Kiev Governorate on the right bank of Dnieper was officially established by Emperor Paul I's edict of November 30, 1796. However it was not until 1800 when the first governor was appointed. Prior to such, the territory was governed by the Kiev Viceroy Vasiliy Krasno-Milashevich (in 1796 –1800).
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.[5] 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.[4]
By the 1897 Russian Census, there were 3,559,229 people in the guberniya making it the most populous one in all of the Russian Empire.[6] Most of the population was rural. There were 459,253 people living in cities, including about 248,000 in Kiev. According to individuals' mother tongue, the census classified the respondents as follows: 2,819,145 Malorossy (Ukrainians) representing 79.2% of the population, 430,489 Jews representing 12.1% of the population, 209,427 Velikorossy (Russians) representing 5.9% of the population, and 68,791 Poles representing 1.9% of the population.[7] By faith, 2,983,736 census respondents were Orthodox Christians, 433,728 were Jews and 106,733 were of the Roman Catholic Church.[6][8]
The estimated population in 1906 was 4,206,100.[9]
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.
Administrative division
Kiev Governorate consisted of 12 uyezds (their administrative centres in brackets):
In the times after the Russian revolution in 1917–1921, the lands of the Kiev Governorate switched hands on several occasions. After the last Imperial governor Alexey Ignatyev (who ruled until March 6, 1917) fell from power, the local leaders were appointed by competing authorities. At times, the Governorate appointed by the Central Rada and the Governorate appointed by the Communists both claimed sole authority over the Governorate, while some of the short-lived ruling regimes of the territory did not establish any particular administrative subdivision.[11]
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).[11]
^Despite the loss of Kiev almost three centuries earlier, Poland still designated an administrative unit centered in Zhitomir as the Kiev Voivodeship
^ abcИван Фундуклей. "Статистическое описание Киевской Губернии", Часть I. Санкт-Петербург, 1852. (Ivan Fundukley. Statistical Description of Kyiv Governorate. St. Petersburg, 1852)
^The 1897 Russian Census classified the population by the responses to the questions on religion and mother tongue. See, e.g. Маргарита Григорянц, "Первый демографический автопортрет России"Archived July 21, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, Мир России, 1997, Т. VI, № 4, С. 45–48
¹ Italics indicates renamed or abolished governorates, oblasts, etc on 1 January 1914. ² An asterisk (*) indicates governorates formed or created with renaming after 1 January 1914. ³ Ostsee or Baltic general-governorship was abolished in 1876.