Kyiv/Kyjïv/Kiev
Kyiv/Kyjïv/Kiev
Etymology
According to the founding legend in the Old Russian Nestor Chronicle (1116), the settlement of Kyiv was founded in the 5th/6th century by the brothers Kyj, Šček and Choryv – members of an East Slavic princely family – and their sister Lybed. According to this account, the siblings built a fortress in honour of their eldest brother, Kyj, and named it Kyiv.[1]
Location
Kyiv is situated in the northern part of central Ukraine at 50° 27' north latitude and 30° 30' east longitude.
Topography
Kyiv lies on the Dnieper (Dnipro), which provides a limited navigable link to the Black Sea.
Common symbolism
Kyiv’s patron saints are the Archangel Michael and the Apostle Andrew, who is said to have erected a cross on a hill by the Dnieper.
Common nicknames
Kyiv is also known as the ‘Mother of all Russian cities’ (Chronicle of Nestor), the ‘Jerusalem of the East’, the ‘Capital of Golden Domes’ and the ‘Heart of Ukraine’.[2]
Archaeological significance
Archaeological research has shown that the ‘City of Kyj’ on Old Kyiv Hill (Starokyjivs’ka) was founded in the 5th/6th century.
Middle Ages
Kyiv was initially the main settlement of the East Slavic Polyan tribe, then of Kievan Rus’, and the economic, political and intellectual centre of the Principality of Kyiv (9th century). According to the Chronicle of Nestor, the city was first mentioned in the year 862. Kyiv waged wars of liberation against Byzantium and the Khazar Empire. The city was divided into an upper town (the administrative and spiritual centre) and a lower town (Russian: Podol, Ukrainian: Podil; the commercial district ), where mainly merchants and craftsmen lived.
Under the rule of Vladimir I the Saint (c. 956–1015), palaces and fortifications were built in Kyiv. After his death, the city passed to his son Yaroslav the Wise (1019–1054), who actively promoted culture and education. Dynastic marriages served to forge economic and political ties. The daughter of the Grand Prince of Kyiv, Vsevolod I (1030–1093), ‘Adelheid of Kyiv’ (Yevpraksia, Eupraxia 1071–1109), was married to the German King Henry IV (1050–1106). The daughter of Prince Danilo of Halych (reigned 1215–1264), Sophia (c. 1244–1290), married Count Henry V of Schwarzburg-Blankenburg (c. 1235–1287). Thus, the links between Kyiv – where merchants from all over the world offered their wares and where many clergymen, pilgrims and envoys from the most important princely courts of Europe resided – and the German states and Western Europe were strengthened.
Around 1200, power struggles weakened the empire, which fragmented into separate territories. In 1240, Kyiv was destroyed by the Mongols and Tatars. Up until this point, Germans had emigrated to Kyiv via Volhynia; once these connections were severed, emigration declined. After 1240, Germans were once again recruited, amongst others, to help rebuild the towns and revive trade.
As a major city of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (following the conquest of Kyiv in 1362), Kyiv was granted Magdeburg city rights in 1494, which remained in force until 1857. This formed the basis for Kyiv’s self-government and was incorporated into the legal system of the Ukrainian state.
Modern times
With the Union of Lublin in 1569, Kyiv became part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The uprising (1648–1657), led by the Cossack hetman Bogdan Khmelnytskyi (1595–1657) led to the Polish–Russian War, at the end of which the land was divided along the Dnieper and, under the terms of the Treaty of 1667, the city of Kyiv came under Russian rule. Following the initial modern-era influx of Germans at the beginning of the 18th century, increased German settlement began as a result of Catherine the Great’s Settlement Manifesto of 1763; the number of Germans in Ukraine and Kyiv also rose steadily in the second half of the 19th century.[3] Kyiv became the capital of the Kyiv Governorate (until 1919), in which, according to the first all-Russian census of 1897, 14,707 Germans lived (out of a total population of 3,559,229).[4]
Contemporary History
In 1917, Kyiv became the capital of the Ukrainian People’s Republic; in 1918, of the Ukrainian National Republic; and in 1934, of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR). Following the ‘Battle of Kyiv’ during the Second World War (mid-August to late September 1941), the Nazi occupation of the heavily damaged city lasted from 19 September 1941 to 6 November 1943. During this period, large numbers of Soviet prisoners of war and civilians, primarily Jews, were killed in Kyiv. Current estimates range from 100,000 to 200,000 victims. In the massacre at the nearby Babi Yar ravine (Russian: Babij Jar) on 29–30 September 1941 alone, some 33,000 Jews were murdered. In 1942, a satellite camp of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp was established on the northern outskirts of the city. Kyiv was rebuilt after the end of the war. In 1986, the capital of Ukraine made global headlines as a result of the so-called Chernobyl disaster. Since 24 August 1991, Kyiv has been the capital of independent Ukraine. The ‘Orange Revolution’ (2005) and the so-called ‘Euromaidan’ (2013–14) have brought the city to global attention.
