Kamionobrod
Let us begin with what we knew at the outset of the investigation: on an old map printed in Gdańsk in 1648, amid the emptiness between the Dniester and the Bug, there stands a mark — Kamionobrod. Two slobodas on either side of the river. A name that appears in no register. The coordinates point to the upper Shumylivka — precisely where Horodkivka stands today.
Beauplan's map
Guillaume Levasseur de Beauplan — a French engineer in the service of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth — mapped Ukraine through the 1630s–1640s. His general map (Carte de l'Ukranie) appeared in print in 1648, the detailed eight-sheet map (Delineatio specialis) — in 1650–1651. Both show Kamionobrod on a river labelled Konczemniecza R. — yet another name for the Kosnica/Markivka.
The mark — two ⊕ symbols on either side of the river. In Beauplan's legend (per Dashkevych's edition, 1990) ⊕ denotes «Sloboda, latine nova Colonia» — a sloboda, a new colony. Not an old village, not a town, but precisely a new settlement with a grace-period status. Two symbols — two slobodas on the left and right banks.
But how did we link Kamionobrod on an old map with modern Horodkivka? The answer came from georeferencing. In 2018 the Polchins (Marquette University) published the Gazetteer of Beauplan's Ukraine — a digital catalogue of every mark on Beauplan's maps with geographic coordinates attached. Entry gazbu-2337: Kamionobrod — 48.378°N, 28.693°E. Horodkivka — 48.377°N, 28.699°E. The difference — less than 400 metres. And the neighbours on the map (Andresawka = Andriyashivka, Oreskowa abo Hanielpole = Hariachkivka (a double name), Osanka = Vilshanka) match the modern villages along the Shumylivka.
What we knew at this stage
The settlement existed before 1648. The name — Kamianobrid (we Ukrainianize the Latin Kamionobrod; also in the sources: Kamienobrod, Kamionobrоd; literally — «stone ford» across the Shumylivka). Its coordinates match Horodkivka to within 400 m. Two slobodas — meaning colonial status and tax privileges. But who founded it? When? Under what right? The map gives no answer. And why the name «Kamianobrid» if later the settlement is known as «Miastkivka»?
The 1649 register — the first administrative mention
The next source — the 1649 Register of the Zaporozhian Host. Here appears the Miastkivka sotnia of the Bracław Cossack regiment. The sotnyk (captain) — Mykhailo Zelenskyi. Under his command — 259 Cossacks.
Note: the name is already Miastkivka, not «Kamianobrid». And this is no small sloboda, but the centre of a sotnia — an administrative unit with several subordinate settlements. 259 Cossacks imply a substantial population — together with families and non-Cossack people, this amounts to hundreds, if not thousands, of inhabitants.
From the author
This was the moment when it became clear: the settlement could not have appeared only a few years before 1649. 259 Cossacks — that is a mature community. If it did not exist in the 1629 register, yet held the centre of a sotnia in 1649 — then its foundation falls somewhere between 1629 and c. 1640. And its founder must have been powerful enough to attract so many people onto land where twenty years earlier no one lived.
The 1664 hearth-tax register — the owner's name
The third source — the hearth-tax tariff of 1664 (AYuZR VII.2, p. 561). Here Miastkivka is at last tied to a particular person:
«Z Miastkowki, słobody... p. Koniecpolskiego, wojewodzica Sędomirskiego, z dymow dwudziestu pięci.»
«From Miastkivka, the sloboda... of Lord Koniecpolski, voivode's son of Sandomierz, from twenty-five hearths.»
AYuZR VII.2, doc. XXIX (1664), p. 561
Koniecpolski — here is the man who stands behind this settlement. «Voivode's son of Sandomierz» (wojewodzic Sędomirski) — that is, the son of the voivode of Sandomierz. In 1664 this is no longer Aleksander Koniecpolski (1620–1659), who had died five years earlier, but his son Stanisław Samuel (c. 21 years old in 1664), who lawfully bore this patronymic title.
One more detail: Miastkivka is entered as «słoboda» — a sloboda. Only 25 hearths — the village has been laid waste (what happened between 1649 and 1664 — is a separate story, which we shall tell below), but it keeps the grace-period status of a new colony.
From the author
At this stage three sources were in hand — the map, the Cossack register, and the hearth-tax register — and each one added a fragment: Beauplan gave the place (before 1648), the 1649 register gave the name «Miastkivka» and the scale (259 Cossacks), and the hearth-tax of 1664 gave the owner's name — Koniecpolski. The next step was logical: to search by the name of Koniecpolski in other sources — what else he held, what estates, where Miastkivka is recorded alongside his other holdings. That is how I arrived at the Connotatio Dobr.
