Kievan

[kee-ef-uhn, -ev-uhn]

adjective

1. of or relating to Kyiv.

2. of or relating to the period in Russian history (11th and 12th centuries) when Kyiv was the political center of a loose federation of states.

   Kievan Russia.

noun

1. a native or inhabitant of Kyiv.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Kievan¹

First recorded in 1925–30; Kyiv + -an

Example Sentences

Kamardin read out a poem which crudely criticised Russian imperialism in southern Ukraine and included the words "Glory to the Kievan Rus" - a 9th-Century Slavonic state that had Kyiv as its capital.

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Like Mr. Putin, he believes that the 10th-century Kievan Rus — comprising territory that partially overlapped with today’s Ukraine — was the birthplace of modern Russia and that the region has always constituted the inalienable borderlands of greater Russia.

Read more on New York Times

“The man who destroyed Sarkel was the old tsar of Kievan Rus’.

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“Yes. Extinct in Kievan Rus’, in the Northlands, in Ingria and the land of the Karelians, even all the way to the islands of Alba.”

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Yedsha continued: “The tsar heard of a Varangian here. The one you threw your horseshoe at. Sigurd Dragedreper is a famous dragon slayer in the North. A seer told him of a very dangerous, very powerful dragon in Kievan Rus’.

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