Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, occupies an important place in the history of the East Slavic peoples (Rus' peoples), which is far older than the Russian capital Moscow.
Although Kiev was a "pure-blooded" Ukrainian city, ukraine was under Russian (Soviet) rule from the 17th to the 20th century, and the Romanized English translation of Kiev "Kiev" in Russian became an international place name.
But Ukrainians believe that the Latinized translation of Kiev should be "Kyiv" pronounced in Ukrainian.
▲Kiev cityscape
In order to reflect the national nature of place names, post-independence Ukraine launched the "CorrectUA (Correct Ukraine) Movement", and the "Kiev Correct Name" that began in 2018 is the most important part of the movement.
Western countries and media have responded to the "Kiev correct name" and changed the Russian pronunciation of Kiev to Kyiv in Ukrainian. How many Russian marks has Kiev left in history? What has been achieved by the Kiev Re-Naming Campaign?
▲ Poster of the "Kiev Proper Name Movement" event
1. The City of Kings
The Dnieper, the fourth largest river in Europe, flows slowly from Kiev. Built in the 5th century AD, this ancient city was the earliest political and cultural center of the East Slavs.
▲ The Dnieper River runs through the city
According to historical legend, in 482 AD, an East Slavic leader named Kiy led his people to build a residence here. People named the settlement after chief Kiy, Kiev.
▲ Kiy built the city
In the 9th century, some Vikings invaded Eastern Europe. They merged with the East Slavs to form the "Rus', the common ancestor of today's Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians.
Kiev connects the Baltic trading district with the Black Sea trading circle (Varyag-Greek trading route) through the Dnieper River, and the rapidly developing Kiev is known as the "mother of all Rus'". With Kiev at its core, the Rus' established their own principality, a Rus' state known to later generations as Kievan Rus' state.
▲ Kievan Rus'
In 987, the Eastern Roman Emperor Basil II married his sister to the Grand Duke of Kievan Rus, and the Rus' renounced their original faith and converted to Orthodox Christianity, and Kiev became the bishop's seat.
In the 12th century, the population of Kiev grew to 100,000 (40,000 in London and 60,000 in Paris at the same time), making it one of the largest cities in Europe at the time. But in the power struggle of the nobility, Kiev began to decline.
▲ The Golden Gate built during the Kievan Rus' period
In the 13th century, the Mongol armies of the Western Expedition destroyed Kievan Rus'. Kiev was severely damaged in the war, and Moscow, founded in 1147, gradually replaced Kiev's influence.
Moscow was founded 700 years later than Kiev, and during kiev's glorious history in the 9th and 12th centuries, Moscow was nothing more than a densely leafy primeval forest.
This also became the reason why Ukrainian nationalists later "despised" Moscow. Influenced by the successive wars of the 12th century and the relocation of bishops from Kiev to Moscow, Kiev's political and economic position in Eastern Europe plummeted.
▲ The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine "ridiculed" Moscow's shorter history than Kiev's
The Mongol invasion led to the division of the Rus' people, and the former northeastern Kievan Rus' was subordinate to the Mongol Golden Horde Khan, and the northeastern Rus' later developed into Russians.
Southwest Rus' with Kiev at its core was on the fringes of the Golden Horde Khan's power and less influenced by the Mongols, and the local population gradually developed into Ukrainians.
Kiev, located on the outskirts of the Mongol forces, attracted the attention of neighboring countries. In 1320, Grand Duke Gediminas of Lithuania led an army south and conquered Kiev by defeating the army of the Rus' prince at the Battle of Ilping, and the Lithuanians extended their power to the Black Sea coast.
▲ Expansion of Lithuania
Lithuania's expansion raised concerns among the Golden Horde Khans, who clashed several times. It was not until 1362, when Lithuania defeated the Mongols at the Battle of Bluewater, that it took firm control of Kiev.
In 1569, Lithuania and Poland signed the Lublin Union Act, and the two countries merged to form the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Polish-Lithuanian states redivised their territories, and the Dnieper Valley, including Kiev, was assigned to Poland.
▲ Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Kiev in the troubled world was reduced from the cultural core of the Rus' to an ordinary town in the Bori Federation. With the rise of Tsarist Russia, Kiev's history will turn to an even more treacherous page.
Second, the frontiers of the Empire
At the same time as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was formed, the Muscovite Principality that expelled the Mongols was transformed into Tsarist Russia in 1547. Russia saw itself as the leader of all Rus' and wanted to retake all Rus' lands, including Kiev.
After occupying Kiev, the Polish nobility vigorously promoted polish and Catholicism in the local area. They built plantations and the Rus' were enslaved.