Economy
In the trading city of Kyiv, routes converged via the north-south rivers and the east-west overland routes. The Via Regia led via Mainz, Erfurt and Breslau/Wrocław to Kyiv.[5]There were connections to Poland, Hungary, Germany, France and England; the trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks, from Scandinavia to Byzantium and to the Near East, passed through Kyiv. According to Thietmar of Merseburg (11th century), there were over 400 churches here frequented by merchants from, amongst others, Holland, Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Scandinavia and the East, as well as eight markets.[6] From the beginning of the 13th century, small groups of Germans from Mainz, Lübeck and Vienna established trading colonies in Kyiv (Podol; Podil), Volodymyr and Volyn.
With the onset of modern settlement from the early 18th century onwards, the German chemist Johann Geiter opened Kyiv’s first privately run chemist’s shop in the Lower Town in 1728; the surviving building now houses a chemist’s museum. Whilst the Germans were initially mainly military personnel, traders and businesspeople joined them in the second half of the 19th century. The Germans of Kyiv were often wealthy. Many of their shops were located on the centralChreščatyk Street, where numerous shop signs bore German inscriptions.
The brickworks founded in 1840 by Johann Sigismund Eismann (1794–1862) and the brewery established in 1860 by Wilhelm Richert, which developed into a modern enterprise, became particularly significant (since 1954, the Stolichniy [Stoličnyj] sparkling wine cellar). Companies from the German Empire maintained branches or representative offices in the city (Deutz Motorenbau, Siemens, Singer, etc.). On the outskirts of the city there were German farm inns.
Population and Society
At the beginning of the 20th century, 400,000 Germans lived in Ukraine.[7] The earliest detailed data on the demographic composition are available from the results of the first general census of the Russian Empire, carried out in 1897. According to this, 79.2 per cent of the population in the Kiev Governorate were Ukrainians, 12.1 per cent Jews, 5.9 per cent Russians, 1.9 per cent Poles, and Germans (not specified). In the Kyiv district (one of the province’s twelve districts), 56.2 per cent were Ukrainians, 11.1 per cent were Jews, 26.9 per cent were Russians, 3.4 per cent were Poles and 1.1 per cent were Germans.[8] In 1897, the city of Kyiv had a total population of 247,723, including 1,408 emigrants from Austria-Hungary, 436 from the Kingdom of Prussia, 352 people from other German states and 207 French nationals. The nobility numbered 18,704 people, of whom the following stated their mother tongue as: 11,741 (62.8 per cent) Russian, 5,583 (29.8 per cent) Polish, 907 (4.8 per cent) Ukrainian and 263 (1.4 per cent) German. Merchants and their families totalled 5,064 people; 2,307 (45.6 per cent) spoke Russian, 2,238 (44.2 per cent) Yiddish (or Hebrew), 198 (3.9 per cent) German, Ukrainian 152 (3.0 per cent), and Polish 85 (1.7 per cent).[9] In total, 4,354 people (1.8 per cent) in Kyiv stated German as their mother tongue.[10] Today, Kyiv is the largest city in Ukraine, with a population of over 2.8 million.[11]
History of Religion and the Church
Trade links with Byzantium led, in 988, to Grand Prince Vladimir I’s adoption of the Greek Orthodox faith. The saint had himself baptised by Byzantine priests and organised a mass baptism of the inhabitants of Kyiv in the Dnieper, after which he declared Christianity the state religion. Today, on the banks of the Dnieper, stands a monument to the Apostle Andrew, holding a cross in his hands. Kiev currently has almost 200 places of worship representing various religions and denominations.
The Kiev Caves Monastery (Pecherska Lavra; a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1990), founded by the monks Antonios and Theodosios in 1051, secured the city’s leading role in Eastern European Christianity for centuries; it was from here that Christianity spread throughout Russia. This oldest and largest monastic complex in Kyiv remains to this day a spiritual centre and a major attraction for Orthodox Christians. The monastery complex, whose name derives from the extensive caves once inhabited by monks, comprises over 70 buildings from various periods (11th–19th centuries). The Upper and Lower Lavra, connected by galleries and surrounded by walls, cover an area of 28 hectares. Artists, scholars and architects lived and worked within the monastery. The Upper Lavra is home to the bell tower, which stands over 96 metres tall and remains to this day the tallest not only in Kyiv, but in the whole of Ukraine and Russia. The Lower Lavra houses outbuildings, an academy and four further churches.
