Editing Dnipro (section)

==== Establishment of Catherine's city ====
The first written mention of a town in the [[Russian Empire]] called Yekaterinoslav can be found in a report from [[Azov Governorate|Azov Governor]] [[Vasily Chertkov]] to [[Grigory Potemkin]] on 23 April 1776. He wrote "The provincial city called Yekaterinoslav should be the best convenience on the right side of the [[Dnieper River]] near Kaydak..." (referring to Novyi Kodak). In 1777, a town named Yekaterinoslav (''the glory of Catherine''),<ref name="Cybriwsky History of the Dnipro"/> was built to the north of the present-day city at the confluence of the [[Samara (Dnieper)|Samara]] and Kilchen rivers. The site was badly chosen – spring waters transformed the city into a bog.<ref name="eugene">{{cite web |url=http://www.eugene.com.ua/dnepr.html |title=www.eugene.com.ua Dnepropetrovsk History |publisher=Eugene.com.ua |access-date=28 November 2014}}</ref><ref name="ukrssr2"/> The surviving settlement was later renamed [[Samar, Ukraine|Novomoskovsk]].<ref name="midnipromuseumnovyjkodak"/><ref name="ReferenceA">S. S. Montefiore: Prince of Princes – The Life of Potemkin</ref>

The territory of modern Dnipro, despite the modern-day city's size, still has not expanded to encompass the territory of (Chertkov's) Yekaterinoslav of 1776.<ref name="ukrainianweek198459"/> On 22 January 1784 [[Russian Emperor|Russian Empress]] [[Catherine the Great]] signed an Imperial Ukase directing that "the gubernatorial city under name of Yekaterinoslav be moved to the right bank of the [[Dnieper]] river near Kodak". The new city would serve [[Grigory Potemkin]] as a [[Yekaterinoslav Viceroyalty|Viceregal seat for the combined Novorossiya and Azov Governorates]].<ref name="ukrssr2"/>

On {{OldStyleDate|20 May|1787|9 May}}, in the course of her celebrated [[Crimean journey of Catherine the Great|Crimean journey]], the Empress laid the foundation stone of the [[Transfiguration Cathedral, Dnipro|Transfiguration Cathedral]] in the presence of Austrian [[Emperor Joseph II]], [[Polish king]] [[Stanisław August Poniatowski]], and the French and English ambassadors.<ref>Portno and Portnova (2015), p. 225</ref><ref name="sobor2">{{cite web |last=Kavun |first=Maksim |script-title=ru:Загадки Преображенского собора |trans-title=Riddles surrounding the Transfiguration Cathedral |url=http://gorod.dp.ua/history/article_ru.php?article=124 |access-date=27 July 2019 |publisher=Gorod.dp.ua |language=ru}}</ref> Potemkin's grandiose plans for a third Russian imperial capital alongside Moscow and Saint Petersburg included a viceregal palace, a university (Potemkin envisioned Yekaterinoslav as the '[[Athens]] of southern Russia'<ref name="CharlesWynnPA25&l"/>), courts of law and a botanical garden,<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=acjMDgAAQBAJ&dq=Yekaterinoslav+Potemkin&pg=PA83 Mungo Melvin CB OBE, ''Sevastopol's Wars: Crimea from Potemkin to Putin'', Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017], page 83</ref> were frustrated by a renewal of the [[Russo-Turkish War (1787–92)|Russo-Turkish war]] in 1787, by bureaucratic procrastination, defective workmanship, and theft, Potemkin's death in 1791 and that of his imperial patroness five years later.<ref name="CharlesWynnPA25&l">Charles Wynn. [https://books.google.com/books?id=6jYABAAAQBAJ&dq=Ekaterinoslav+third+capital+Russia&pg=PA25 Workers, Strikes, and Pogroms: The Donbass-Dnepr Bend in Late Imperial Russia, 1870–1905] – "[The Empress] and her favorite, Prince Grigorii Potemkin, the city's first governor-general and the de facto viceroy of southern Russia, had big plans for Ekaterinoslav. Potemkin envisioned Ekaterinoslav as the 'Athens of southern Russia' and as Russia's third capital – 'the centre of the administrative, economic, and cultural life of southern Russia.'"</ref>

In 1815 a government official described the town as "more like some [[Russian Mennonites|Dutch [Mennonite] colony]] then a provincial administrative centre".<ref name="BartlettYekaterinoslav2">{{cite book |last=Bartlett |first=Roger P. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DLc8AAAAIAAJ&dq=Yekaterinoslav+Potemkin+death&pg=PA133 |title=Human Capital: The Settlement of Foreigners in Russia 1762–1804 |date=13 December 1979 |publisher=CUP Archive |isbn=978-0-521-22205-1 |page=133}}</ref> The cathedral, much reduced in size, was completed in 1835.<ref name="ukrssr2"/>

===== Disputed year of foundation =====
Scholarship concerning the foundation of the city has been subject to political considerations and dispute.<ref name="ukrainianweek198459"/><ref name=":4" /> In 1976, to have the bicentenary of the city coincide with the 70th anniversary of the birth of Soviet party leader, and regional native son, [[Leonid Brezhnev]], the date of the city's foundation was moved back from the visit Russian Empress Catherine II in 1787, to 1776.<ref name="ukrainianweek198459">[https://ukrainianweek.com/History/198459 Riding the currents], [[The Ukrainian Week]] (18 August 2017)</ref>

Following Ukrainian independence, local historians began to promote the idea of a town emerging in the 17th century from Cossack settlements, an approach aimed at promoting the city's Ukrainian identity.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |last=Repan |first=Oleh |date=30 January 2022 |title=Memory Politics in Dnipropetrovsk, 1991–2015 |url=https://www.e-ir.info/2022/01/30/memory-politics-in-dnipropetrovsk-1991-2015/ |access-date=2022-08-07 |website=E-International Relations |language=en-US}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{cite book | first1 = Andrii | last1 = Portnov | first2 = Tetiana | last2 = Portnova | chapter = The 'Imperial' and the 'Cossack' in the Semiotics of Ekaterinoslav-Dnipropetrovsk:The Controversies of the Foundation Myth | editor-last=Pil'shchikov | editor-first=I. A. | title=Urban semiotics : the city as a cultural-historical phenomenon | publication-place=Tallinn | date=2015 | isbn=978-9985-58-807-9 | oclc=951558037 | chapter-url = https://shron1.chtyvo.org.ua/Portnov_Andrii/The_Imperial_and_the_Cossack_in_the_Semiotics_of_Ekaterinoslav-Dnipropetrovsk_The_Controversies_of_t.pdf}}</ref> They cited the chronicler of the [[Zaporozhian Cossacks]], [[Dmytro Yavornytsky]], whose ''History of the City of Ekaterinoslav'' completed in 1940 was authorised for publication only in 1989, the era of [[Glasnost]].<ref name="umoloda">''"Літописець Запорозької Січі – Минуло 150 років від дня народження Дмитра Яворницького", Ukraina Moloda, November 2011'', {{in lang|uk}}</ref><ref name=":3" />