▲ Ukraine under the Polish-Lithuanian Federation (red).
Rus' rebels, landless peasants, and some Russian and Polish serfs who opposed Polish rule fell into exile on the lower Dnieper River, and these people were called Cossacks (from the Turkic word meaning freedom fighters). They gathered into a group of free knights and made a living from nomadism and fishing and hunting. The Cossacks are regarded as an important constituent element of the Ukrainian nation, representing the freedom and fighting spirit of Ukrainians.
In 1648, the Cossacks launched an anti-Polish uprising. The fierce Cossack cavalry repeatedly defeated the Polish army, and Poland was forced to cede 3 provinces, including Kiev, equivalent to the central and eastern part of present-day Ukraine, and the Cossacks established their own emirate.
▲ Cossack Emirate
Kiev, occupied by the Cossack Emirate, has long since ceased to be a spectacle, and the population of Kiev remains only 15,000 after years of war.
To prevent retaliation from the Poles, the Cossack emirate defected to Tsarist Russia. In 1667, Poland was forced by the strength of Tsarist Russia to sign the Andrewsovo Agreement, recognizing the Cossack Emirate as part of Tsarist Russia, and Kiev as part of the emirate was under the control of Tsarist Russia, but by this time Kiev's population was less than 10,000.
▲ Cossacks pledged allegiance to the Tsar
In 1774, Empress Catherine II abolished the Cossack Emirate and Eastern Ukraine became a territory under the direct control of Tsarist Russia. By this time, the population of Kiev had grown to 40,000 people, becoming an important border town in the western part of the Russian Empire.
With Kiev and other places as bridgeheads, Tsarist Russia, together with Austria and Prussia, divided Poland three times between 1772 and 1795. With the annexation of Polish-ruled western Ukraine by Tsarist Russia, Kiev ceased to be a border city, and its status as the central city of the Dnieper River basin began to emerge.
Partition of Poland, Russia gained Western Ukraine
Tsarist Russia did not recognize Ukrainians as an independent people, but referred to them as "little Russians.". During the Tsarist period, there was no such political entity as "Ukraine", which was divided into 9 provinces and administered by Russians.
By the beginning of the 19th century, Poland and Catholicism were still dominant in Kiev. Tsarist Russia pursued "Russification" in Ukraine and pursued a harsh religious policy. The Polish and Catholic faiths were hit, and non-Orthodox religious schools were confiscated or closed.
In the New Map of Europe, published in England in 1804, Kiev first appeared as a Latin translation of Kiev. Ukrainian and Russian both use the Cyrillic alphabet, but the pronunciation and spelling are not exactly the same. Kiev is based on the Russian pronunciation of Киев, not the Ukrainian pronunciation of Київ.
In 1823, the British writer Hodderness published his travelogue "New Russia: From Riga via Kiev to Crimea", which followed the spelling method of Kiev, and the Russian-speaking Ukrainian place name was gradually accepted by European countries.
In addition to Kiev, other important ukrainian cities such as Kharkiv and Odessa are Latinized in Russian.
In the 1830s, Russia established two universities in Kharkiv and Kiev in Ukraine, and Russian language courses were gradually popularized at all levels of education in Ukraine. The migration of large numbers of Russians to Ukraine further changed the ethnic composition of the region.
▲ Kyiv University
Tsarist Russia co-opted the Ukrainian nobility, and the Ukrainian elite developed a sense of belonging to Russia, trying to behave "like a Russian." Tsarist Russia vigorously built Kiev and other places, and the railway from Kiev to Moscow and a large number of modern factories were completed one after another.
In 1883, the British included Kiev in the Oxford Dictionary as the official English place name of Kiev. With the pace of British expansion, the name Kiev spread around the world.
The results of Russification are also evident, with Kiev having 127,000 inhabitants in 1874. The population of Russian descent accounts for 7.6% of the total population (about 0.98 million), and the residents who use Russian as a daily language make up a total of 49% of the population of Kiev and 39% of the Ukrainian-speaking population.
By 1900, the population of Kiev had grown to 250,000 people. It became the third largest city in the country after St. Petersburg and Moscow in Tsarist Russia, and played a central city position in the southwest of the Tsarist Empire.
Kiev's Russian population made up 56 percent (including Ukrainians who considered themselves Russians), and the Ukrainian-speaking population fell to 23 percent. Kiev, a Ukrainian city, is becoming more and more "Russian".
Kiev in the early 20th century
Whose Kiev?
In 1917, the February Revolution ended Tsarist rule. Taking advantage of the fact that the Russians were taking care of themselves, Ukraine established the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) to declare independence. With its strategic location, economy and demographic advantages, Kiev deserved to become the capital of the new regime.
