The Mongol Invasion of Kyiv Started The Divergence of Russian and Ukrainian Identity
Kyiv was destroyed —Moscow filled the power vacuum.
As Ukraine is being invaded by Russia, the world holds its breath as Russian president Vladimir Putin is labeled a war criminal by U.S. President Joe Biden.
Russia expected a quick victory and takeover of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. The city is being bombed by Russian artillery and rockets, killing many civilians and destroying neighborhoods within the city.
However, Ukrainian resistance is resolute. President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia and Putin of “a war of annihilation.”
This is not the first time Kyiv has been invaded. The most prominent example is when the Nazis invaded Ukraine in 1941 and took over the city in three days. According to historian David Stahel, the city was reduced to “rubble and ashes” by air raids.
Russian troops tried to protect the city, but the resistance was futile — 665,000 Russian soldiers were taken as prisoners of war. Jews and other minorities within the city were massacred.
Hitler saw the German takeover of Kyiv as “the biggest battle in the history of the world,” and felt sure it was only a matter of time before the Nazis took over the Soviet Union. However, like most invasions of Russia, the invasion ended terribly for Hitler.
Throughout history, Kyiv has been attacked by global superpowers from the west and the east. Its strategic and cultural significance has always made it a target in the context of overarching geopolitical conflicts.
But no invasion of Kyiv was worst than when the Mongols sacked the city in 1240.
The invasion killed 96% of the population and left the city severely weakened as an ecclesiastical center for Christianity.
It has important implications even today, most importantly leading to the differentiation between Russian and Ukrainian identities which is being battled in today’s wars.
Before the Mongol invasion, Moscow was an obscure city of Kievan Rus which had no cultural or religious significance. After the invasion, Moscow became the most powerful city in the region and home to a Tsarist Empire, while Kyiv languished as a political possession of different empires.
This is the story of how the Mongol invasion of Kyiv started the divergence between Russian and Ukrainian identity and language.
The history of Kyiv before the Mongol invasions
According to Slavic legend, the name “Kyiv” comes from a story of three brothers, Kyi, Shchek and Khoryv, who established the city with their sister Lybid. The city was named after Kyi, a Slavic tribal leader, and Kyiv is translated as “Kyi’s place.”
Historian Michael Hamm says prior to Kyivan Rus, not much is known about Kyiv and the Slavic people who occupied the settlement.
Hamm notes Kyiv was conquered in 882 by Oleg of Novgorod, who was part of a biking tribe known as the Varangians. Oleg was a relative of Rurik, the founder of Kievan Rus’, whose descendants would go on to rule the city for almost four centuries.
The Varangians became more Slavic as time went on. Eventually, in the 10th century, most of Kievan Rus’ converted to Orthodox Christianity and maintained strong relationships with Rome.
In particular, Kyiv prospered as the capital of Kyivan Rus, from the 9th century to the 12th century. Many famous monasteries and cathedrals were built during this time, including the Cathedral of St. Sophia. During this period of prosperity, Kyiv had to constantly fight off nomadic steppe people to the south but was able to successfully fend off these attacks.
Jaroslaw Pelenski of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute points to the 1169 sack of Kyiv as a turning point for the city, and Kyivan Rus as a whole. Kyiv had been undergoing succession crises between competing princes of the Varangian dynasty, in a messy process that strongly weakened the city.
Prince Andrew Bogolyubsky, later known as King Andrew I, sacked the city for three days, plundered artwork in the city, destroyed much of the city, then left, seeing no benefit in settling down in Kyiv. Instead, Bogolyubsky set up a new capital at Vladimir.
According to historian Karl Baedeker, a couple of years later, in 1171, prince Svyetoslav Vsevolodovitch sacked the city. In 1203, prince Rurik Rostislavich also sacked the city.
Derek Davison, the author of history newsletter Foreign Exchanges, says the 1240 Mongol sack of Kyiv was the end of Kyivan Rus, but the reality was the city had been weakening long before then. The balance of power was shifting from Kyiv during the succession crisis between princes, and decentralization of power from Kyiv towards cities like Vladimir.
Also, once the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople, Kyiv lost a crucial trading partner and put the city in a steep decline. Another crusade invaded the “pagans” of the Baltic region, which was on the northwest border of Kievan Rus’. Davison emphasizes all these dynamics and events led to Kyiv’s collapse at the hands of the Mongols as much as the Mongol invasion itself.
But few in the city could have been prepared for the sheer brutality of the Mongol invasion.
The Mongol invasion
Since Kyiv is pretty far west of Mongolia, it was not the first nor the last city the Mongols invaded. Genghis Khan died in 1227, but by that time, their conquests were well known.
Around that time, the Mongol Empire had conquered the Khwarezmian Empire in the Middle East, the Xi Xia Empire in northwest China, much of Russia, and China itself. The Mongols ruled everything from the China Sea in the east to the Caspian Sea in the west.
One of Genghis Khan’s sons, Ogedei Khan, took over the empire. But two generals, Jebe and Subutai, were involved in much of the Mongol invasions of Russia. They had raided as far west as Moscow and Novgorod. as well as Crimea. Their army of 20,000 people defeated armies much greater, including in the Battle of Kalka River in 1223.
But Subutai and Jebe left because they did not have resources for conquest. Until 1235, the Mongols did not return to Eastern Europe.
But this time, they did return for conquest. They learned the siege tactics of Chinese and Islamic cities and became skilled at siege and urban warfare.
