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During the 8th and 9th centuries, Kiev was a detachment of the Khazar Empire. At the beginning of the 9th century the settlement falls under the Slavic-Varangian influence, adopting the name Kyiv (a name derived from Kyi, the founding character of the city), being chosen the Mother of the Russian Cities by Oleg de Novgorov. Tutyta, the region around Kiev, was known as Rus and the people of Kiev were known as ´´Rusyni / Rusici´´.



Ruled by the nobility of the Varangians, it became the political nucleus of the Kiev Rus, whose Golden Age was reached between the 11th and early 12th centuries. Since the 19th century it has been called Rus from Kiev. In 1240 the Mongol invasion of Russia, led by Batu Khan, completely destroyed Kiev, a fact that will have a profound effect on the future of the city and the East Slavic civilization. At the time of the Mongol destruction, Kiev was considered one of the largest cities in the world, with a population of more than one hundred thousand inhabitants.



In 1362 the dwarfed city and the surrounding area were conquered by the Gemidians for the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. From 1569 the city was controlled by the Polish-Lithuanian Union, as the capital of the Kiev Voivodeship, then transferred to the Polish Crown. In the 17th century, Kiev was transferred to Russia. In the Russian Empire, Kiev was a Christian center of the first order, attracting pilgrims, and the cradle of very important religious figures of the empire, but until the 19th century, the commercial importance of the city was marginal. Kiev prospered again during the 19th century and the Industrial Revolution in the Russian Empire, becoming the third most important city in the Empire and the largest commercial center in the Southwest. In the turbulent period that followed the Russian Revolution of 1917, Kiev became the capital of several short-lived Ukrainian states, and found itself in the midst of various conflicts: World War I, the Russian Civil War, and the Polish War. Soviet.



Inside the Soviet Union

Since 1921 the city was part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Ukrainian SSR), one of the founding republics of the USSR. Kiev was affected by the great processes that took place in Soviet Ukraine in the interwar period: in the 1920s the Ukrainianization, as well as the migration of the rural Ukrainian population, made the city, then Russian-speaking, become partly Ukrainian-speaking, and fostered the development of Ukrainian cultural life in the city. Soviet industrialization began in the late 1920s, changing the city from a former commercial and religious center to a major industrial, technological, and scientific center. Between 1932 and 1933 the Great Famine occurred, which devastated the migrant population that was not registered, and therefore did not have ration cards. In Stalin's Great Purge of the 1930s, the Intelligentsia was removed from the city.



In 1934 Kiev became the capital of the Ukrainian SSR (formerly the city of Kharkov). The city flourished again during the years of Soviet industrialization and the population increased rapidly, creating many giant industrial areas, some still existing today.





The city of Kiev in ruins during World War II On September 19, 1941, during World War II, Nazi Germany occupied the city, Kiev remained under German power until the Soviet Red Army took the city on 6 November 1943. Thanks to its stoic resistance during the war, the city was awarded the title of Heroic City. After the war it quickly recovers, becoming the third most important city in the Soviet Union. The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant catastrophe occurred 100 kilometers north of the city. Thanks to the predominance of northbound winds, the radioactive cloud moved away from the city.



With the collapse of the Soviet Union, after 57 years as the capital of the Ukrainian SSR, within the Soviet Union, the declaration of Independence of Ukraine is proclaimed in the city of Kiev by the Ukrainian Parliament on August 24, 1991 and Kiev becomes the capital of independent Ukraine



Kiev is one of the oldest and most important cities in Eastern Europe and has played a fundamental role in the development of the East Slavic civilization, as well as the modern Ukrainian nation. The first human settlement in this place may have occurred between the 5th and 6th centuries. Due to the difficulty of determining the founding date of the city, the month of May 1982 was chosen to celebrate the 1,500th anniversary of the city.



Music festivals



Premier season

It is an international festival sponsored by the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine and the National Union of Composers of Ukraine, held annually since its founding in 1988, in late March and early April.



KyivMusic Fest

It is the Ukrainian international music festival, which is held annually in Kiev in late September and early October.



Young Music Forum

It is the Ukrainian international music festival, which is held once every two years in Kiev, in late April and early May.

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