Kiev Governorate (Russian: Ки́евская губе́рния; pre-reform Russian: Кіевская губернія; Ukrainian: Київська губернія), or Government of Kiev, was an administrative division (a guberniya) of the Russian Empire.
The governorate was established in 1708 along with seven other governorates and was transformed into a viceroyalty in 1781. After the partition of Poland (the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) the governorate was re-established in 1796 completely in Right-bank Ukraine, on the right bank of the Dnieper, and remained in the Empire until its collapse in 1917. After the establishment of the Soviet Union, the Kiev Guberniya was dissolved and its territory split into several okrugs (districts) in the course of the Soviet-wide administrative reform. After 1932, the area around Kiev was administratively organized as Kiev Oblast of Ukrainian SSR.
The borders of the Governorate underwent significant changes, in particular in 1796. Kiev was the administrative centre of the Governorate.
Contents |
|
|||||||||||||||||||
The Governorate was established on December 29 [O.S. December 18], 1708 together with seven other governorates, by Tsar Peter the Great's edict.[1] As the administrative unit, the governorate was preceded by the Regimental division of the Cossack Hetmanate. Remarkable is the fact that both divisions existed through most of the 18th century during which the Regimental division as administrative was phased away and later existed solely for military purposes. At the time of its foundation the governorate covered 231,000 square kilometers (89,000 sq mi) of territory of parts of modern Ukraine and southwestern Russia.
As with the rest of the governorates, the description of Kiev Governorate's borders was not given. Instead, the territory was defined as a set of cities and the lands adjacent to those cities. The original territory was roughly based on the Siever land surrounded by Smolensk, Moscow, and Azov Governorates.
Among the thirty-five cities assigned to it were Pereslavl, Chernigov, Nezhin, Belgorod, Akhtyrka, Sumy, Sevesk, Kursk, Mtsensk, Putivl, Bryansk, Oryol, and others.[1]
| # | City | # | City | # | City |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Kiev | 14. | Sumy | 27. | Sevesk |
| 2. | Pereslavl | 15. | Krasnopolye | 28. | Kursk |
| 3. | Chernigov | 16. | Mezhirichi | 29. | Mtsensk |
| 4. | Nezhin | 17. | Zolochev | 30. | Putivl |
| 5. | Novobogoroditskoy | 18. | Buromlya | 31. | Karachev |
| 6. | Sergiyevskoy | 19. | Rublevka | 32. | Kromy |
| 7. | Kamennoy Zaton | 20. | Gorodnoye | 33. | Rylsk |
| 8. | Belgorod | 21. | Sudzha | 34. | Bryansk |
| 9. | Akhtyrka | 22. | Lebedyan | 35. | Orel |
| 10. | Bogodukhov | 23. | Miropol | 36. | Novosil |
| 11. | Murakhva | 24. | selo of Vena | ||
| 12. | Sennoye | 25. | Belopolye | ||
| 13. | Bolkhov | 26. | Olshanka |
Additionally, seventeen cities (according to the source; only sixteen were actually listed) of Azov Governorate were assigned to Kiev due to their greater geographical proximity to Kiev than to Azov. Among such cities were Kharkov and Staroy Oskol. Also to Kiev was assigned Trubchevsk and two other cities from Smolensk Governorate while some cities of Kiev were assigned to Azov and Smolensk, respectively.[1]
Initially divided into uyezds and razriads, the guberniya abolished the obsolete administrative system of the rapidly growing empire. During the administrative reform of 1710, all governorates where subdivided into administrative-fiscal lots (doli), and Kiev Governorate consisted of five lots. The lots were administer by landrats, from the German land-councilor.
