Mongol sack of Kiev and the fall of Kievan Rus'

Date

December 1240 CE

Category

Military & conflict

Region

Eastern Europe (Kievan Rus', Ukraine)

Era

Post-Classical / Medieval

Significance

During the western campaign led by Batu Khan and the general Subutai, the Mongols stormed Kiev after a short siege, with the city falling on 6 December 1240.

One of the largest and richest cities of eastern Europe was pillaged and burned; contemporary accounts claim only a small fraction of its population survived, though the cathedral of St Sophia endured. The sack is generally taken to mark the end of Kievan Rus' as a political entity, already weakened by internal fragmentation. The Rus' principalities were absorbed into the tributary orbit of the Mongol state that became known as the Golden Horde, ruled from Sarai on the Volga. For roughly two centuries Russian princes travelled to Sarai to receive their patents to rule, paid tribute and provided levies. This 'Tatar yoke' reoriented the development of the Rus' lands away from Europe and fostered the later rise of Moscow as the principal tax-collector for the Horde.

Empires active in December 1240 CE

• Mongol Empire
  1206 CE – 1368 CE
• Kanem-Bornu Empire
  700 CE – 1900 CE
• Song Dynasty
  960 CE – 1279 CE
• Abbasid Caliphate
  750 CE – 1258 CE
• Byzantine Empire
  330 CE – 1453 CE
• Kilwa Sultanate
  957 CE – 1505 CE

Related military & conflict events

• Mongol sack of Baghdad ends the Abbasid Caliphate
  10 February 1258 CE
• Battle of Kirina founds the Mali Empire under Sundiata Keita
  c. 1235 CE
• Battle of Ain Jalut halts the Mongol advance
  3 September 1260 CE
• Mongol conquest of the Khwarazmian Empire
  1219–1221 CE
• Failed Mongol invasions of Japan and the 'kamikaze'
  1274 & 1281 CE
• The Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople
  1202–1204 (sack April 1204)

Further reading

Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire

The wider story

Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire

Judith Herrin

Vivid, thematic popular history by a top Byzantinist.

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