Connotatio Dobr — two names, one place
In 1672 the Ottoman Empire invaded the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Under the Treaty of Buchach (October 1672) Podolia and part of the Bracław region passed to Turkey. The estates of the szlachta in these lands «fell away» — the owners lost their revenues, but did not surrender their rights. The Koniecpolski family drew up a register of everything they had lost — Connotatio Dobr Dziedzicznych («A List of Hereditary Estates»). The document is dated c. 1676–1682; it was published by Przyłecki in 1842. This is the most complete list of Koniecpolski holdings — 61 small towns and 99 villages, total annual income 420,000 zlotys.
And here — a surprise: our settlement appears twice, under different names and in different trakts. A trakt is not a road, but an administrative-economic route, a chain of estates recorded in the order of a circuit. The Connotatio has several trakts; two concern us: the Dniester Trakt (estates on the route toward the Dniester) and the Bug Trakt (on the route toward the Southern Bug).
| Dniester Trakt | Bug Trakt | |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Kamienobrod | Miastkowka |
| Position | No. 1 (start of the southward route) | No. 14 (end of the route from the east) |
| Route | Kamienobrod → Łosiow → Krasnopole → Dymitraszkówka... | ...Andriuszowka → Miastkowka |
The same settlement — under two different names, in two different trakts. The first question: is this really one place, or two neighbouring ones? The second: if it is one — why the double entry?
The answer did not come at once. The key lies in the notes attached to each trakt, where the voivodeship is specified («w Woiewodztwie Podolskim, a częścią y w Bracławskim» for the Dniester one; «w Woiewodztwie Bracławskim» for the Bug one), and in the order in which the settlements are listed: they do not follow an alphabet but a route — from mouth to mouth, from road to road, as on a circuit of estates.
That the settlements are indeed recorded as a route is confirmed by an independent source. In 1643 Hetman Koniecpolski's secretary Stanisław Oświęcim keeps a diariusz (diary) of a circuit of his patron's estates:
«Sam też JMP. Krakowski, nazajutrz wyjechawszy z Nowogrodu i w mili dobrej od niego pokarmiwszy w Żabokrzyczu, miasteczku swoim, a stąd po obiedzie pominąwszy w mili Krzykliwe uroczyszcze i słobodkę swoję, stanął we dwóch milach od niej na noc w Markówce, słobodzie i miasteczku swojem.»
«His Lordship the Kraków [castellan, i.e. Koniecpolski] himself, the next day having set out from Nowogród and a good mile from it having fed the horses at Żabokrzycz, his own little town, and from there after dinner, passing at a mile's distance Krzykliwe, his own urochyshche and little sloboda, came to a halt two miles beyond it for the night at Markówka, his own sloboda and little town.»
Oświęcim S. — Dyaryusz 1643–1651 (SRP, vol. XIX, Kraków, 1907), entry of 26 IX 1643
Oświęcim's route — Nowogród → Żabokrzycz → Krzykliwe → Markówka-Savranska → Werbka → Czeczelnik — is very close to the order of settlements in the Bug Trakt of the Connotatio, drawn up thirty years later. Not all settlements coincide — some had appeared only after 1643 — but the logic of the route is the same. The Connotatio records not an abstract list but a real circuit route, along which the stewards rode from estate to estate. The Dniester Trakt — is not «the left bank of the river», but a route: from Kamienobrod southward through Łosiow, Krasnopole, Dymitraszkówka, Chrestyshchi to Kamianytsia Dnistrova on the Dniester itself. The Bug Trakt — is another route: from Kozyntsi and Kitajgród in the west through Andriyashivka to Miastkivka. Miastkivka / Kamianobrid — is a nodal point where the two routes cross. The Kuczmański Trail, running through the centre of the estates, divided the «Bug-ward» from the «Dniester-ward» direction.
Let us put it all together. Imagine that you are Koniecpolski's steward and travel the Bug Trakt from the east, from the Bug. Kozyntsi, Kitajgród — further west, toward the Shumylivka: Andriyashivka, and at last Miastkivka — the end of the route. Further upstream along the Shumylivka — already Czetwertyński lands (Markivka-Janogród), and there you do not go. Andriyashivka and Miastkivka stand on the Shumylivka, but are recorded in the Bug Trakt, because you reached them from the eastern, Bug-ward direction.
