Wheat and other cereals are extensively grown; other noteworthy crops are potatoes, tobacco and grapes. Nearly 40,000 persons find occupation in factories, the most important being iron-works and agricultural machinery works, though there are also tobacco, glass, soap and candle factories, potteries, tanneries and breweries. In the districts of Mariupol the making of agricultural implements and machinery is carried on extensively as a domestic industry in the villages. Bees are kept in very considerable numbers. Fishing employs many persons in the Don and the Dnieper. Cereals are exported in large quantities via the Dnieper, the Sevastopol railway, and the port of Mariupol. The chief towns of the eight districts, with their populations in 1897, are Ekaterinoslav (135,552 inhabitants in 1900), Alexandrovsk (28,434), Bakhmut (30,585), Mariupol (31,772), Novomoskovsk (12,862), Pavlograd (17,188), Slavyanoserbsk (3120), and Verkhne-dnyeprovsk (11,607).
EKATERINOSLAV, a town of Russia, capital of the government of the same name, on the right bank of the Dnieper above the rapids, 673 m. by rail S.S.W. of Moscow, in 48° 21′ N. and 35° 4′ E., at an altitude of 210 ft. Pop. (1861) 18,881, without suburbs; (1900) 135,552. If the suburb of Novyikoindak be included, the town extends for upwards of 4 m. along the river. The oldest part lies very low and is much exposed to floods. Contiguous to the towns on the N.W. is the royal village of Novyimaidani or the New Factories. The bishop’s palace, mining academy, archaeological museum and library are the principal public buildings. The house now occupied by the Nobles Club was formerly inhabited by the author and statesman Potemkin. Ekaterinoslav is a rapidly growing city, with a number of technical schools, and is an important depot for timber floated down the Dnieper, and also for cereals. Its iron-works, flour-mills and agricultural machinery works give occupation to over 5000 persons. In fact since 1895 the city has become the centre of numerous Franco-Belgian industrial undertakings. In addition to the branches just mentioned, there are tobacco factories and breweries. Considerable trade is carried on in cattle, cereals, horses and wool, there being three annual fairs. On the site of the city there formerly stood the Polish castle of Koindak, built in 1635, and destroyed by the Cossacks. The existing city was founded by Potemkin in 1786, and in the following year Catherine II. laid the foundation-stone of the cathedral, though it was not actually built until 1830-1835. On the south side of it is a bronze statue of the empress, put up in 1846. Paul I. changed the name of the city to Novo-rossiysk, but the original name was restored in 1802.
EKHOF, KONRAD (1720-1778), German actor, was born in Hamburg on the 12th of August 1720. In 1739 he became a member of Johann Friedrich Schönemann’s (1704-1782) company in Lüneburg, and made his first appearance there on the 15th of January 1740 as Xiphares in Racine’s Mithridate. From 1751 the Schönemann company performed mainly in Hamburg and at Schwerin, where Duke Christian Louis II. of Mecklenburg-Schwerin made them comedians to the court. During this period Ekhof founded a theatrical academy, which, though short-lived, was of great importance in helping to raise the standard of German acting and the status of German actors. In 1757 Ekhof left Schönemann to join Franz Schuch’s company at Danzig; but he soon returned to Hamburg, where, in conjunction with two other actors, he succeeded Schönemann in the direction of the company. He resigned this position, however, in favour of H.G. Koch, with whom he acted until 1764, when he joined K.E. Ackermann’s company. In 1767 was founded the National Theatre at Hamburg, made famous by Lessing’s Hamburgische Dramaturgie, and Ekhof was the leading member of the company. After the failure of the enterprise Ekhof was for a time in Weimar, and ultimately became co-director of the new court theatre at Gotha. This, the first permanently established theatre in Germany, was opened on the 2nd of October 1775. Ekhof’s reputation was now at its height; Goethe called him the only German tragic actor; and in 1777 he acted with Goethe and Duke Charles Augustus at a private performance at Weimar, dining afterwards with the poet at the ducal table. He died on the 16th of June 1778. His versatility may be judged from the fact that in the comedies of Goldoni and Molière he was no less successful than in the tragedies of Lessing and Shakespeare. He was regarded by his contemporaries as an unsurpassed exponent of naturalness on the stage; and in this respect he has been not unfairly compared with Garrick. His fame, however, was rapidly eclipsed by that of Friedrich U.L. Schröder. His literary efforts were chiefly confined to translations from French authors.
See H. Uhde, biography of Ekhof in vol. iv. of Der neue Plutarch (1876), and J. Rüschner, K. Ekhofs Leben und Wirken (1872). Also H. Devrient, J.F. Schönemann und seine Schauspielergesellschaft (1895).
EKRON (better, as in the Septuagint and Josephus, Accaron, Ἀκκαρών), a royal city of the Philistines commonly identified with the modern Syrian village of ‘Aḳir, 5 m. from Ramleh, on the southern slope of a low ridge separating the plain of Philistia from Sharon. It lay inland and off the main line of traffic. Though included by the Israelites within the limits of the tribe of Judah, and mentioned in Judges xix. as one of the cities of Dan, it was in Philistine possession in the days of Samuel, and apparently maintained its independence. According to the narrative of the Hebrew text, here differing from the Greek text and Josephus (which read Askelon), it was the last town to which the ark was transferred before its restoration to the Israelites. Its maintenance of a sanctuary of Baal Zebub is mentioned in 2 Kings i. From Assyrian inscriptions it has been gathered that Padi, king of Ekron, was for a time the vassal of Hezekiah of Judah, but regained his independence when the latter was hard pressed by Sennacherib. A notice of its history in 147 B.C. is found in 1 Macc. x. 89; after the fall of Jerusalem A.D. 70 it was settled by Jews. At the time of the crusades it was still a large village. Recently a Jewish agricultural colony has been settled there. The houses are built of mud, and in the absence of visible remains of antiquity, the identification of the site is questionable. The neighbourhood is fertile.
(R. A. S. M.)