Maidan Nezalezhnosti
Encyclopedia
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
, the capital city of Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
. One of the main city squares, it is located on the Khreschatyk Street. The square has been known under many different names, but it became known simply as the Maidan due to the political events that took place there in 2004 after the Ukrainian accession to independence.
Current name's etymology
"MaidanMaidan
Maidan or Maydan is a Persian word meaning "town square". It may refer to:- Squares and parks :* Maidan , a park in Kolkata, India* Maidan Nezalezhnosti, "Independence Square", the central square of Kiev, capital of Ukraine...
" literally translates from Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
as square; coming from the Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
word for "square" or "plaza." It received its current name in 1991 in the aftermath of the Ukrainian accession to independence. Nezalezhnist (independence) commemorates the Ukrainian independence achieved in 1991 in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Early history and Russian Empire times
Until the 10th century, the square as well as the rest of Khrestshchatyk was called Perevisyshch. Where began the Sofiivska vulytsia (Sofia Street) that led to the High City there stood one of the three main gates of the Old Kyiv (Yaroslav's City), the Lyadski Gates (other two were Golden Gates and Zhydivski Gates). Those gates are also mentioned in 1151, and around them lived the Polish population of the city, Lacka Sloboda. Lyadksi Gates were destroyed during the storm of city by the Mongol's army of Batu KhanBatu Khan
Batu Khan was a Mongol ruler and founder of the Ulus of Jochi , the sub-khanate of the Mongol Empire. Batu was a son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan. His ulus was the chief state of the Golden Horde , which ruled Rus and the Caucasus for around 250 years, after also destroying the armies...
in 1240.
Sometime during the 18th century, the new Pecherski Gates were erected and stood until 1833. Until the late 18th century – early 19th century, the area was a vacant ground known as Goat Swamp (Kozyne Boloto).
In the 1830s, the first wooden dwellings were built, and in the 1850s, stone-made buildings appeared. The most famous Ukrainian writer, Taras Shevchenko
Taras Shevchenko
Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko -Life:Born into a serf family of Hryhoriy Ivanovych Shevchenko and Kateryna Yakymivna Shevchenko in the village of Moryntsi, of Kiev Governorate of the Russian Empire Shevchenko was orphaned at the age of eleven...
lived in that area in 1859, in a building between Mala Zhytomyrska (Petite Zhytomyr) and Mykhailivska vulytsia (Michael's Street).
The development rapidly intensified after the mid-19th century when the territory gradually became the commercial centre of Kiev, which boomed immensely during the Russian Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
, thus becoming the third most important city in the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
. Until 1871, it was called the Khrestshchatitskaya Ploshchad (Khrestshchatyk's Square); it was a location for the local market and folk entertainment. In 1876 the Kiev City Duma building
Kiev City Duma building
The Kiev City Duma building housed Kiev's City Duma before World War II. The building was located on the then Dumska Square of the Khreschatyk street and stood in the centre of it....
was built here and the area became to be known as the Dumskaya Ploshchad (Parliamentary Square). In 1894 a line from the Kiev tram
Kiev tram
The Kiev Tramway is a tram network which serves the Ukrainian capital Kiev. The system was the first electric tramway in the former Russian Empire and the third one in Europe after the Berlin Straßenbahn and the Budapest tramway. The system currently consists of 139.9 km of track, including...
(the first electric tram built in the Russian Empire, 1892) reached the square.
In 1913 in the front of the City Duma, a monument of Pyotr Stolypin
Pyotr Stolypin
Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin served as the leader of the 3rd DUMA—from 1906 to 1911. His tenure was marked by efforts to repress revolutionary groups, as well as for the institution of noteworthy agrarian reforms. Stolypin hoped, through his reforms, to stem peasant unrest by creating a class of...
(who was assassinated in Kiev in 1911) was constructed, and stood there until March of 1917 at the dawn of the Revolutionary war within the Empire.
Soviet prewar years
Mikhail Kalinin
Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin , known familiarly by Soviet citizens as "Kalinych," was a Bolshevik revolutionary and the nominal head of state of Russia and later of the Soviet Union, from 1919 to 1946...
, the first chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
Soviet postwar years
During the first couple years after the war, the square was completely rebuilt from scratch. It was architecturally integrated with the newly constructed Khreschatyk in the typical (for the time) neo-classicalNeoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...
Stalinist architecture
Stalinist architecture
Stalinist architecture , also referred to as Stalinist Gothic, or Socialist Classicism, is a term given to architecture of the Soviet Union between 1933, when Boris Iofan's draft for Palace of the Soviets was officially approved, and 1955, when Nikita Khrushchev condemned "excesses" of the past...
. The newly constructed Kiev Central Post Office and Trade-Union House with its high-rise clock located in the square, is very well known and frequently viewed in pictured taken of the center of the city.
In 1976-77, as a part of metro construction, much of the square was again rebuilt and it was renamed the October Revolution Square (Ploshcha Zhovtnevoyi revolyutsii). During the reconstruction, the massive cubist
Cubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
monument to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
was put up as was the complex ensemble of fountains.
