The first Rus capital
The Varangians (Vikings) seized Kiev in the mid-9th century, and, as in Novgorod to the north, a Slavo-Varangian ruling elite developed. Kiev, with its good defensive site on the high river bluffs and as the centre of a rich agricultural area and a group of early Slavic towns, began to gain importance. About 882 Oleg (Oleh), the ruler of Novgorod, captured Kiev and made it his capital, the centre of the first East Slavic state, Kievan Rus. The town flourished, chiefly through trade along the Dnieper going south to the Byzantine Empire and north over portages to the rivers flowing to the Baltic Sea—the so-called “road from the Varangians to the Greeks,” or “water road.” Trade also went to the Caspian Sea and Central Asia.
In 988 the introduction of Christianity to Kiev enhanced its significance as the spiritual centre of Rus. By the 12th century, according to the chronicles, the city’s wealth and religious importance was attested to by its more than 400 churches. The cathedral of St. Sophia, parts of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra (Monastery of the Caves), and the ruins of the Golden Gate remain today as witnesses to Kiev at the height of its splendour. The town was famed for its art, the mosaics and frescoes of its churches, its craftsmanship in silver, and the quality of many of its manufactures. One of Europe’s major cities, Kiev established diplomatic relations with the Byzantine Empire, England, France, Sweden, and other countries. Travelers wrote of its population as numbering tens of thousands.
Throughout the period of Kievan Rus, however, the city was engaged in a succession of wars against the nomadic warrior peoples who inhabited the steppes to the south: in turn, the Khazars, the Pechenegs, and the Polovtsians (Kipchak, or Kuman). These conflicts weakened the city, but even greater harm was done by the endless, complex internecine struggles of the princedoms into which Rus was divided. In 1169 Prince Andrew Bogolyubsky of Rostov-Suzdal captured and sacked Kiev. Thus, by the late 12th century the power of the city had declined, and in the following century it was unable to resist the rising and formidable power of the Mongols. In 1238 a Mongol army under Batu, grandson of Genghis Khan, invaded Rus and, having sacked the towns of central Rus, in 1240 besieged and stormed Kiev. Much of the city was destroyed and most of its population killed. The Franciscan friar and traveler Giovanni da Pian del Carpini six years later reported only 200 houses surviving in Kiev.
Kiev under Lithuania and Poland
In the 14th century what was left of Kiev and its surrounding area came under the control of the powerful and expanding grand duchy of Lithuania, which captured it in 1362. For a long time thereafter Kiev had little function except as a fortress and minor market on the vaguely defined frontier between Lithuania and the steppe Tatars, based in the Crimea. It frequently came under attack from the Tatars; in 1482 the Crimean khan, Mengli Giray, took and sacked the town. Almost the only survival of Kiev’s former greatness was its role as the seat of an Eastern Orthodox metropolitan. A step forward came in 1516, when the grand duke Sigismund I granted Kiev a charter of autonomy, thereby much stimulating trade.
In 1569 the Union of Lublin between Lithuania and Poland gave Kiev and the Ukrainian lands to Poland. Kiev became one of the centres of Orthodox opposition to the expansion of Polish Roman Catholic influence, spearheaded by vigorous proselytization by the Jesuits. In the 17th century a religious Ukrainian brotherhood was established in Kiev, as in other Ukrainian towns, to further this opposition and encourage Ukrainian nationalism. Peter Mogila (Petro Mohyla), a major theologian and metropolitan of Kiev from 1633 to 1646, founded there the Collegium (later the Kievan Mohyla Academy) as a major Orthodox centre of learning in the East Slavic world.
In the 17th century there was also increasing unrest among the Zaporozhian Cossacks of the Dnieper downstream of Kiev and an ever-growing struggle between them and the Polish crown. This eventually culminated in the revolt of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, who, assisted by the Crimean Tatars, entered Kiev triumphantly with his insurgent Cossacks in 1649. He came under heavy pressure from the Polish forces, and in 1654 Khmelnytsky and the Cossacks signed the Pereyaslav Agreement, in essence submitting Ukraine to Moscow; this was followed by a prolonged and confused period of strife and destruction leading in 1667 to the Truce of Andrusovo, which confirmed the suzerainty and protection of Moscow over the so-called Left Bank, or the part of Ukraine east of the Dnieper, and Kiev (actually located west of the river), while Poland gained the Right Bank, or western Ukraine. Thereafter, further struggle ensued against the Turks, with the Cossacks constantly changing sides and engaging in internecine disputes. In 1686 the Treaty of Eternal Peace between Poland and Russia confirmed Russian control of Kiev, which stood as the sole Muscovite outpost on the right bank of the Dnieper.
Evolution of the modern city
Kiev under the tsars
In 1793 the Second Partition of Poland, under Russian empress Catherine II (the Great), brought Right Bank Ukraine into the Russian Empire, and Kiev, assisted by the abolition in 1754 of the tariff barriers between Russia and the Ukrainian lands, began to grow in commercial importance. Catherine’s reign was marked by the abolition of the old administrative system and of the post of Cossack hetman (commander in chief) and by the division of Ukraine into new administrative provinces, for one of which Kiev became the centre. Subsequently, Kiev became the centre of a governor-generalship covering three provinces.
In the first half of the 19th century, Kiev developed as a major focus of Ukrainian nationalism, although severe persecution from the tsarist government forced the movement to shift the brunt of its activities to Lviv in the Austrian-ruled Ukrainian regions. In Kiev, as in Russian cities, there was clandestine revolutionary activity (beginning with the Decembrists in the early 19th century) that culminated in a series of strikes and demonstrations leading to the Russian Revolution of 1905. An important role in this revolutionary movement was taken by students of the University of Kiev (now the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv), which had been established in 1834.
During the 19th century the expanding economic importance of Ukraine, and especially the growing export of grain, brought further commercial development to Kiev. Modern factory industry appeared; to the Arsenal, which had been set up as early as the 18th century, were added lumber milling and the building of rivercraft. The town developed significant industries processing agricultural-related products—leather making, tobacco processing, distilling, brewing, and textile production. In the late 1860s Kiev was connected by rail to both Moscow and the Black Sea port of Odessa, further enhancing its role as a centre of industry, commerce, and administration. By the outbreak of World War I, the city had a population of some 350,000.