Kievan Rus
The formation of the Kievan state that began in the mid-9th century, the role of the Varangians (Vikings) in this process, and the name Rus by which this state came to be known are all matters of controversy among historians. It is clear, however, that this formation was connected with developments in international trade and the new prominence of the Dnieper route from the Baltic to Byzantium, on which Kiev was strategically sited. Trade along this route was controlled by Varangian merchant-warriors, and from their ranks came the progenitors of the Kievan princes, who were, however, soon Slavicized. In the early chronicles the Varangians were also called Rus, and this corporate name became a territorial designation for the Kievan region—the basic territory of the Rus; later, by extension, it was applied to the entire territory ruled by members of the Kievan dynasty.
By the end of the 10th century, the Kievan domain covered a vast area from the edge of the open steppe in Ukraine as far north as Lake Ladoga and the upper Volga basin. Like other medieval states, it did not develop central political institutions but remained a loose aggregation of principalities ruling what was a dynastic clan enterprise. Kiev reached its apogee in the reigns of Volodymyr the Great (Vladimir I) and his son Yaroslav I (the Wise). In 988 Volodymyr adopted Christianity as the religion of his realm and had the inhabitants of Kiev baptized. Rus entered the orbit of Byzantine (later, Orthodox) Christianity and culture. A church hierarchy was established, headed (at least since 1037) by the metropolitan of Kiev, who was usually appointed by the patriarch of Constantinople. With the new religion came new forms of architecture, art, and music, a written language (Old Church Slavonic), and the beginnings of a literary culture. All these were vigorously promoted by Yaroslav, who also promulgated a code of laws, the first in Slavdom. Although Byzantium and the steppe remained his main preoccupations in external policy, Yaroslav maintained friendly relations with European rulers, with whom he established marital alliances for his progeny.
Following Yaroslav’s death, Kiev entered a long period of decline, only briefly stemmed in the 12th century under Volodymyr II Monomakh (Vladimir II Monomakh). Shifts in trade routes undermined Kiev’s economic importance, while warfare with the Polovtsians in the steppe sapped its wealth and energies. Succession struggles and princely rivalries eroded Kiev’s political hegemony. The ascendancy of new centres and the clustering of principalities around them reflected regional cleavages—historical, economic, and tribal ethnic—that had persisted even in the period of Kiev’s predominance. These differences were accentuated by the Mongol-Tatar invasions that began in the 1220s and culminated in the devastating sack of Kiev in 1240.
The territory that largely coincides with modern Belarus, with Polotsk as the most important centre, was one such emerging region. The land of Novgorod to its north was another. In the northeast, Vladimir-Suzdal (and later Moscow) formed the core from which developed the future Russian state (see also Grand Principality of Moscow). On Ukrainian territory, in the southwestern part of Rus, Galicia-Volhynia emerged as the leading principality.
Volodymyr (modern Volodymyr-Volynskyy) in Volhynia had been an important princely seat in Kievan Rus; and Galicia, with its seat at Halych, on the Dniester River, became a principality in the 12th century. In 1199 the two principalities were united by Prince Roman Mstyslavych to form a powerful and rich state that at times included the domains of Kiev. Galicia-Volhynia reached its highest eminence under Roman’s son Danylo (Daniel Romanovich). New cities were founded, most importantly Lviv; trade—especially with Poland and Hungary, as well as Byzantium—brought considerable prosperity; and culture flourished, with marked new influences from the West. In 1253 Danylo (in a bid for aid from the West) even accepted the royal crown from Pope Innocent IV and recognized him as head of the church, although nothing substantial came from this. Danylo’s reign also witnessed the rise of boyar-magnate unrest, debilitating dynastic involvements with Poland and Hungary, and the Mongol invasion of 1240–41. These marked the onset of Galicia-Volhynia’s decline, which continued until the extinction of Roman’s dynasty in 1340.
Lithuanian and Polish rule
By the middle of the 14th century, Ukrainian territories were under the rule of three external powers—the Golden Horde, the grand duchy of Lithuania, and the kingdom of Poland.
The steppe and Crimea, whose coastal towns and maritime trade were now in the hands of the Venetians and Genoese, formed part of the direct domains of the Tatar Golden Horde. This was the westernmost successor of Genghis Khan’s Mongol empire, whose khan resided at Sarai on the Volga River. By the mid-15th century the Golden Horde was in a process of disintegration. One of its successor states was the Crimean khanate, which after 1475 accepted the suzerainty of the sultans of the Ottoman Empire. Both the Crimean Peninsula and large areas of the adjoining steppe continued under the khanate’s rule until its annexation to the Russian Empire in 1783.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, Mongol rule was largely indirect, limited to exactions of taxes and tribute whose collection was delegated to the local princes. It was also relatively short-lived; northwestern and central Ukraine became an arena of expansion for a new power that had arisen in the 13th century, the grand duchy of Lithuania.
Having already over the course of a century incorporated all the lands of Belarus, Lithuania under Grand Duke Algirdas advanced rapidly into Ukraine. In the 1350s Chernihiv and adjacent areas—and in the 1360s the regions of Kiev and, to its south, Pereyaslav and Podolia (Podillya)—were occupied by Lithuania. Competition with Poland over the former Galician-Volhynian principality ended in the 1380s in partition, by which Lithuania gained Volhynia and Poland was confirmed in its possession of Galicia. Thus, Lithuanian control extended over virtually all the Ukrainian lands as far as the open steppe and even, briefly, to the Black Sea.
Within the grand duchy the Ruthenian (Ukrainian and Belarusian) lands initially retained considerable autonomy. The pagan Lithuanians themselves were increasingly converting to Orthodoxy and assimilating into Ruthenian culture. The grand duchy’s administrative practices and legal system drew heavily on Slavic customs, and an official Ruthenian state language (also known as Rusyn) developed over time from the language used in Rus.
Direct Polish rule in Ukraine in the 1340s and for two centuries thereafter was limited to Galicia. There, changes in such areas as administration, law, and land tenure proceeded more rapidly than in Ukrainian territories under Lithuania. However, Lithuania itself was soon drawn into the orbit of Poland following the dynastic linkage of the two states in 1385/86 and the baptism of the Lithuanians into the Latin (Roman Catholic) church. The spread of Catholicism among the Lithuanians and the attendant diffusion of the Polish language, culture, and notions of political and social order among the Lithuanian nobility eroded the position of the Orthodox Ruthenians, as had happened earlier in Galicia. In 1569, by the Union of Lublin, the dynastic link between Poland and Lithuania was transformed into a constitutional union of the two states as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. At the same time, the greater part of the Ukrainian territories was detached from Lithuania and annexed directly to Poland. This act hastened the differentiation of Ukrainians and Belarusians (the latter of whom remained within the grand duchy) and, by eliminating the political frontier between them, promoted the closer integration of Galicia and the eastern Ukrainian lands. For the next century, virtually all ethnically Ukrainian lands experienced in common the direct impact of Polish political and cultural predominance.