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Kiev Governorate
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Kiev Governorate (pre-reform Russian: ), or Government of Kiev, was an administrative unit (guberniya) of the Russian Empire.
Kiev Governorate was established in 1708 and renamed a namestnichestvo (viceroyalty) in 1781. The Governorate was re-established in 1796 and remained in the Empire until its collapse in 1917. In Soviet Ukraine, the Kiev Guberniya persisted up until 1923, when the administrative unit was dissolved into several okrugs (districts) in the course of the Soviet-wide administrative reform.
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Encyclopedia
Kiev Governorate (pre-reform Russian: ), or Government of Kiev, was an administrative unit (guberniya) of the Russian Empire.
Kiev Governorate was established in 1708 and renamed a namestnichestvo (viceroyalty) in 1781. The Governorate was re-established in 1796 and remained in the Empire until its collapse in 1917. In Soviet Ukraine, the Kiev Guberniya persisted up until 1923, when the administrative unit was dissolved into several okrugs (districts) in the course of the Soviet-wide administrative reform. Since 1932, the area around Kiev is administratively organized as Kiev Oblast of Ukraine.
The borders of the Governorate underwent significant changes, in particular in 1796. Kiev was the administrative centre of the Governorate.
Foundation and early reforms
The Kiev Governorate, formed by the Ukase (edict) of the Russian Emperor Peter the Great of December 18, 1708 was preceded by the Kiev Regiment (polk). It was formed along with seven other governorates of the Empire and covered
of territory of parts of modern Ukraine and southwestern Russia.
Among the thirty-six cities assigned to it were Pereslavl, Chernigov, Nezhin, Belgorod, Akhtyrka, Sumy, Sevesk, Kursk, Mtsensk, Putivl, Bryansk, Oryol, and others.
Additionally, seventeen cities of the Azov Governorate were assigned to Kiev due to their greater geographical proximity to Kiev than to the 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 Governorate were assigned to Azov and Smolensk, respectively.
During the administrative reform of 1710, all governorates where subdivided into administrative-fiscal lots (doli), and Kiev Governorate consisted of five lots.
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. By 1719, the Governorate comprised forty-one cities. Despite the reform, the subdivision of the Governorate into regiments was still used in parallel with the provinces.
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.
Viceroyalty
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), with the effective date of January 9, 1782. The Viceroyalty was subdivided into the following uyezds: Kiev, Gorodishche, Goltva, Khorol, Kozelets, Lubny, Mirgorod, Ostyor, Pereyaslavl, Piryatin, and Zolotonosha while some sources state that the towns of Khorol and Gorodishche were included without their districts.
In 1789, Gorodishche was transferred to the Yekaterinoslav Governorate. In 1791, the Kiev Viceroyalty was subdivided into ten okrugs and in early 1790s additional districts (uyezds) of Boguslav, Gadyach, Kanev, Zenkov, Korsun, and Lokhvitsa were added.
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.
Eighteenth to early-twentieth century
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 and Braclaw Voivodeships which were gained by the Russian Empire from the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (the lands of the Polish Crown province). The edict took effect on August 29, 1797, bringing the total number of uyezds to twelve.
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. 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.
At the turn of the twentieth century, the governorate included twelve uyezds named to their centers: Berdichev, Cherkassy, Chigirin, Kanev, Kiev, Lipovets, Radomyshl, Skvira, Tarashcha, Uman, Vasilkov and Zvenigorodka.
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. 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: 3,034,961 Russians (including 2,819,145 Little Russians), 430,489 Jews and 68,791 Poles. By faith, 2,983,736 census respondents were Orthodox Christians, 433,728 were Jews and 106,733 were of the Roman Catholic Church.
Kiev Governorate remained a constituent unit of the larger Governorate General with Kiev being the capital of both well into the twentieth century. In 1915, the General Governorate was disbanded while the guberniya continued to exist.
After 1917
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.
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).
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.
Footnotes and references
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