KYIV

MODULE 5

• Mother of All Rus Towns. Invasion of Khan Batu

• St. Sophia Cathedral

• The Kyiv- Pechersky Monastery

• The Babyn Yar

• Kyiv University. The Monument to T. Shevchenko

• St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral

• The Golden Gate

• The monument to Prince Volodymyr and Volodymyrska Hill

• St. Michael of the Golden Domes

• The Monument to Princess Olga

• St. Andrew Church and Andriyivsky Descent (Uzviz)

Mother of All Rus Towns. Invasion of Khan Batu

 1. Read the text about history of Kyiv and get ready to give the following information:

• Kyiv in the 9^th century

• The conversion to Christianity

• Kyiv Rus under Prince Volodymyr's son, Yaroslav the Wise

The mother of all russian towns

Ancient Kyiv was a large commercial centre of the East Slavs where craftsmen plied their trades. Its position on the important waterway known as "route from the Varangians to the Greeks", which included the whole length of the Dnipro, helped promote its trade. This was a principal trade route of the 9^th-11^th centuries which served as a link between northern and southern Europe. Byzantine, Varangian and Arab merchants brought their wares to Kyiv. The Slav merchants made their way through the Dnipro and the Black Sea to Byzantium and by waterways and land routes to the Baltic and the Caspian. Lively trade and various crafts favoured the economic growth of Kiev which by the end of the 9th century developed into a political, administrative and cultural centre of Kiev Rus, an ancient Russian state which came into being following the unification of the East Slavs.

According to an ancient chronicle, in 882 Prince Oleg of Nov­gorod and his men-at-arms sailed down the Dnipro to Kyiv. He left his men hidden in the boats and entered the town as a merchant. Tricking Askold and Dir, the Princes of Kyiv, out of the stronghold, he ordered their death.

Having seized Kyiv, Oleg was known to have said: "This will be the mother of all Russian towns!" The Novgorod principality united with that of Kyiv, and the town was made the capital of a unified Russian state.

The lands of Kyiv Rus, the cradle of three fraternal peoples: the Russian, Ukrainian and Byelorussian, soon covered a territory which stretched from the Black Sea to Lake Ladoga and from the Volga to the Western Bug. As the state of Kyiv Rus gained strength, its capital grew and developed too. Kyiv became one of the largest towns of medieval Europe and was known as the rival of Constantinople.

Kyiv was at the height of its glory towards the end of the 10th and the beginning of the 11^th centuries, during the rule of Prince Volodymyr Svyatoslavich. The conversion to Christianity in 988 helped to establish closer links between Kyiv Rus and the European states, particularly with Byzantium.

Upper, or Old Kyiv, was the centre of the ancient town. Today this is the part that lies between the funicular railway, Great Zhytomyr Street and Lviv Square, and in the north stretches up to the steep hills that border on the Dnipro. This was the site of the Grand Duke's palace which was surrounded by the mansions of the aristo­cratic boyars and the houses of the metropolitans, the big merchants and the money-lenders. The greatest edifice of those times was the stone Church of the Tithes built by Prince Volodymyr at the end of the 10th century.

Lower Kyiv stood on the territory of present Podіl and was inhabited by merchants and artisans: blacksmiths, potters, tanners, carpenters, joiners, and jewellers whose goods were in demand far beyond the borders of Rus. Lower Kyiv became the town's commercial and economic centre. This was the usual stopping place for foreign merchants who moored their vessels in the mouth of the Pochaina River which entered the Dnipro near the present Post Square (Poshtova Ploshcha.)

In addition to local mer­chants, tradesmen from Germany, Italy, Poland, Bohemia, Hun­gary and the Scandinavian coun­tries, lived in Kyiv. The town had special suburbs and quarters oc­cupied solely by foreigners. Merchants from Byzantium, the Caucasus, the countries of the Arab East and other places regularly visited the capital.

Under Prince Volodymyr's son, Yaroslav the Wise (1019-1054) Kyiv Rus grew more powerful and was known throughout the world. Travellers and chronic­lers considered that Kyiv surpassed most beautiful European towns of that period Kings and Princes of many states established dynastic ties with the Princes of Kyiv. Thus the daughters of Yaroslav the Wise were married to the Kings of Norway and France, one of his sons Vsevolod married a Byzantine princess and other sons - the daughters of important German rulers.

Kyiv continued to grow in wealth and importance. It was fortified by powerful walls and defences. The famous Golden Gate, allegedly carried off by Prince Volodymyr, the father of Yaroslav the Wise, from Chersonesus, became Kyiv's chief gateway.

In 1037 St. Sophia's Cathedral (Sophyisky Sobor), an outstanding monument of ancient Russian and world culture, was built on the site of the 1036 battle against the pechenihy hordes in which the Kyiv war­riors were victorious. In building this edifice Prince Yaroslav fol­lowed the example of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian who built the Constantinople St. Sophia's Cathedral. There are numerous legends about the splendid Kyiv Cathedral one of which tells of a magic mirror that was fixed in the gallery of the building in which one could see the surrounding territory for many miles distant. The mirror is said to have been smashed in a fit of rage by a Kyiv maiden who saw in it her lover courting a Gothic damsel.

Kyiv played an important role in the development of written language, literature, painting, architecture and applied arts. Several schools and the first Russian library grew up around the Cathedral of St. Sophia. Schools were organized in monasteries and in the Prince's palace. Numerous chronicles were written in the monasteries, and there were also many talented people in literature and the arts among laymen. One of these was the creator of the famous medieval masterpiece of Russian literature The Lay of Igor's Host which glorifies the heroism of the Russian people in their struggle for the unification of Russia.

Kiev remained the capital of Ancient Rus for nearly three cen­turies. Gradually other feudal centres came into being; internecine strife and rivalry among the independent princes undermined the authority of the Grand Duke of Kyiv, weakened Kyiv Rus and led to its disintegration into separate principalities.