Ivan Karkach - according to one of the versions of the founding of the city of Kharkov, set out in historical documents of the 18th century, a siege (besieging people at the site of the settlement), the leader of a group of settlers who fled to the Russian kingdom and founded a settlement on the territory of the modern city. Historians do not unambiguously confirm the existence of such a person. The first reliable person associated with Kharkov is the Selifont Warrior.
Among the historians who actively support the idea of the existence of Ivan Karkach was the Kharkiv historian Dmitry Bagalei. Referring to the documents of the 18th century, for example, to the “Chronogeographical description of Kharkov in 1767” or “Description of the Sloboda-Ukrainian cities and towns”, he admitted that the first settler who brought settlers to the Kharkov settlement between the rivers Lopan and Kharkov was Ivan Karkach. In the middle of the 18th century, these sources reported information: “As far as is known, the city of Kharkov was inhabited in the middle of the last century by free people of the Little Russian people called up from the Zadneprovsky and Little Russian cities according to privileges to protect the border from Crimean Tatar raids, and the first besieger was a Little Russian nicknamed Ivan Karkach”.
Other historians (in particular, Kharkiv researcher Ivan Saratov, Kharkiv local historian Andrei Paramonov and others), referring to the documents of the 17th century, denied the existence of this historical figure. For example, the existence of Ivan Karkach is not confirmed by the name lists of the Cossacks of 1658, in which there are the names of Stepan and Yakov Karkachi, as well as the “Karkachev apiary”, and there was no name Ivan.
The name of Ivan Karkach is mentioned as a hypothetical founder of the city in a number of guidebooks around the city of Kharkov, and the point of view about his existence is also present in non-fiction literature, in particular, in the publications of Kharkiv journalist Konstantin Kevorkyan.
The name of Ivan Karkach, despite the lack of convincing evidence of the existence of this historical figure, was immortalized in Kharkov toponymy. In Kharkov, a boulevard, an alley, an entrance and a driveway are named after Ivan Karkach.