Independent Ukraine
After Ukraine's accession to independence in 1991, the square was given its current name. The competing proposal of Liberty Square (Ploshchad' Svobody) was raised at the time as well as in the years to follow, but the current name commemorating the Ukrainian independence is now firmly associated with the square (see the section below).In 2001, as the square was the major center of the "Ukraine without Kuchma
Ukraine without Kuchma
Ukraine without Kuchma! or UbK was a mass protest campaign preceding the Orange Revolution that took place in Ukraine in 2000–2001. Unlike the Orange Revolution the UbK was effectively extinguished by the government enforcement units followed by numerous arrests of the opposition and the...
" mass protest campaign, the new extensive construction of the area was abruptly ordered by the Kiev mayor of the time, Oleksandr Omelchenko
Oleksandr Omelchenko
Oleksandr Oleksandrovych Omelchenko became the mayor of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, in 1999. He lost his re-election bid in March 2006. Omelchenko is now member of the Verkhovna Rada elected on behalf of Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc but expelled from that fraction in September 2011....
. The square was fenced off for construction and became inaccessible for the protesters and many observers claimed that the main goal of the project ordered by the city mayor was to disrupt the
protests, especially since similar tactics were commonly used by local authorities throughout Ukraine.
Following the construction, the old familiar look of the square, with its many fountains, was significantly altered and the public reaction to the new look of the square was initially mixed. However, by now the square's monument to Kyi, Schek and Khoryv, the legendary founders of Kiev, the folklore hero Cossack Mamay
Cossack Mamay
Cossack Mamay is a Ukrainian folkloric hero, one of standard characters in traditional Ukrainian itinerant puppet theater, the Vertep. Mamay eventually became the national personification of Ukraine and Ukrainians.-Review:...
, the city's historic protector Archangel Michael
Michael (archangel)
Michael , Micha'el or Mîkhā'ēl; , Mikhaḗl; or Míchaël; , Mīkhā'īl) is an archangel in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic teachings. Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Lutherans refer to him as Saint Michael the Archangel and also simply as Saint Michael...
as well as a more modern invention, the protecting goddess Berehynia, and the many glass domes are easily recognisable as parts of the modern city centre.
A mostly underground shopping mall, the Globe, was built under Maidan Nezalezhnosti to replace the old and shabby giant underpass formerly dubbed by Kievans as Truba (the Tube).
Future developments of the square include the demolition of the old "Ukrayina" hotel (formerly hotel "Moskva"), and building a new 68-floor building instead.
Centre of public political activity
As the central Kiev square, following the end of Soviet era the Maidan has been the centre of public political activity. In the autumn of 1990, students' protests and hunger strikeHunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not...
s in the Maidan resulted in the resignation of the Ukrainian Prime-Minister Vitaliy Masol
Vitaliy Masol
Vitaliy Andriiovych Masol was confirmed as Prime Minister of Ukraine on June 16, 1994.President Kravchuk's appointment of an advocate of state-controlled economy as prime minister was seen as a pre-election concession to the communist-dominated parliament. Force into resignation 1990 by the...
.
In the 2000s the biggest political protests in Ukraine, such as the Ukraine without Kuchma
Ukraine without Kuchma
Ukraine without Kuchma! or UbK was a mass protest campaign preceding the Orange Revolution that took place in Ukraine in 2000–2001. Unlike the Orange Revolution the UbK was effectively extinguished by the government enforcement units followed by numerous arrests of the opposition and the...
campaign and the Orange Revolution
Orange Revolution
The Orange Revolution was a series of protests and political events that took place in Ukraine from late November 2004 to January 2005, in the immediate aftermath of the run-off vote of the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election which was claimed to be marred by massive corruption, voter...
took place in this square. During the Orange Revolution in late 2004, Maidan Nezalezhnosti received global media coverage, as hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in the square and nearby streets, and pitched tents for several weeks, enduring the cold and snow. One of the eminent activists during that time became Paraska Korolyuk
Paraska Korolyuk
Paraska Vasylivna Korolyuk ; 5 May 1939—26 November 2010) was a Ukrainian political activist and one of the iconic figures of Orange Revolution...
. The protests against electoral fraud
Electoral fraud
Electoral fraud is illegal interference with the process of an election. Acts of fraud affect vote counts to bring about an election result, whether by increasing the vote share of the favored candidate, depressing the vote share of the rival candidates or both...
resulted in an additional round of presidential elections being ordered by the Supreme Court of Ukraine
Supreme Court of Ukraine
The Supreme Court of Ukraine is the highest judicial body in the system of courts of general jurisdiction in Ukraine.The Court derives its authority from the Constitution of Ukraine, but much of its structure is outlined in legislation...
, which were won by the opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko
Viktor Yushchenko
Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko is a former President of Ukraine. He took office on January 23, 2005, following a period of popular unrest known as the Orange Revolution...
.
Following his election as the President of Ukraine
President of Ukraine
Prior to the formation of the modern Ukrainian presidency, the previous Ukrainian head of state office was officially established in exile by Andriy Livytskyi. At first the de facto leader of nation was the president of the Central Rada at early years of the Ukrainian People's Republic, while the...
, and after taking the official oath in the parliament
Verkhovna Rada
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is Ukraine's parliament. The Verkhovna Rada is a unicameral parliament composed of 450 deputies, which is presided over by a chairman...
, Yushchenko took a public oath at Maidan Nezalezhnosti in front of his numerous supporters.
After the Orange Revolution, Maidan Nezalezhnosti continues to attract political protesters, but no event has ever approached the scale of the Orange protests.