Donbas | Map, Region, Ukraine, & War | Britannica

Early history through the Soviet era

The Scythians had established a presence in the lands of the Donbas by the 7th century bce, and many nomadic peoples of the Western Steppe passed through the area over subsequent centuries. By the 16th century the settled population began to grow, and control of the area was divided between the Zaporozhian Cossacks in the north and the khanate of Crimea in the south. At this time the kings of Poland and the princes of Muscovy attempted to exert their influence in the region, and both enlisted the Cossacks to check the advances of the Tatars from Crimea. The Crimean War (1853–56), which cut off Russia’s access to imported coal from England, provided some impetus to the industrial development of the Donbas, but large-scale commercial exploitation of the region began only after the coming of the railways in the 1870s.

After several largely unsuccessful efforts to establish a metallurgical industry in the Donbas, an ironworks was set up in 1872 by Welsh engineer John Hughes at the site of present-day Donetsk. The industrial economy of the Donbas began to expand dramatically after the completion in 1886 of a railway to the iron ore mines of Kryvyy Rih, and, by the beginning of World War I, the Donets Basin had developed into the principal iron- and steel-producing region of the Russian Empire. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s Five-Year Plans greatly accelerated industrial development in the Donbas during the interwar years, albeit at an enormous human cost to the Ukrainian peasantry. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian peasants were deported to Siberia, and millions perished as a result of Stalin’s man-made famine (Holodomor). Meanwhile, many of the workers attracted to the growing industrial cities in the Donbas came from Russia. As a result, the urban centres of the Donbas became highly Russified islands in what had been a Ukrainian rural sea. World War II caused heavy damage to mines, plants, and towns. Many industrial assets were destroyed by the Soviets ahead of the German advance as part of their scorched-earth retreat, and the local population suffered brutal treatment under Nazi occupation. The great devastation of World War II accelerated the reequipment of factories and mines with modern machinery, while concentration into larger units during reconstruction made economies of scale possible. Throughout the postwar Soviet period, the Donbas remained a key centre of heavy industry and coal production.