Now imagine a different circuit — the Dniester Trakt. You stand at the same place, but you ride southward: from the stone ford across the Shumylivka — on to Łosiow, Krasnopole, Dymitraszkówka, as far as Kamianytsia Dnistrova on the Dniester. Here your starting point — is not «Miastkivka», but «Kamienobrod», because you begin from the crossing, and it is the crossing that marks the route.
And there is still another reason. The Dniester Trakt is recorded as estates «w Woiewodztwie Podolskim, a częścią y w Bracławskim» — partly in the Podole Voivodeship. The Bug Trakt — purely «w Woiewodztwie Bracławskim». Miastkivka stood precisely at the junction — where the border between the two voivodeships was ill-defined (Krypyakevych: the sotnia affiliation of settlements to the west of Miastkivka «has not been established»). Each voivodeship had its own tax and judicial system, its own collectors, its own registers — and no one checked them against one another. A settlement at such a junction naturally fell into both systems — under whatever name each collector knew.
And now let us recall Beauplan: he shows two slobodas (⊕⊕) on either side of the Shumylivka. The Dniester Trakt itself is described as estates «w Woiewodztwie Podolskim, a częścią y w Bracławskim» — partly in Podole, partly in Bracław. This is the chaos of the frontier: the formal boundary between the voivodeships ran somewhere along the Murafa, but in this interfluve it was so ill-defined that Krypyakevych notes — the sotnia affiliation of settlements hereabouts «has not been established».
We can only surmise, but the picture that comes together is this: Beauplan's two slobodas — are, most likely, two administrative entries at a single crossing. Kamianobrid — the sloboda by the ford, the gate of the Dniester Trakt (as Nowogród — was the gate for the Bug Trakt). Miastkivka — the small town, the terminus of the Bug Trakt. One physical place — but in the conditions of frontier chaos it found its way into two registers under two names.
So the scribe, compiling two separate lists for the two voivodeships, recorded this nodal point twice: as the starting point (Kamianobrid — after the name of the crossing) for the Dniester route, and as the terminus (Miastkivka — after the town's own name) for the Bug route. In all other documents — registers, acts, lustrations — only «Miastkivka» figures. The name «Kamianobrid» exists only here and on Beauplan's map, where the crossing was more important than the name of the town.
From the author
This solution did not come at once. At first, seeing two ⊕ symbols on either side of the river on Beauplan's map and two entries in the Connotatio, it seemed obvious: the Dniester Trakt = the left bank (Podolia), the Bug Trakt = the right (Bracław), and the river — the boundary between them. This simple scheme turned out to be false.
Having geocoded all 50+ settlements of both trakts — plotting each one on a modern map — I found counter-examples: Andriyashivka stands on the same bank as Miastkivka, yet is recorded in the Bug Trakt. Vilshanka stands on an altogether different river (the Voronkova), yet is recorded in the Dniester Trakt. The division into trakts did not correspond to the banks — it corresponded to the direction of routes.
The next step — comparison with Oświęcim's route (1643). His circuit of the Bug Trakt matches the Connotatio by the logic of movement. Then I tested three hypotheses for the double entry: administrative (two legal subjects in two voivodeships), route-based (the scribe did not cross-check the two lists), and deliberate inflation (more estates = larger losses after the Treaty of Buchach). Most probable — a combination of the first two.
One more fact: on Beauplan's map all settlements upstream of Kamianobrid (Markivka, Kisnytsia, Andriyashivka) are marked on the left bank. At Kamianobrid — two marks on both banks, but the label is on the right. And in modern Horodkivka the 17th-century stone house stands on the bank which Beauplan did not label (the left). Perhaps it was precisely the left-bank part (= «Kamianobrid») that was the older, and the label stood on the right — where the market of «Miastkivka» was. But this is already a conjecture, not a fact.
The blind spot: how did Miastkivka become Koniecpolski's?
So, we know: in 1626 the entire basin of the Kosnica/Markivka was bought by the Czetwertyński. In 1636 the delimitation with the Zamoyski family confirmed: «grunt kosnicki» — Czetwertyński land. Koniecpolski is not even mentioned in this document. Yet in 1664 Miastkivka is recorded as an estate of Koniecpolski.
What happened between 1636 and 1664? Where is the act of transfer? Who sold, gave, or exchanged? This — is the central problem of the investigation, the blind spot over which I struggled the longest.