The Protestant services of the German congregation, which initially comprised around 300 members and are documented from 1767 onwards, were first held in the apothecary’s home. In 1794–95, the simple wooden Church of St Catherine was built on Spas’kaya Street (Podol). Following the fire of 1811, construction began in 1812 on another wooden church on a hill (‘Deutscher Berg’) in the Lipki district (= ‘under the lime trees’). The St Catherine’s Church, now built of stone (architects Johann Waldemar [Ivan] Strom [1823–1887] and Paul Johann Schleifer [1814–1879]) was consecrated in 1857. A Lutheran school, where the language of instruction was German, was established on the church grounds in 1852. In 1874, the number of Protestant Germans in Kyiv was recorded as 2,330; by 1904, there were 4,700.[12] The German Protestant congregation disbanded in 1937 under the political pressure of the Stalin era; the church was closed in 1938, and from 1973 onwards, it housed the administration of the State Museum of Folk Architecture and Customs of Ukraine (Nacional’nyj muzej narodnoji architektury ta pobutu Ukrajiny). In 2000, St Catherine’s Church was renovated; it is now owned by the German Evangelical Lutheran parish.[13]
The 1897 census recorded religious affiliation for the first time: in Kyiv, there were 187,935 (75.9 per cent) Orthodox Christians, 32,093 (13.0 per cent) Jews, 19,230 (7.8 per cent) Roman Catholics, 4,708 (1.9 per cent) Protestants, 1,835 (0.74 per cent) Old Believers and 1,757 (0.70 per cent) Muslims. In the survey, 68.7 per cent of Orthodox Christians, 10.1 per cent of Protestants, 6.2 per cent of Jews and 4.7 per cent of Catholics stated that Russian was their mother tongue. Ukrainian was the mother tongue for 29.0 per cent of Orthodox Christians and 1.8 per cent of Catholics. 93.0 per cent of Jews stated that Yiddish was their mother tongue, whilst 83.7 per cent of Catholics and 3.3 per cent of Protestants stated that Polish was their mother tongue. 78.8 per cent of Protestants and 2.6 per cent of Catholics described themselves as native speakers of German.[14]
Special cultural institutions
With more than 140 museums and around 130 libraries, Kyiv is Ukraine’s most important cultural centre. The Khanenko Art Museum (formerly the ‘Museum of Western and Oriental Art’) houses the upper part of the painted wooden figure of St Ursula of Cologne (‘Cologne Master’, late 15th century). Among the most significant works of art is the ‘Portrait of the Wife’, which Paul Schleifer dedicated to his wife Karolina (née Schnauffert) and which is housed in the National Art Museum.[15]
Education and Science
There are currently 99 universities, academies and colleges in Kyiv. Of particular note are the Taras Shevchenko National University (founded in 1834 as St Vladimir’s University) and the National Technical University of Ukraine (‘Kyiv Polytechnic Institute’, founded in 1898).
The Germans formed a well-educated section of the population – with differences in educational attainment between Protestants and Catholics – and were disproportionately represented in academia.
Between 1919 and 1922, Heinrich Neuhaus (1888–1964; piano virtuoso, writer and art historian) taught at the Kyiv Conservatoire. Other well-known Kyiv musicians and composers of German origin included Felix Blumenfeld (1863–1931) and Hans Bullerian (1885–1948).
St Vladimir’s University quickly integrated into the European academic landscape and also offered German scholars research and career opportunities. Rectors included, amongst others, the economist Nikolai Karl Paul von Bunge (1823–1895), the botanist Ernst Rudolph von Trautvetter (1809–1889) and the lawyer Nikolai Edler von Rennenkampff (1832–1899).
The university’s first rector, Mihajlo Maksymovyč (1804–1873), paid tribute to the founder and director of the Botanical Garden (1839), Ernst Rudolph von Trautvetter, who had ‘established an enduring legacy in Kyiv’. He was succeeded from 1879 to 1894 by the botanist Johannes Theodor Schmalhausen (1849–1894).[16]
Scientific links in the fields of pharmacy and medicine have been well researched: in 1842, Karl Eduard Miram from Mitau/Jelgava (1811–1887) took over the chair of Human Physiology; in 1843, Wilhelm Gustav Becker (1811–1874) became an associate professor of general therapy; in 1845, Alexander Walter from Reval (1817/18–1889) took over the chair of Anatomy and Micrography. A prominent figure in Kyiv was the physician and pathologist Friedrich Georg Mering (1822–1887), who moved there from Dresden in 1846; he became a professor in 1854, was ennobled in 1860, and served as Speaker of the Kyiv Duma from 1871 onwards.