Poland was restored after World War I with the support of Britain and the United States, and Poland immediately went to war with Russia, which had just established Soviet power. After the war, Poland gained large swaths of territory, including Western Ukraine and Western Belarus.
▲ One person half
In 1922, the Soviet Union was formed, and Ukraine and Russia were once again tied together as first-class republics of the Soviet Union. Since western Ukraine was occupied by Poland and Kiev was closer to the border, the Soviet Union placed the capital of the Ukrainian union in Kharkov in eastern Ukraine. It was not until 1934, with the improvement of the Soviet Union's defense capabilities, that Kiev was once again the capital of Ukraine.
In 1939, under a secret agreement with Nazi Germany, Soviet troops invaded Poland and reoccupied western Ukraine. In 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and Ukraine, located in the western part of the Soviet Union, was the first to fall. Ukraine lost 7 million people in the war, and 40% of its social wealth was reduced to ashes.
Nationalist forces, represented by Bandera, emerged in Ukraine, who defected to the Nazis and launched attacks on soviet forces. More Ukrainians chose to join the Soviet army, making an important contribution to the eventual defeat of fascism.
After World War II, Western Ukraine remained on the territory of the Soviet Union and became an integral part of Ukraine, and the centrality of Kiev was further established.
▲ Ukrainian "veterans" who served the Nazis
The vast territory of the Soviet Union was inhabited by a large number of nationalities. In order to improve cohesion, the Soviet Union actively promoted the language and culture of the main ethnic group, the Russians (more than 50% of the population), and Ukraine, geographically adjacent to Russia, became the "hardest hit area" of Russification.
In the case of the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine, for example, in 1926, the ethnic Russian population in Donbass was 640,000, and by 1959 it had grown to 2.55 million, and the proportion of the population rose from 22% to nearly 50%.
▲ The "Russification" of Donbass
The Soviet government also actively promoted the Russianization of geographical names, as part of the Soviet Union, Ukraine did not have the opportunity and ability to fight for its own "right to speak in geographical names", and Ukrainian geographical names pronounced in Russian became the world's common geographical names.
The policy of Russification hurts the national feelings of ethnic minorities such as Ukraine. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the independence of Ukraine after more than 300 years of Russian rule by the Soviet Union, national sentiment erupted from the remnants of the Soviet Union.
▲ Torn Ukraine
The removal of Russified Ukrainian place names is an important part of "de-Russification". The campaign to correct the names of Places in Ukraine, including the capital Kiev, has been vigorously launched.
In 1995, the Ukrainian Parliament passed a resolution to change the English translation of Kiev, which is pronounced in Russian, to Kyiv, pronounced in Ukrainian. Given the status of English as a global language, Ukraine wants the international community to replace Kiev with Kyiv. But Kiev has been in use for more than a hundred years, and its status is difficult to shake.
In order to enhance the presence of "Ukrainian-style" geographical names, in May 2005, Ukraine passed the Ukrainian Geographical Names Law, which promoted the standardization of Ukrainian geographical names and provided legal support for the use of Ukrainian geographical names.
▲ Ukrainian Parliament
In January 2010, Ukraine adopted the resolution "On the Standard for the Transliteration of the Ukrainian Alphabet in the Latin Alphabet", which approved the Transliteration of the Ukrainian Alphabet in the Latin Alphabet.
According to the resolution, on official documents, maps, densely populated places, streets, stations, etc., in Ukraine, the exclusive ukrainian geographical names are marked accordingly with transliterated Latinized place names, and the Latinized translations are based on Ukrainian pronunciation.
Transliteration of the Ukrainian Alphabet with the Latin Alphabet constructs a bridge between the Ukrainian (Cyrillic alphabet) and the Latin alphabet, and the transliteration of Ukrainian place names through Russian is gradually kicked out of Ukrainian society.
▲ Propaganda poster for the Ukrainian Name Correction Campaign
Ukraine has not yet given up the opportunity to "justify" The names of Ukrainian places, including Kiev, in the international community. The United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names is the specialized agency for the management of internationally accepted geographical names and has met regularly since 1967 by the United Nations Statistical Commission.
At the Seventh Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names in 1998, the representative of Ukraine first proposed the replacement of Kiev with Kyiv. In the discussions and voting, other countries believe that the name Kiev has been used for a long time and that it will cost a lot to change it. Not to mention the newly independent Ukrainians are so soft-spoken that they cannot persuade the international community to recognize Kyiv.
▲ Propaganda can be seen everywhere on the road
If the name Kiev spread around the world with the expansion of the British Empire in the 19th century, then after World War II, the United States, as the new head of the Western world, relied on its own strong strength to grasp the right to name place names.