Hypothesis A — direct purchase. The most intuitive scenario: Hetman Koniecpolski simply bought the middle section of the Markivka basin from the Czetwertyński family. He did so with other estates — for example, Jazłowiec for 1,100,000 zl., Pawłocz for 1,200,000 (Connotatio Dobr, Przyłecki, 1842, pp. 373–374). But no deed of purchase has been found: not in the Crown Metrica, nor in the grodzki books, nor in the printed sources. The Connotatio Dobr gives a price for Jazłowiec, for Pawłocz — but for the trakts (where Miastkivka lies) there is no price. As though no one had bought them.
Hypothesis B — through the Kalinowski family. Marcin Kalinowski, field Crown Hetman and starosta (district governor) of Bracław (from 1638), had estates in the region. Rolle cites the visitation of Bishop Sierakowski (1760s), where among the 12 estates of Kalinowski in which his testament of 1652 ordered churches to be built, «Miaskówce» is also named (Rolle, Zameczki podolskie, vol. 1, 1880, p. 34, footnote 37; after the manuscript Wizyty biskupa Sierakowskiego, p. 462). Might the lands have passed through a chain Czetwertyński → Kalinowski → Koniecpolski? But verification showed: the Kalinowski estates (Hulovtsi, Nesterwar, Sannyk) — lie in a different district, not the Kosnica basin (Krykun, Bracław Voivodeship, 2008). And Sierakowski wrote more than 100 years after the events.
Hypothesis C — political pressure. Koniecpolski — was Grand Crown Hetman, one of the most powerful men of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Czetwertyński — was chamberlain of Bracław (Jabłonowski, Ziemie ruskie, T. XI, 1897, pp. 724–725), a prince, but without comparable influence. The hetman could simply «ask» him to cede. This is plausible, but does not explain the juridical mechanism: even under pressure, a document is needed to legalize ownership. And a document there is none.
Hypothesis D — a family alliance. Around 1642 Petronela Czetwertyńska (daughter of the chamberlain Stefan) married Adam Przedbor Koniecpolski of a collateral branch of the family (Voytovych, Princely Dynasties of Eastern Europe). In 1645 they jointly went to law against her brother Janusz Czetwertyński over estates in the Bracław region (Krykun, 2008, p. 244). The two houses became a single family — and this could have facilitated any transaction. But a marriage — is not a deed of transfer. Proof of an alliance — is not proof of a sale.
None of the four gave an answer. I checked everything I could: 12 volumes of the Sumariusz of the Crown Metrica (MK 180–190, ~2,600 pages), 36 volumes of the AYuZR, Jabłonowski (3 volumes), the armorials of Boniecki and Niesiecki, Moldavian chronicles (Costin, Ureche), Ottoman sources (Evliya Çelebi), documents of the Bracław Voivodeship (5 MB of OCR) — in all, more than 100 sources in Polish, Ukrainian, Latin, French, and Turkish. The result: no deed of transfer of lands from the Czetwertyński to the Koniecpolski exists. Nowhere. But instead, something else turned up.
From the author
At this stage the search had reached a dead end. Four hypotheses, hundreds of sources — and not a single deed of transfer. The answer came from where I had not expected — from an unusual document that I had not even thought to look for: not a deed of sale, not a gift, not an exchange, but something altogether different.
Who could have founded Miastkivka?
So there is no deed of transfer. But we know the owner's name from the 1664 register — Koniecpolski. The register does not say which of the Koniecpolski founded Miastkivka, but knowing the chronology, there is only one candidate.
Stanisław Koniecpolski (1591–1646) — Grand Crown Hetman, castellan of Kraków, prince of the Holy Roman Empire (a title from Ferdinand III, 1637). One of the finest commanders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The scale of his expansion is striking: his father Aleksander (†1609) left him a single town — Koniecpol. In 20 years Stanisław transformed this into an empire: 170 towns, 740 villages, 12 starostwa. Victor at Martynów (1624), Hammerstein (1627), Trzciana (1629), Ochmatów (1644). For two decades he held the southern frontier against Tatars and Turks: «Posadami wielkich miast Ukrainę ozdobił, a tóm w Ukrainę Tatarom drogę zawarł» — «With the plantings of great towns he adorned Ukraine, and thereby barred the Tatars the road into Ukraine» (Przyłecki).
In 1633, near Kamieniec Podolski, he repulsed the storm of 20,000 soldiers of Abaza Pasha with only 11,000 of his own. In 1635 he builds the fortress of Kodak on the Dnieper — a barrier against Cossack campaigns to the Black Sea. In the same year 1635 he obtains a privilege for Czeczelnik in the Bracław region (MK 181, k. 105v, doc. 251/1168) — the first known privilege of Koniecpolski in our region. In 1637 he suppresses the Pawluk uprising; in 1638 — that of Ostryanyn.
