Rohatyn Historical and Local Lore Museum "Opillya"

The museum’s exposition covers the past of Rohatyn district in a historical and chronological sequence. 

The first exhibition hall presents the most ancient history of the region, from the Paleolithic period to the developed Middle Ages, starting with primitive tools and their reconstructions. Visitors can see fragments of Lipytska culture ceramics, a collection of fibulae, crosses, rings and buckles from the Early Iron Age and Kyivan Rus. The hall ends with information about the original location of Rohatyn and graphic hypothetical reconstructions of lost defences.

The next room begins with a description of Rohatyn as an ancient city.

The world knows Rohatyn for its legendary native, Roksolana. The next part of the hall is dedicated to this figure and her activities, where a reconstructive reproduction of women’s Turkish traditional clothing brought from the Republic of Turkey and portrait images of her are exhibited. 

The same hall also features a collection of bullets from the 17th and 18th centuries, coins from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and an akçe of Suleiman the Magnificent. The exposition hall ends with information about sacred buildings of the 16th-18th centuries that have been fully or partially preserved. 

The materials in the third exhibition hall represent traditional Opillya clothing, embroidery (towels, spyglasses, sewing, etc.), and household items typical of Rohatyn Opillya. 

The fourth exhibition hall reveals the history of the Rohatyn region in the first half of the twentieth century and is divided into several main themes. Visitors can get acquainted with photographs and documents on the history of the Prosvita Society, the Union of Ukrainian Women, the Village Master, the Renaissance Society, and Plast. A separate showcase is dedicated to the activities of the Rohatyn Volodymyr the Great Gymnasium.

The First World War in the Rohatyn region is known for a whole galaxy of active participants in the riflemen’s movement. A valuable exhibit is the photo album of Ivan Verbyanyi, a teacher at the Rohatyn Gymnasium named after Volodymyr the Great, organiser and leader of Plast, a member of the Renaissance Society (1920s-1930s).

Thanks to the cooperation between the researchers of the Opillia Museum and the Shevchenko Scientific Society in America, copies of photographs from the Rohatyn Region fund, which cover the activities of public societies in our area in the interwar period, as well as materials from the Stepan Ripetskyi fund – the last works of Mykola Uhryn-Bezhrishnyi in exile – were transferred from New York for display in the museum. 

The next thematic block (World War II) is represented by original official documentation of the Ukrainian District Administration in Rohatyn. Particular attention should be paid to the part of the exhibition dedicated to the underground armed struggle of the local population and the stay of the leaders of the insurgency (Vasyl Ivakhiv, Roman Shukhevych, Dmytro Karpenko, Oleksiy Demsky, and others) on the territory of Rohatyn district at different times.

In the fifth exhibition hall there are the following exhibitions:

1. A private collection of postcards (Rohatyn in the first half of the twentieth century) and office documents donated to the Opillya Museum by Piotr Lewicki (Kraków, Poland).

2. A collection of drawings and personal documents by architect Roman Hrytsai (donated to the museum by Mykhailo Vorobets).

3. Documents from the Ottoman archives on the stay of the 15th Corps of the Turkish Army in Rohatyn during the First World War (1916-1917), donated to the museum by the Embassy of the Republic of Turkey in Ukraine. 

4. A reconstructive reproduction of the uniform of a Turkish army officer of the period.

The hall ends with a brief overview of the history of the Jewish community in the Rohatyn region (Jewish household items, religious attributes, and a 2-hour film from the life of this community in Rohatyn in 1932 are presented).

The museum’s exhibition hall regularly hosts art and thematic exhibitions.

The museum also has an Opillya Pottery. In the pottery, museum visitors have the opportunity to try their hand at an ancient and somewhat forgotten craft.