMENETS PODOLSKIY, or PODOLIAN KAMENETS (Polish Kamieniec), a town of
S.W. Russia, chief town of the government of Podolia. It stands in 48
deg. 40' N. and 26 deg. 30' E., on a high, rocky bluff of the river
Smotrich, a left-hand tributary of the Dniester, and near the Austrian
frontier. Pop. (1863), 20,699; (1900) 39,113, of whom 50% were Jews and
30% Poles. Round the town lies a cluster of suburban villages, Polish
Folwark, Russian Folwark, Zinkovtsui, Karvasarui, &c.; and on the
opposite side of the river, accessible by a wooden bridge, stands the
castle which long frowned defiance across the Dniester to Khotin in
Bessarabia. Kamenets is the see of a Roman Catholic and a Greek Orthodox
bishop. The Roman Catholic cathedral of St Peter and St Paul, built in
1361, is distinguished by a minaret, recalling the time when it was used
as a mosque by the Turks (1672-1699). The Greek cathedral of John the
Baptist dates from the 16th century, but up to 1798 belonged to the
Basilian monastery. Other buildings are the Orthodox Greek monastery of
the Trinity, and the Catholic Armenian church (founded in 1398),
possessing a 14th-century missal and an image of the Virgin Mary that
saw the Mongol invasion of 1239-1242. The town contains Orthodox Greek
and Roman Catholic seminaries, Jewish colleges, and an archaeological
museum for church antiquities, founded in 1890. Kamenets was laid waste
by the Mongol leader Batu in 1240. In 1434 it was made the chief town of
the province of Podolia. In the 15th and 16th centuries it suffered
frequently from the invasions of Tatars, Moldavians and Turks; and in
1672 the hetman of the Cossacks, Doroshenko, assisted by Sultan Mahommed
IV. of Turkey, made himself master of the place. Restored to Poland by
the peace of Karlowitz (1699), it passed with Podolia to Russia in 1795.
Here the Turks were defeated by the Poles in 1633, and here twenty years
later peace was concluded between the same antagonists. The
fortifications were demolished in 1813.
KAMENZ, a town in the kingdom of Saxony, on the Black Elster, 21 m. N.E.
of Dresden, on a branch line of railway from Bischofswerda. Pop. (1900),
9726. It has four Evangelical churches, among them a Wendish one, and a
handsome new town-hall with a library. The hospital is dedicated to the
memory of Lessing, who was born here. A colossal bust of the poet was
placed opposite the Wendish church in 1863, and a monument was raised to
him on a neighbouring hill in 1864. The industries of Kamenz include
wool-spinning, and the manufacture of cloth, glass, crockery and
stoneware. Built about 1200, Kamenz, was known by the name Dreikretcham
until the 16th century. In 1318 it passed to the mark of Brandenburg; in
1319 to Bohemia; and in 1635, after suffering much in the Hussite and
Thirty Years' wars, it came into the possession of Saxony. In 1706 and
1842 it was almost entirely consumed by fire.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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