In order to manage the chaotic geographical names problem in the United States in the 19th century, the United States established the "American Geographical Names Commission" in 1890, and after World War II, the naming of geographical names by the American Geographical Names Commission also affected other Western countries. The committee expressed its support for Ukraine's request for "justification".
▲American Geographical Names Commission
With the restoration of Russian power in the 21st century and the deterioration of US-Russian relations, Ukraine, which wants to join the European Union and NATO, and thus integrate into the West, has found opportunities. On the grounds that geographical names should reflect the pronunciation of local peoples, a proposal was again submitted to the United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names.
Kyiv was finally approved at the Tenth United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names in 2012, and in a post-meeting statement, the Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names made it clear that it "supports the correct English translation of Kyiv as the capital of Ukraine".
▲Comparison of correct geographical names published by the Ukrainian government (partial)
Although Kyiv has successfully "regularized", the resolution of the meeting is not mandatory. Kiev is still used for use in maps published in the West (English-speaking countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom), display boards at airports, and overseas offices bearing the name "Kiev".
While pushing forward the "Ukrainianization" of place names, Ukraine is also oscillating back and forth between Russia and the United States and Europe. Pro-Russian and pro-Western presidents took turns in power, and Ukrainian society was torn apart.
In 2013, the pro-Russian President Yanukovych refused to sign a cooperation agreement with the European Union, which once again sparked protests from the pro-European people at home, and Yasch eventually went into exile in Russia.
▲Kiev city
The share of Russians and Russians in Kiev was 20 per cent and 52 per cent in 2001. By the time the Crimean crisis erupted in 2014, Kiev's Ukrainian-American population made up 94 percent of the city's population, with only 5 percent of Russian-speaking and Russian-speaking speaking shrinking to 32 percent.
After the Crimean crisis, the Ukrainian government pursued a more resolute policy of de-Russification. The Ukrainian government launched "CorrectUA" in 2018 to actively promote the acceptance of a number of Ukrainianized place names, including Kiev, by the West.
For example, Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine, was changed from Kharkiv to Kharkov; the first largest port, Odessa, was changed from Oddessa; and the western city of Lviv was changed from Lviv to Lvov.
▲ Odessa
On October 2, 2018, the "KyivNotKiev (Kyiv instead of Kiev) Campaign" was launched by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, and the renaming of the capital Kiev is the most important component of the "CorrectUA" movement.
In the following two weeks, the Ukrainian government launched an "intensive offensive" against the Western mainstream media. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has continuously highlighted Kyiv's presence in press conferences, and a number of senior Ukrainian officials, including Health Minister Urana Suplen and Ukraine's representative to the Council of Europe, Demitro Kuleba, have communicated with 10 influential media outlets such as CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, etc., hoping that they will play a role in the promotion of Kyiv.
▲ Club logo marked With Kyiv
By October 2018, many mainstream Western media, including the Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times, began to adopt Kyiv.
The Oxford Dictionary, which included Kiev in 1883, also replaced Kiev with Kyiv in 2018.
Ukrainians are also actively involved, with a large number of Ukrainian social network users adding a "KyivNotKiev" border to their avatars.
▲ Ukrainian website calls for "use of correct Ukrainian place names"
Ukrainians have expanded the scope of the "KyivNotKiev campaign" to international airports around the world. Previously, most airports refused to do so, saying Kiev was the designated name on the list of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). However, in October 2019, the International Air Transport Association, led by the American Geographical Names Board, changed the place name to Kyiv.
▲ Russian media still use the Russian translation of the name "Kiev"
As of January 2020, 63 airports and 3 airlines around the world, including Brussels and Frankfurt, have begun to use the name Kyiv.
▲ Kiev fried chicken with a different name in an Australian supermarket
After the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2022, the Western media paid lip service to Ukraine with a lot of support, including the promotion of Kyiv. Even foods such as Kiev chestnut cake and Kiev fried chicken sold in supermarkets in Western countries have been replaced with new labels labeled Kyiv.
Since independence, Ukraine has actively promoted de-Russification and the revival of Ukrainian culture. On the surface, the "Kiev Name Rectification Movement" is a dispute over the spelling of Kiev's Latin names, but at a deep level is the "war of discourse" waged by Ukraine to build a nation-state identity.
Ukrainians calling for Kyiv
Long-term author | Biluo Qingyao
Veteran of history
Article review | Ningbo Xiangyu
Majoring in International Affairs and International Relations at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China
Responsible editor| Thomas
Graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science| editor-in-chief of the Global Intelligence Officer
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