A new reform edict was issued on May 29, 1719. Lots were abolished and the governorate was subdivided into four provinces centered on Belgorod, Kiev, Oryol, and Sevsk, and named accordingly.[2] By 1719, the Governorate comprised forty-one cities.[3] The provinces, in their turn, were divided into districts. Despite the reform, the subdivision of the Governorate into regiments was still used in parallel with the provinces.[3]
In the course of the 1727 administrative reform, Belgorod, Oryol and Sevsk Provinces were split off into Belgorod Governorate, with only Kiev Province left in the Kiev Governorate.[2][4][5] The guberniya at this time was divided into uyezds that replaced districts.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
In the process of the Catherine's reform initiated by her November 7, 1775 edict, the new administrative unit namestnichestvo (viceroyalty) was introduced. On September 16, 1781, an edict was issued to transform the Governorate into a Viceroyalty (Kievskoye namestnichestvo),[2][3][4][6] with the effective date of January 9, 1782.[3] The Viceroyalty was subdivided into the following uyezds: Kiev, Gorodishche, Goltva, Khorol, Kozelets, Lubny, Mirgorod, Ostyor, Pereyaslavl, Piryatin, and Zolotonosha[3] while some sources state that the towns of Khorol and Gorodishche were included without their districts.[5]
In 1789, Gorodishche was transferred to the Yekaterinoslav Governorate. In 1791, the Kiev Viceroyalty was subdivided into ten okrugs[3] and in early 1790s additional districts (uyezds) of Bohuslav, Gadyach, Kaniv, Zinkiv, Korsun, and Lokhvytsia were added.[5]
On June 4, 1782, the Coat of Arms of Kiev was officially approved, which de facto became a Coat of Arms of the Viceroyalty. According to the description, Archangel Michael is dressed in silver holding up an aglow sword, depicted on an azure shield.[7]
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
Kiev Governorate was re-established by Emperor Paul I's edict of November 30, 1796. Three Left-bank Ukraine viceroyalties were merged into one Little Russia Governorate centered on Chernigov, while the Kiev Governorate was now comprised on Right-bank Ukraine. With Kiev still a capital, the governorate included the right-bank parts of the former Kiev Viceroyalty merged with territories of the former Kiev[8] and Bracław Voivodeships which were gained by the Russian Empire from the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (the lands of the Polish Crown province).[3] The edict took effect on August 29, 1797, bringing the total number of uyezds to twelve.[3]
On January 22, 1832, the Kiev Governorate, along with the Volhynia and the Podolia Governorates formed the Kiev Governorate General, also known as the Southwestern Krai.[9] At the time, Vasily Levashov was appointed the Military Governor of Kiev as well as the General Governor of Podolia and Volhynia. In 1845, the population of the Governorate was 1,704,661.[3]
At the turn of the 20th century, the governorate included twelve uyezds named to their centers: Berdychiv, Cherkasy, Chyhyryn, Kaniv, Kiev, Lipovets, Radomyshl, Skvyra, Tarashcha, Uman, Vasylkiv and Zvenyhorodka.[10]
By the 1897 Russian Census, there were 3,559,229 people in the guberniya making it the most populous one in the whole Russian Empire.[10] Most of population was rural. There were 459,253 people living in cities, including about 248,000 in Kiev. According to the mother tongue, the census classified the respondents as follows: 2,819,145 Little Russians (the Russian government term for Ukrainians) representing 79.2% of the population, 430,489 Jews representing 12.1% of the population, 209,427 Great Russians (the Russian government's term for Russians) representing 5.9% of the population, and 68,791 Poles representing 1.9% of the population.[11] By faith, 2,983,736 census respondents were Orthodox Christians, 433,728 were Jews and 106,733 were of the Roman Catholic Church.[10][12]
Kiev Governorate remained a constituent unit of the larger Governorate General with Kiev being the capital of both well into the 20th century. In 1915, the General Governorate was disbanded while the guberniya continued to exist.
Russian Census of 1897
In the times after the Russian revolution in 1917-1921, the lands of Kiev Governorate switched hands many time. After the last Imperial governor, Alexey Ignatyev till March 6, 1917, the local leaders were appointed by competing authorities. At times, the Governorate Starosta (appointed by the Central Rada) and the Governorate Commissar (sometimes underground) both claimed the Governorate, while some of the short-lived ruling regimes of the territory did not establish any particular administrative subdivision.[4]
As chaos gave way to stability in the early 1920s, the Soviet Ukrainian authority re-established the Governorate whose leading post was titled the Chairman of the Governorate's Revolutionary Committee (revkom) or of the Executive Committee (ispolkom).[4]
In the course of the Soviet administrative reform of 1923–1929 the Kiev Guberniya was transformed into six okrugs in 1923, and, since 1932, Kiev Oblast at the territory.[4]
|
||||||||
|
|
|||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||