Kiev (Kyiv) Ukraine city Early Soviet Rule and World War II history

Kiev (Kyiv) Ukraine city history articles

A new period of upheaval set in after the overthrow of the czar in the February Revolution of 1917 as czarist forces, Bolshevik revolutionaries, Ukrainian nationalists, and German and Polish forces contested the Kiev city. Kiev city finally passed to Soviet control in June 1920 (although the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic remained formally independent until the USSR was created in 1922 and the constitution that declared it a union republic was ratified in 1923).

The seat of the Ukrainian government, initially established in Kharkov, was moved to Kiev city in 1934. After further industrial growth and an expansion of population to 847,000 by 1939, the Kiev city was once again devastated in World War II. German forces sweeping into the USSR occupied Kiev in September 1941 and held the Kiev city until November 1943. Following the war the Kiev city was fully rebuilt from its wartime ruins.