Hermanivka has a small museum opened in 1995 which contains more than 4,000 exhibits related to the history of the town, with substantial coverage of its involvement with the Zaporizhian Cossacks.
Cossack Hetman and Ukrainian national hero Bohdan Khmelnytsky twice battled Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth forces at Hermanivka in 1651.
Two Cossack colonels – Prokop Vereshchak and Stepan Sulyma – are buried in Hermanivka.
In the 18th century, peasants of Hermanivka, by then a part of the Russian Empire, participated actively in the anti-serfdom movement.
Hermanivka suffered greatly during the Holodomor famine of 1932–33, losing 20 percent of its population.