In The Secret History of the Mongols, the legendary literary history of the Mongol Empire, the author wrote Subutai had “gone to war against the city of Kyiv” but failed to take it because he “had run into great resistance there.” This initial advance had eventually stopped at Kyiv.
As a result, Subutai needed reinforcements: Ogedei sent his nephew, Batu Khan and his army.
The second invasion of Eastern Europe in the late 1230s made short work of most Russian cities. This time, no city in Eastern Europe stood a chance at the already formidable Mongol foes, who were now well-versed in siege warfare.
The massacre of Kyiv
The Mongols had already destroyed Ryazan in northeast Kyivan Rus, then Vladimir and Kozelsk, two big cities to the west of Ryazan. The prize of Kyiv was seen as the ultimate prize for the Mongols, and Möngke, a general in Batu Khan’s army, did not want to raze Kyiv to the ground because it was so beautiful.
Möngke apparently sent ambassadors to negotiate the surrender of Kyiv. However, a warlord named Dmytro, in charge of defending Kyiv, killed the envoys. This was an unforgivable sin — in one notable case when the Shah of a city called Otrar killed three Mongolian diplomats, Genghis Khan invaded the Shah’s empires and massacred entire cities.
Diplomats had a sacred status. To the Mongols, anyone who killed a diplomat needed to be sent a message.
Kyiv was sent this message. The Mongols sacked the city worse than any prince had beforehand.
According to Alexander Maiorov at The Slavonic and East European Review, the Mongols started bombarding the city on November 28, 1240. They set up catapults near the city gates and besieged the city for several days. On December 6, the Mongols breached the walls of the city.
Of the 50,000 population of Kyiv, only about 2,000 people survived. Almost the entire city was burned down and only six buildings were left standing. Ironically, despite Dmytro killing the Mongol ambassadors, Batu Khan’s forces chose to spare him due to how valiantly he fought.
The Mongols kept invading Eastern Europe, pushing into Poland and Hungary. They also invaded Austria and Bulgaria.
However, in 1241, the invasion stopped suddenly. Ogedei Khan died, leading to a succession crisis for the Mongols. Batu Khan’s forces promptly returned to Mongolia, sparing Western Europe from a Mongol invasion. The Golden Horde would rule much of the territory for hundreds of years, but Batu and Guyuk, a son of Ogedei Khan, engaged in a succession crisis that would greatly weaken the Mongol Empire.
Takeaways
Conclusions of “Kyiv has been through worse” or something like “at least Putin isn’t destroying the city like the Mongols” are tone-deaf in the context of current events.
Today, Kyiv and Ukraine are much better equipped for a foreign invasion from a superpower.
But we can date back to the Mongolian invasion of Kyiv to the shift of power from Kyiv to Moscow in the region. Prior to the Mongolian invasion, the East Slavic people were all part of Kyivan Rus. After, however, three separate nations evolved: Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia.
Before the Mongols invaded Kievan Rus, Moscow was an obscure, new city. Afterward, however, Moscow led the forefront of resistance against the Mongols. Moscow began to grow more powerful than other cities in the region, eventually defeating the Mongols in crucial battles. Since Kyiv was an important religious center, after its destruction, the Russian Orthodox Church moved its headquarters to Vladimir. In 1327, it moved to Moscow, boosting its prominence.
For a long time, Moscow allied with the Mongols and helped put down invasions of neighboring cities. One Russian prince, Ivan I, was named Grand Prince. Moscow eventually defeated the Mongols in the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380, gaining its independence.
But the city became the capital of Russia and the capital of the later Tsardom the country was famous for.
Russia and Ukraine may have once been part of the same nation, but the countries grew apart after the Mongol invasion. Kyiv was decimated, and Moscow rose to power, which has contributed to the power imbalance between Ukraine and Russia even today.
Moscow became powerful due to allegiances with the Mongols and the collapse of neighboring powerful cities, like Kyiv. The Russian Orthodox Church moved to Moscow due to the Mongol invasion, and we can argue this chain of events was the origin of present-day tensions between Russia and Ukraine.
Kyiv took a very long time to recover — after all, losing 96% of your population and having your city razed to the ground does that to you. Kyiv would be subject to being conquered by several bigger powers over the new several centuries.
First, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania conquered the city in 1362, followed by Crimea in the 15th century and Poland in the 16th century. Crimean Tatars sacked the city twice in the 15th century. According to Hamm, one Venetian traveler said Kyiv was “plain and poor” in 1474, with a population much lower than Lviv.
Russia and Ukraine diverged following the Mongol invasion, but Russia takes claim over Ukraine now as it fears the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO.
But despite Russia and Ukraine attributing their origins to Kyivan Rus, Russia laying claim to Ukraine is incredibly dubious since the two countries diverged so much. Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus developed different languages and national identities.
According to one CBS correspondent, it would be like Vikings claiming ownership of France and England because of the role they played in founding those countries. Russia and Ukraine were tied together under Tsarist rule from the 17th century to the 19th century. But Ukrainian nationalism was too strong for the Tsars, leading to the banning of the Ukrainian language in the 19th century.
Western Ukraine especially never came under Russian Tsarist rule and was ruled by Poland or Austria, which respected the Ukrainian language and identity. Cities like Lviv today have a strong Ukrainian identity, and following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Ukraine, like Belarus, Finland, and Poland, tried to break free from Russia.
The fact remains Ukraine has its own unique language and national identity arising from the invasion of the Mongols. Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, has a much longer history than Russia’s capital, Moscow.
To acknowledge Ukraine’s own identity and language separate from Russia’s is a political act.
But it is a correct classification to make because it’s true.