February 1637. The Sejm in Warsaw. Koniecpolski is at the peak of his power: he has just repulsed the Tatars, he controls the entire southern frontier from Bar to Pereiaslav. King Władysław IV rewards him for his services in the battles against Tatars and Turks with an unprecedented privilege:
«Król wydaje Stanisławowi Koniecpolskiemu, kasztelanowi krakowskiemu, hetmanowi wielkiemu koronnemu… przywilej na lokowanie ośmiu miast na prawie niemieckim, zwanym magdeburskim. Każde miasto założone być ma dla obrony Królestwa przy Szlaku Kuczmańskim, w województwie bracławskim.»
«The King issues to Stanisław Koniecpolski, castellan of Kraków, Grand Crown Hetman… a privilege for the location of eight towns under German law, called Magdeburg law. Each town is to be founded for the defence of the Kingdom upon the Kuczmański Trail, in the voivodeship of Bracław.»
AGAD, Metryka Koronna MK 182, doc. 241/1699, k. 185v–187v (Warsaw, 27 II 1637)
Eight towns. Magdeburg law. For defence along the Kuczmański Trail. And the essential point — the document contains «okienka», blank spaces for the names of the towns:
Eight blanks with identical text and empty places for the names. Koniecpolski receives a carte blanche: he himself decides where exactly to plant the eight new towns along the Kuczmański Trail.
What exactly the privilege granted (per transcription of the original, k. 186v–187r)
| Right | Latin original | What it meant |
|---|---|---|
| Magdeburg law | ius Theutonicum quod Maddeburgen[se] | The town renounces the land law; its own magistrate and court |
| Exemption from officials | Pallatinorum, Castellanorum, Capitaneorum, Subcamerariorum, Judicum | The town is not subject to voivodes, castellans, starostas, chamberlains, or judges |
| Criminal jurisdiction | furis, homicidij, membrorum mutilationis, incendij, deceptij | Its own court over crimes: theft, murder, mutilation, arson, fraud |
| Advocacy (wójtostwo) | Advocatus Ill[ust]ris et Magn[ificu]s Castellanus Cra[coviensis]… eiusque [haeredibus] | The advocate of the town is Koniecpolski himself and his heirs — he does not cede the office to a locator |
| Appeal | Castellani Cracovien[sis] appellaturm | Only to Koniecpolski — not to the crown courts |
| Weekly markets | die Dominicis celebratur | On Sundays — curiously, in Horodkivka the market day is still Sunday |
| Free fairs | fora annualia libera [...] omnis cuiusque nationis | Persons of any nation and estate may trade |
| Safe transit | paci et transitus [...] in tutelam recipimus | Royal protection of travellers to and from the town |
| Sloboda | libertates franquentes | Exemption from taxes — up to 24 years for settlements on virgin soil |
Note the scale of these rights. The town is exempt from the jurisdiction of all officials — voivodes, castellans, starostas, chamberlains, judges. And the advocate (Advocatus) is Koniecpolski himself and his heirs. This means that everything was funnelled into a single chancery — the hetman's: courts, appeals, criminal cases, land acts. Not the grodzki court at Bracław, not the chamberlain, not the starosta — only Koniecpolski.
Precisely this explains why Miastkivka is invisible to us in the documents. It did not enter the hearth-tax registers (because of libertates — exemption from taxes), did not appear in the grodzki books (because it had its own court), did not pass through the chamberlain's delimitations (because the chamberlain had no jurisdiction over it). Everything pertaining to the life of the town — purchases, disputes, crimes, boundary matters — came to rest in the private archive of the Koniecpolski. And that archive burned: during the Khmelnytsky Uprising, during the Turkish occupation of 1672–1699, during the wars that followed. If the documents were at Bar or Pidhirtsi — they may have vanished forever.
The only way such a settlement would find its way into external documents — was in disputes with neighbours. And indeed: the first archival mention of Miastkivka — is in CDIAUK (Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine, Kyiv), f. 256, op. 1, unit 15, folio 16 (per Krykun, p. 244). The case covers documents from 1635 and later, so the precise year of the mention is unknown — it may be 1635, or 1637, or later. Given that the privilege was issued on 27 II 1637, the mention may well have appeared precisely after that — in the context of a dispute with neighbours over the boundaries of the newly founded town.