Petro Mohyla (c. 1595–1647), who came from a Moldavian ruling family, founded the higher Orthodox school on the monastery grounds in 1632 whilst serving as abbot of the Kiev Caves Monastery. As Metropolitan, he championed church reforms and held annual synods with clergy and laity. In 1701, the Mohyla College was granted the status of an academy, which became an important centre of Orthodox and Church Slavonic education and culture and maintained contact with Western European universities. Among the graduates of the Mohyla Academy were 14 hetmans, including Petro Dorošenko (1627–1698), Ivan Masepa (1644–1709) and Pylyp Orlyk (1672–1742), as well as historians, writers and philosophers, including Hryhorii Skovoroda (1772–1794), Meletij Smotryz’kyj (1577–1633) and Feofan Prokopovyč (1681–1736). Innozenz Giesel, who was born in Königsberg (c. 1600–1683) was a student, professor and, from 1646 to 1652, rector of the Mohyla Academy, where he converted to Orthodoxy and became archimandrite of the Cave Monastery. His chronicle of the Kingdom of Kyiv (Synopsis), published in 1674, was reprinted numerous times.[17] In 1751, German was introduced as a compulsory academic subject at the Mohyla Academy; German-language scholarly literature (Samuel von Pufendorf, Christian Thomasius, Johannes Micraelius) was studied extensively at the Mohyla Academy.
Architecture
Several gates served as fortified entrances to the city; the most imposing was the ‘Golden Gate’, built between 1017 and 1024 on the model of the city gate of Constantinople, which still stands in the cityscape today. Other important buildings in Kyiv include St Sophia’s Cathedral, with its 13 domes (a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1990) with its 12th-century mosaics, the Baroque St Andrew’s Church and the Cathedral of the Assumption (construction began in 1073), which was reconstructed in 1999–2000.
Kiev’s cityscape was shaped in part by foreign architects, including those of German origin. Johann Gottfried Schädel (1746–1748) designed the Saborovski Gate, the bell tower of St Sophia’s Cathedral and the ‘Great Bell Tower’ of the Cathedral of the Assumption. Paul Schleifer’s son, Georg Schleifer (1855–1913), had a decisive influence on Kyiv’s construction boom and infrastructure (water supply, tram network, municipal theatre) and, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, designed the district known as the ‘Kyiv Paris’. He was responsible for the Solovyov Theatre (built in collaboration with Eduard Bradtmann [1856–1926]) and the ‘Continental’ and ‘Frankfurt’ hotels. Also worthy of mention is the engineer and entrepreneur Amand Struve (1835–1898), who between 1868 and 1870 built what was then the longest railway bridge in the world (1,068 m) across the Dnieper.
Culture of memory and remembrance
In Kyiv, there are several sites commemorating the Babi Yar massacre, as well as the memorial ‘National Museum of the History of the Second World War 1941–1945’ (Ukrainian: Національний музей історії Великої Вітчизняної Війни 1941–1945 років; translit. Nacional’nij muzej istoriji Velykoji Vitčyznjanoji Vijny 1941–1945 rokiv). Also worth mentioning are the Poštova Cemetery, containing the graves of around 20,000 German soldiers, and the Bajkov Cemetery, where well-known figures are buried.
Bibliography
- Nikolaus Arndt, Helmut Holz (contributor): Germans in Northern Ukraine – Volhynia and Kyiv. Catalogue accompanying an exhibition organised by the Historischer Verein Wolhynien e. V., Wiesentheid, 1999.
- Natalija O. Bilous (ed.): Self-Governance in Kyiv: History and the Present. Proceedings of the international conference dedicated to the 500th anniversary of the granting of Magdeburg rights to Kyiv, Kyiv, 26–27 November 1999 [Self-government in Kyiv: History and the Present. Proceedings of the international conference ‘500 Years since the Granting of Magdeburg Law to the City of Kyiv’]. German-Ukrainian conference marking the 500th anniversary of the granting of Magdeburg Law to the city of Kyiv. Kyiv 2000.
- Bohdan Čyrko: Nacional’ni menšosti na Ukrajini u 20-30 roky [National minorities in Ukraine in the 1920s and 1930s]. In: *Ukrajins’kyj istoryčnyj žurnal* 1 (1990), pp. 5–9.
- Hleb Ivakin: Opovidi pro starodavnyj Kyjiv [Tales of Ancient Kyiv]. Kyiv 1982.
- Ivan Kulynyč, Natalija Kryvec’: Essays on the History of German Colonies in Ukraine. Institute of History of Ukraine. Kyiv 1995.
