Principality of Kyiv

The Principality of Kyiv was the domain that remained directly attached to the city of Kyiv once Kievan Rus' broke apart into separate princely states in the twelfth century. Centred on the middle Dnieper, it kept for a time the prestige of the old capital and the seat of the Orthodox metropolitan, while real power drifted to other centres. Devastated by the Mongols in 1240, it later came under the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and was turned into a province in 1471. It is shown on our maps as the Principality of Kiev, the older English spelling.

In Kievan Rus' the ruling family was meant to stay united under its senior member, who held the throne of Kyiv as grand prince. Rivalry among the branches of the family wore that system down. After the death of Mstislav I in 1132, the regional principalities acted as independent states, and the lands still ruled from Kyiv became a principality of their own. It straddled both banks of the Dnieper, with Polotsk to the north-west, Chernigov to the north-east, Galicia to the south-west and the steppe of the Cumans to the south-east.

Though its territory was modest, Kyiv remained the most coveted throne in Rus'. Princes from rival branches seized and lost it again and again; between 1132 and the 1240s it changed hands dozens of times, and some princes held it on five or six separate occasions. In March 1169 the city was sacked by an alliance of princes headed by Andrei Bogolyubsky of Vladimir. Smaller towns of the principality, such as Vyshhorod and Kaniv, sought their own princes in the later twelfth century, while the rise of Vladimir-Suzdal in the north-east and Galicia-Volhynia in the west drew people and influence away from the Dnieper.

During the Mongol invasion of Rus', Mongol envoys sent to demand Kyiv's surrender were put to death. In late 1240 the army of Batu Khan arrived; by then the city was held for Daniel of Galicia by his commander Dmytro. According to a reconstruction of the chronicle dates by the historian Alexander Maiorov, the siege lasted from 28 November to 6 December 1240. The walls were breached, and many of the last defenders took refuge in the Church of the Tithes, part of which collapsed under their weight. Most inhabitants were killed: by one estimate only about 2,000 of some 50,000 survived.

After the conquest Kyiv had no princes of its own for a time and was governed through deputies. Formal authority passed to the grand princes of Vladimir, among them Alexander Nevsky, who were themselves vassals of the Golden Horde, and Mongol officials collected tribute in the city. Little is known about its rulers in the following decades.

In the fourteenth century the expanding Grand Duchy of Lithuania looked to Kyiv. After a battle on the Irpin river, dated to 1321, Lithuanian influence grew, and in 1362 the principality was incorporated into the Grand Duchy. Lithuanian princes, first Vladimir Olgerdovich and later the Olelkovich family, held it as a subordinate principality. When Simeon Olelkovich died in 1471, the principality was abolished and replaced by the Kiev Voivodeship, an ordinary province of the Grand Duchy.

Kyiv, today the capital of Ukraine, kept its religious and symbolic standing long after its political power faded. Several later states have looked back to the Kievan inheritance, and how that heritage is shared remains a matter of debate between historians.

Our 1200 map shows the Principality of Kiev on the middle Dnieper, between the Principality of Galicia-Volhynia, the other Rus principalities and the Cuman lands of the steppe.