Donetsk
Soviet Union

When the Russian Civil War broke out, Yuzivka became a part of Ukrainian People's Republic as per the Third Universal. It became a part of Cuman Zemlia, the administrative center of which was Bakhmut. During the First Ukrainian–Soviet War, Yuzivka was captured by the Bolshevik forces on 5 January 1918, but then recaptured by Ukraine in April. Soviet forces captured Yuzivka again during the Second Ukrainian–Soviet War. Donetsk became a part of Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic from its declaration of independence on 12 February 1918. The Republic was disbanded at the 2nd All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets on 20 March 1918, when the independence of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic was declared. It failed to achieve recognition, either internationally or by the Russian SFSR, and was abolished under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

In 1924, under Soviet rule, the city's name was changed to Stalin. In that year, the city's population totaled 63,708, and in the next year, 80,085. In 1929–31 the city's name was changed to Stalino. The city did not have a drinking water system until 1931, when a 55.3 km (34.4 mi) system was laid underground. In July 1933, the city became the administrative center of the Donetsk Oblast of the Ukrainian SSR. In 1933, the first 12 km (7 mi) sewer system was installed, and the use of gas began the next year. Some sources state that the city was briefly called Trotsk—after Leon Trotsky —for a few months in late 1923.

At the start of World War II, the population of Stalino was 507,000. After the war, the population was 175,000. The invasion by Nazi Germany almost completely destroyed the city. It was occupied by German and Italian forces as part of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine between 16 October 1941 and 5 September 1943. It was mostly rebuilt on a large scale after the war.

In 1945, young men and women aged 17 to 35, from the Danube Swabian (Schwowe) communities of Yugoslavia, Hungary and Romania (the Batschka and Banat), were forcibly sent to Russia as Allied "war reparations", being put to work as slave labour to rebuild Stalino and to work in its mines. The conditions were so poor that many died from disease and malnutrition.

During Nikita Khrushchev 's second wave of destalinization in November 1961, the city was renamed Donetsk, after the Seversky Donets River, a tributary of the Don in order to distance it from the former leader Joseph Stalin.

In 1965, the Donetsk Academy of Sciences was established as part of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR.
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