Paper "castle" in Olchedajiv (1452)

Nicholas Zharkikh

Shortened text of the section.
Full text in ukrainian version.

Charter of 1452

We saw that in the summer of 1452, the Tatars of Seid-Ahmet attacked the lands of the Podillja and Rus’ voivodeships and felt quite comfortable there, in no hurry to leave [Zharkikh M. I. Tatar attacks on Ukraine: 1438 – 1478 – Kyiv: 2022, section «Tatar attack of 1452»].

Podillja starosta Teodoryk Buczacki was not at all upset about this (we have not seen any mention of his efforts to oppose the Tatars, not to mention the Podillja voivode Grytsko Kyrdei). He had other, more important concerns. He came to the congress of Polish leaders in Sieradz, and there the king awarded T. Buczacki: he was granted a charter for the village Olchedajiv with its hamlets [ArchJuZR, part 7, vol. 1, No. 87, p. 170 – 173].

Now all this can be plotted on a map:

On the map, green circles are relatively certain localized objects, orange circles are doubtfully localized. Orange arrows show the connection between localization options. Large blue circles are approximate locations of forests mentioned in the charter of 1553 (see below).

List of Podillja sites from 1453

Act of 1464

The next mention of Olchedajiv is contained in the act of November 15, 1464, according to which the royal commissioners (Podillja voivode Stanislav from Khodcha, Galician castellan Mykhailo-Muzhylo Buczacki and Lviv canon Ioan Avda) took over the Kamianets-Podilsky starostvo, bought from Mykhailo Buczacki. [ArchJuZR, part 7, vol. 1, No. 15, p. 23-24].

Verification of documents from 1469

This year, a collection of registries of charters was compiled, on the basis of which the Podillja nobles owned estates. Documents of Mykhailo Buczacki (Teodoryk’s son) are also recorded here, in particular, the charter of 1452.

Division of the Buchacky estates in 1469

On April 23, 1469, an act of division of estates between the sons of Theodoryk Buczacki – Mykhailo and Ioan – was recorded in the Galych court book [Akta grodzkie and ziemskie. – Lw.: 1887, vol. 12, No. 3428, pp. 329 – 330].

List of objects from 1485

Charter of 1549

Charter of 1553

The most important thing that the charter of 1553 provides for my narrow topic is the cancellation of the obligation to build a castle in Olchedajiv. The obligation was canceled, plundered, mutilated, destroyed, annulled and abnegated, so that absolutely nothing of it remained. This best shows us that no castle in Olchedajiv was ever built, and no commission for these hundred years (1452 – 1553) examined and accepted it.

Data from the 17th – 18th centuries

Material remains

Conclusions

1. Title Olchedajiv first appears in the acts of the Lutsk Truce of 1431 to mark the eastern border of the territory that belonged to Kamianets-Podilsky Castle and therefore belonged to Poland. From this mention, it is impossible to guess what the mentioned object was.

2. In 1452 village Olchedajiv with a large surrounding area was granted to Teodoryk Buczacki with the obligation to build a stone castle. This obligation was never fulfilled, and there was never a castle in Olchedajiv.

3. In 1553, the rights of Juri Jazlowiecki (the heir of T. Buczacki) to Olchedajiv were confirmed, and at the same time canceled the obligation to build a castle.

4. At the beginning of the 17th century, a new village was founded on the Lyadova River upstream of Olchedajiv, which was named New, or Upper Olchedajiv (modern Vyshcheolchedajiv) – to distinguish it from Old, Lower Olchedajiv. The identification of ancient Olchedajiv with Vyshcheolchedajiv, established in the literature, is a mistake.

5. The occasional naming of Olchedajiv as a town should be considered intentions or projects; in fact, Olchedajiv was a village of no particular importance all along.

6. The hillfort in Vyshcheolchedajiv dates back to the era of Kyivan Rus’ and has no relation to a later time.

Olchedajiv studies at the present stage

Well, what is the benefit of this Olchedajiv studies at for the main topic, for the Pobozhye?

My work is in the nature of essays, that is, my goal is not to get to the final destination as quickly as possible, but to see more along the way. So, we saw how bad things were with the construction of fortifications in the Polish Podillja Voivodeship, and now we can consider that things were even worse in the Lithuanian Bratslav region (if that is even possible).

Also, those who like to fantasize about "castles" in Karaul, in Kachybejiv and other little-known places should remember: it was easier to build a castle in Olchedajiv, 80 km from Kamianets-Podilsky, than in Kachybejiv, 450 km from the same Kamianets-Podilsky, but this simplicity was relative and did not help anything – the castle never appeared. Moreover, there could not have been "castles" in the mentioned little-known places.