Kinlore
1240

The Mongol Sack of Kyiv

Batu Khan's Mongol army storms Kyiv, ending the city's role as the capital of Rus'.

  • History of Ukraine (Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine) — Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (signed entries by subject specialists), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (2024)
  • The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine — Serhii Plokhy, Basic Books (2015)
  • Ukraine: A History (4th ed.) — Orest Subtelny, University of Toronto Press (2009)

Well established warstatehoodempire

By the thirteenth century Kyivan Rus’ was no longer one state. Since the mid-1100s it had split into rival principalities, and Kyiv was a prize they fought over rather than a capital that ruled them.

The Mongols first appeared in 1223, when they routed an alliance of Rus’ princes on the Kalka River and then withdrew.

They came back in force. A great army under Batu Khan swept through Rus’ from 1237. It devastated the Pereiaslav and Chernihiv principalities, sacked Kyiv in 1240, and in 1241 razed many towns of Volhynia and Galicia.

  • History of Ukraine (Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine) — Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (signed entries by subject specialists), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (2024)
  • The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine — Serhii Plokhy, Basic Books (2015)
  • Ukraine: A History (4th ed.) — Orest Subtelny, University of Toronto Press (2009)
The Mongols then set up the Golden Horde on the lower Volga, which held sway over the Ukrainian lands for more than a century.
  • Mongols (Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine) — Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (signed entries by subject specialists), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (2024)
  • A History of Ukraine: The Land and Its Peoples (2nd ed.) — Paul Robert Magocsi, University of Toronto Press (2010)

In the west, the principality of Galicia-Volhynia, founded in 1199, carried on the Rus’ political tradition until 1340, when its last prince was poisoned and Poland and Lithuania began to fight over its lands.

  • Galicia-Volhynia, Principality of (Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine) — Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (signed entries by subject specialists), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (2024)
  • A History of Ukraine: The Land and Its Peoples (2nd ed.) — Paul Robert Magocsi, University of Toronto Press (2010)
  • Ukraine: A History (4th ed.) — Orest Subtelny, University of Toronto Press (2009)
After that, most of the Ukrainian lands passed to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later to Poland. Under the Union of Lublin in 1569, Volhynia and the Kyiv region went to the Polish crown within the new Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
  • History of Ukraine (Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine) — Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (signed entries by subject specialists), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (2024)
  • The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999 — Timothy Snyder, Yale University Press (2003)
  • A History of Ukraine: The Land and Its Peoples (2nd ed.) — Paul Robert Magocsi, University of Toronto Press (2010)

That is why the date matters so much in the argument over Rus’. Russian imperial history traced a line of succession from Kyiv to Moscow.

  • Hrushevsky, Mykhailo (Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine) — Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (signed entries by subject specialists), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (2024)
  • The Ukrainian Question: The Russian Empire and Nationalism in the Nineteenth Century — Alexei Miller, Central European University Press (2003)
  • The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine — Serhii Plokhy, Basic Books (2015)
Ukrainian historians answer that most of the Rus’ lands of today’s Ukraine, Kyiv included, followed a different road, through Galicia-Volhynia, Lithuania and Poland, for the next four centuries.

How it's seen
Ukrainian historiography

After 1240 Kyiv's heritage passed west, to Galicia-Volhynia and then to the Lithuanian and Polish states, and not north-east to Moscow.

  • Hrushevsky, Mykhailo (Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine) — Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (signed entries by subject specialists), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (2024)
  • The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine — Serhii Plokhy, Basic Books (2015)
  • Kleine Geschichte der Ukraine (5th revised ed.) — Andreas Kappeler, C.H. Beck (2019)
  • History of Ukraine (Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine) — Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (signed entries by subject specialists), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (2024)
  • Galicia-Volhynia, Principality of (Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine) — Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (signed entries by subject specialists), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (2024)
  • A History of Ukraine: The Land and Its Peoples (2nd ed.) — Paul Robert Magocsi, University of Toronto Press (2010)
  • Ukraine: A History (4th ed.) — Orest Subtelny, University of Toronto Press (2009)

Russian imperial historiography

The line of Rus' continued from Kyiv to Moscow, which became the heir of the Kyivan state.

  • Hrushevsky, Mykhailo (Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine) — Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (signed entries by subject specialists), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (2024)
  • The Ukrainian Question: The Russian Empire and Nationalism in the Nineteenth Century — Alexei Miller, Central European University Press (2003)
  • The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine — Serhii Plokhy, Basic Books (2015)

Why it matters today

Ukraine

For Ukrainians the fall of Kyiv marks the point where the Rus' lands of today's Ukraine and those around Moscow went separate ways. That divergence is central to the argument that Ukraine has its own history and is not a branch of Russia's.