ethnic perspective, the Austrian Empire supported Ruthenization - to keep the native Moldavians away from Moldova (1774-1859) and away from Romania (after Moldova's 1859 union to Wallachia to form modern Romania); while from an religious perspective, the Austrians promoted the Greek Catholic Church, to keep the population away from the other neighbor - Orthodox Russia. The farmers from the 13 surrounding villages brought their produce to the market in Kitsman. During the period of Romanian rule (1918–1944), the Romanian authorities viewed the Ukrainians (Ruthenes) as Ruthenized Romanians and attempted to reverse such a process by prioritizing schooling in Romanian. As a consequence of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, Romania lost North Bukovina and Hertsa region to USSR, process being wrongly associated with the Jewish population; thus Jews were seen by some as enemies of the state whose suppression was one of the goals of the state, while others (like Chernivtsi's mayor Traian Popovici) worked hard to save the Jews from deportation. A local newspaper is published here since June 1, 1941. In January 1989 the population was 9500 people. In January 2013 the population was 6762 people. Until 18 July 2020, Kitsman served as an administrative center of Kitsman Raion. The raion was abolished in July 2020 as part of the administrative reform of Ukraine, which reduced the number of raions of Chernivtsi Oblast to three. The area of Kitsman Raion was split between Chernivtsi Raion and Vyzhnytsia Raion, with Kitsman being transferred to Chernivtsi Raion. Notable figures Remarkably, Kitsman is the birthplace of several nationally well-known musicians including Volodymyr Ivasyuk and Ani Lorak. Jewish community Out of the population of 6000 that Kitsman had, approximately 700 (11.6%) were Jews who had immigrated from nearby areas of Galicia at the beginning of the 19th century and who dealt mainly with commerce in agricultural products. They also were occupied as craftsmen and were practically the only representatives of the intellectual professions. There were Jews in the ranks of the judges and in the bureaucracy. To name a few, Nathan Seidmann, a clerk in the planning section of the district administration in Kitsman who in his time as a member of the executive committee 2 during the years 1921 to 1927 and intermittently as chairman of the Zionist organization, performed notable service. Before 1914, the Jews and the Ruthenian (Ukrainian) population of the town and the surrounding villages co-existed in peace. References External links