Ratzlaff Family blog: Kunev Village, seat of Kunev Township

In 1906, most of the Mennonite villages in the Ostrog area were in the townships of Kunevskoy or Pluzhanskoy. Karolswalde (Sloboda Galendry), Antonovka, and Mezheliski were in the township of Kunevskoy, the seat of which was located at the village of Kunev.

Kunev (Russian: Кунев; Ukrainian: Kuniv, Кунів; Polish: Kuniów; German: Kunew; Yiddish: Koniv, קוניוו; also known as Kunoff or Cunev) is a town located about 9 miles by road southwest of Ostrog. Mezheliski was located about a mile southeast of the town, Antonovka about a mile northeast, and Karolswalde about 3.5 miles northwest (by road). Kunev was established around the year 1462 and was a center of activity in the 19^th Century. A brick Roman Catholic Church called the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Michael was built on the north side of the town in 1838, and a Jewish synagogue was also built in Kunev. By the late 19^th Century, a water mill was erected on the Vilia River, as well as a saw mill just to the northwest. A brick factory also existed. Kunev was established by the Russians as a Township Center of Ostrog County in the 19^th Century and its population grew to 2,845 in 1906. The population of the village in the 19^th Century was predominantly Jewish; the Jewish inhabitants numbering 1661 in the year 1900. A Polish Geographical Dictionary compiled during the last quarter of the 19th Century described Kunev as a shabby little town on a muddy plain with a half-dozen stores in the market square, around which were built the houses of the Jewish inhabitants. The town housed 3 tanneries and a brewery and was owned by the Jablonowsky Family (earlier, the town had belonged to the Malin Family, but was purchased by the Jablonowskys in 1831).

A 7-year Hebrew school was established in 1924. A military garrison stood in the southwestern area of the village during WWI, providing a Russian presence to the area. The town was moved into the administrative authority of Zaslav County in 1921, after the Polish-Soviet War. During this period many of the Poles of Kunev resisted the Soviets, escaping over the nearby border into Polish territory. The remaining Polish populace was later evicted. By 1931, a telegraph office and a post office were located in the town. The Hebrew school and the churches were closed by the Soviets prior to 1939. Two cemeteries served the village; one on the southeast side of town and another directly south, just outside the town. A Polish map from 1931 also indicates a game-keeper’s cottage just outside the town to the east; perhaps this game-keeper was also a forester for the large Kunev forest which stretched out on the south and eastern sides of the town. A secondary school which served Kunev as well as several nearby villages was established in the early 1940s. During the 1950s, an electricity powerplant was built on the Vilia River on the outskirts of the town, providing the first electricity to the area. Today, Kunev is the center of the Kunivska Village Council and is located in Izyaslav District, Khmelnytsky Province, Ukraine. The Population in 2001 was 644 people.