History of Kiev - Kievan Rus' To Mongol Invasion

Kievan Rus' To Mongol Invasion

According to a legend, Kiev was founded in the 5th century by East Slavs. The legend of Kyi, Schek and Khoryv speaks of a founder-family consisting of a Slavic tribe leader Kyi, the eldest, his brothers Schek and Khoriv, and also their sister Lybid, who founded the city. Kiev (Kyiv, Київ, in Ukrainian) is translated as "belonging to Kyi".

The non-legendary time of the founding of the city is harder to ascertain. Slavic settlement existed in the area from the end of 5th century, that later developed into the city.

Some western historians (i.e. Kevin Alan Brook) speculate that Kiev was founded by Khazars or Magyars. Brook assumes that Kiev is a Turkic place name (Küi = riverbank + ev = settlement). However, the Primary Chronicle (a main source of information about the early history of the area) mentions Slavic Kievans telling Askold and Dir that they live without a local ruler and pay a tribute to Khazars in an event attributed to the 9th century. Brook believes that during the 8th and 9th centuries Kiev functioned as an outpost of the Khazar empire. A hill-fortress, called Sambat (Old Turkic for "high place") was built to defend the area.

According to the Hustyn Chronicle (Ukrainian: Густинський літопис, Hustyns'kyi litopys), Askold and Dir (Haskuldr and Dyri) ruled Rus' Khaganate at least in 842. They were Varangian princes, probably of Swedish origin, not the Rurikids. According to the Annals of St. Bertin (Annales Bertiniani) for the year 839, Louis the Pious, the Frankish emperor, came to the conclusion that the people called Rhos (qui se, id est gentem suum, Rhos vocari dicebant) belong to the gens of Swedes (eos gentis esse Sueonum).

According to the Primary Chronicle, Oleg of Novgorod (Helgi of Holmgard) conquered Kiev in 882. He was a descendant of Rurik, a Varangian pagan chieftain. The date given for Oleg's conquest of the town in the Primary Chronicle is uncertain, and some historians, such as Omeljan Pritsak and Constantine Zuckerman, dispute this and maintain that Khazar rule continued as late as the 920s (documentary evidence exists to support this assertion — see the Kievian Letter and Schechter Letter.)

From Oleg's seizure of the city until 1169 Kiev was the capital of Kievan Rus' which was initially ruled by the Varangian Rurikid dynasty which was gradually Slavisized. The Kievan Grand Princes had traditional primacy over the other rulers of the land and the Kiev princehood was a valuable prize in the intra-dynastic rivalry. In 968 the city withstood a siege by the nomadic Pechenegs. In 988 by the order of the Grand Prince Vladimir I of Kiev (St. Vladimir or Volodymyr), the city residents baptized en-masse in the Dnieper river, an event the symbolized the Baptism of Kievan Rus'. Kiev reached the height of its position of political and cultural Golden Age in the middle of the 11th century under Vladimir's son Yaroslav the Wise. In 1051, prince Yaroslav assembled the bishops at St. Sophia Cathedral and appointed Hilarion, the first native of the Kievan Rus', as metropolitan bishop, that the decision reflects an anti-Byzantine bias. In 1054, the Kievan Church did not take note of the fact that the East–West Schism began, maintaining very good relations with Rome (i.e. prince Iziaslav I of Kiev's request to Pope Gregory VII to extend to Kievan Rus' "the patronage of St. Peter", fulfilled by the pope by sending Iziaslav a crown from Rome in 1075).

Following the fragmentation of the Kievan Rus', the Principality of Kiev emerged. The following years were marked by the rivalries of the competing princes of the dynasty and weakening of Kiev's political influence, although Kiev temporarily prevailed after the defeat of the Polotsk at the Battle on the river Nemiga (1067) that also led to the burning of Minsk. In 1146, the next Ruthenian bishop, Klym Smoliatych (Kliment of Smolensk), was appointed to serve as the Metropolitan of Kiev. In 1169 Andrei of Suzdal sent an army against Mstislav Iziaslavich and Kiev. Led by one of his sons, it consisted of the forces of eleven other princes, representing all three of the main branches of the dynasty against the fourth, Iziaslavichi of Volynia. The allies were victorious. The sack of Kiev allowed the Principality of Vladimir-Suzdal to take a leading role as the predecessor of the modern Russian state.

In 1203 Kiev was captured and burned by Prince Rurik Rostislavich. In the 1230s the city was sieged and ravaged by different Rus' princes several times. Finally, the Mongol-Tatar forces led by Batu Khan besieged, and then completely destroyed Kiev on December 6, 1240.