This is not a mere land permit. It is a royal mandate for territorial control. The wording «for the defence of the Kingdom» — is a higher jurisdiction than private property right. Issued at the Sejm — with the tacit consent of the entire noble assembly. 8 blanks without specification of particular lands: found them where you will in the Bracław region along the Kuczmański Trail. Miastkivka — at the junction of two trakts, on the stone ford across the Shumylivka, right on that trail — is an ideal candidate.
A curious coincidence: nine days later, on 8 March 1637, in the same Crown Metrica Koniecpolski petitions on behalf of Guillaume Beauplan — the very engineer who would place Kamionobrod on the map — and obtains for him the status of «royal servitor» (MK 182, doc. 258/1715, k. 200–200v). Beauplan was at work for the hetman at the moment the privilege was issued.
From the author
This document was found by an algorithmic search using AI systems in the AGAD online archive in March 2026. Previously there was no privilege tied to the founding of Miastkivka. Czeczelnik, a neighbouring Koniecpolski town, received an individual privilege even earlier — on 18 March 1635 (MK 181, k. 105v, doc. 251/1168).
Is this particular privilege what stands behind the founding of Miastkivka? I do not assert it as a proven fact. A filled-in copy bearing the name «Miastkivka» has not yet been found — it must be sought in the grodzki books of Bracław (CDIAUK, f. 12) or of Vinnytsia (f. 14). But I have put the facts together, and they point in one direction:
- A deed of purchase of the lands from the Czetwertyński does not exist — neither in the Metrica, nor in 100+ other sources
- Czetwertyński did not sue Koniecpolski over these lands — no protest is recorded anywhere
- The privilege was issued for the defence of the Kuczmański Trail — and Miastkivka did indeed become the centre of a Cossack sotnia (259 Cossacks, 1649) with a stone fortress (Paul of Aleppo, 1654) and a colonel «for the guarding of the frontier»
- The Czetwertyński kept their settlements (Markivka, Mala Kisnytsia) into the 18th c. — meaning the hetman occupied the empty gaps between them, and did not take what was theirs
This is not proof, but the most probable reconstruction. Confirmation requires a filled-in copy of one of the eight blanks.
Why «Miastkivka» and not «Kamianobrid»?
It is entirely possible that Koniecpolski wanted the town to be called Kamianobrid. Beauplan — the hetman's engineer — labels it so. The Dniester Trakt begins with Kamianobrid, as if that were its main name. The hetman founded towns and gave them names at his own discretion — Stina became Jangród (after Jan Zamoyski), Trostianets — Adamgród. Kamianobrid — a transparent, official name: the stone ford across the Shumylivka.
But Koniecpolski died in 1646 — nine years after the privilege. And then the Khmelnytsky Uprising began (1648), the Cossack registers, a new administration. The town lived its own life. And the locals, it seems, chose a name for themselves.
Beauplan shows two slobodas — two separate settlements at the ford. In time they merged into one. Which name won out? Not the cartographic «Kamianobrid», but the colloquial «Miastkivka» — from the Polish miasteczko, «little town». Simply «little town» — that is what the people who lived there called it, in contrast to the surrounding villages and slobodas. In all the Cossack and Bracław documents (1649, 1654, 1664) only «Miastkivka» figures. «Kamianobrid» remained only on Beauplan's map and in the Dniester Trakt of the Connotatio — the memorials of the hetman's time, when the founder was still alive.
Chronology of the founding
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| before 1629 | The settlement does not exist (absent from the hearth-tax tariff) | Źr. dz. T. XX, p. 136 |
| after 1637 | First archival mention of Miastkivka (⚠ Krykun's footnote, unverified; the case contains docs from 1635 onward, but the founding privilege — is only of 27.II.1637) | CDIAUK, f. 256 (per Krykun, p. 244) |
| 27 II 1637 | Privilege for 8 towns along the Kuczmański Trail | AGAD, MK 182, doc. 241/1699 |
| before 1648 | Kamionobrod on Beauplan's map — 2 slobodas | Carte de l'Ukranie, 1648 |
| 1649 | Miastkivka sotnia: 259 Cossacks, sotnyk Zelenskyi | 1649 Register of the Zaporozhian Host |
| 1654 | Stone fortress, two churches, garrison | Paul of Aleppo |
| 1664 | «Słoboda» of Koniecpolski, 25 hearths (after the wars) | AYuZR VII.2, p. 561 |
| c. 1672–82 | Double entry: Kamienobrod + Miastkowka | Connotatio Dobr |