- Werner Paul (ed.): Kyiv. An Introduction to a City. Munich 1989.
- Günther Schäfer: Kiev. Walks through the metropolis on the Dnieper. 3rd ed. Berlin 2011 (Trescher Travel Series).
- Tatjana Terjoschina, Claus-Jürgen Roepke (eds.): Kyiv. St Catherine’s Church, Parish, Faith. Commemorative volume marking the rededication of the church. Munich 2000.
- Petro Toločko: Drevnij Kiev [Ancient Kyiv]. Kyiv 1976.
Series of publications
- Scientific relations between Germany and Russia in the 19th century in the fields of chemistry, pharmacy and medicine. 7 vols. Aachen 2008–2011 (Relationes 1–7); see also the database: URL: drw.saw-leipzig.de/personendatenbank.html.
Web links
- reisen-kiew.com/ and reisenua.net/(photographs and information, particularly about Germans in Kyiv; with references)
- starkiev.com (a collection of historical photographs relating to the history of Kyiv)
Notes
[1] Erich Donnert: Kievan Rus’. Culture and Intellectual Life from the 9th to the early 13th Century. Leipzig 1983, pp. 23–25.
[2] J. S. Komarov: Mij Kyjiv. Navč. Posib [My Kyiv. Textbook]. Kyiv 2011, p. 2.
[3] Maj Pančuk, Olena Kowalčuk, Bogdan Čirko: The German National Minority in Ukraine in the 1920s and 1930s [The National German Minority in Ukraine in the 1920s and 1930s]. In: German Settlers in Ukraine: History and Present: Monograph. [German Settlers in Ukraine: History and the Present: A Monograph] Kyiv 2006, pp. 320–324, here p. 320.
[4] URL: pollotenchegg.livejournal.com/tag/census%201897 (accessed 13 December 2014).
[5] Claus Remer: Ukraine in the Focus of German Interests. From the End of the 19th Century to 1917/18. Frankfurt am Main 1997 (European University Publications, Series 3, History and its Auxiliary Sciences 763), pp. 12ff.
[6] Donnert: Kievan Rus’ (note 1), p. 138.
[7] Pančuk, Kowalčuk, Čirko: *Nacional’na Nimec’ka* (note 3), p. 320.
[8] URL: pollotenchegg.livejournal.com/tag/census%201897 (accessed 13 December 2014); Fedir Ernst: Kyjiv. Providnyk [Kyiv. Travel Guide]. Kyiv 1930.
[9] Fedir Ernst: Kyjiv. Providnyk [Kiev. Travel Guide]. Kyiv 1930, p. 35.
[10] Viktor Krieger: Germans from Russia: Yesterday and Today. A People on the Move. 7th ed. Stuttgart 2006, p. 9.
[11] URL: www.citypopulation.de/php/ukraine-kievcity_d.php (accessed 13 December 2014).
[12] Tatjana Terjoschina: ‘Fear Not, O Little Flock’. The History of the Evangelical Lutheran Congregation in Kyiv. In: Terjoschina/Roepke: Kyiv, pp. 63–92, here pp. 81 and 83. The figure of ‘around 13,000 souls’ (p. 69) at the start of the First World War, also cited by Terjoschina, apparently refers to the governorate.
[13] Leonid Novohat’ko: *Nimci i nimec’ka kul’tura v Ukrajini* [Germans and German Culture in Ukraine]. Kyiv 2003.
[14] Vsevolod Naulko: Chto i vidkoly žyve v Ukrajini [Who has lived in Ukraine and since when]. Kyiv 1998, pp. 8, 14; URL: pollotenchegg.livejournal.com/tag/census%201897 (accessed 28 May 2014).
[15] T. Ananjewa, O. Drug, A. Mokroussowa, I. Abramowa: Paul Schleifer’s ‘Portrait of the Wife’; illustration in: The Historical Almanac. Issue 3, Kyiv Album, Kyiv 2004, p. 16.
[16] Viktor Korotky, Vasyl Ulyanovsky: In the Name of Saint Volodymyr. Kyiv University in Documents and Recollections of Participants, in 2 vols. [In the Name of Saint Volodymyr. The University of Kyiv in Documents, Materials and Memoirs of its Members, in 2 volumes]. Vol. 1. Kyiv 1994, p. 98.
[17] Innozenz Giesel: Synopsis. Kyiv 1681. Facsimile with an introduction, edited by Hans Rothe. Cologne et al. 1983 (Contributions to the History of Slavic Literature 17).
Citation
Victoria Soloschenko, Matthias Weber: Kyiv. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2014. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32288 (as at 21 August 2015).
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