Kiev or Kyiv? The politics behind a war-torn name

At 6am this morning we were woken up to the sonorous tones of Nick Robinson, on Radio 4’s Today programme. “Good morning from Kyiv, capital of Ukraine – a city under fire,” he said.

The news of the Russian invasion was startling. Also notable was the pronunciation of the city as “Kyeev”, with a short ‘i’, which has imperceptibly been replacing the more familiar “Key-ev” in recent dispatches. When, and why, did this start to happen?

Andrew Wilson is a British historian, political scientist and professor of Ukrainian studies at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at UCL, as well as the author of the 2014 book, Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West.

“Kyiv is a transliteration from the letters of the Ukrainian alphabet, whereas Kiev is a transliteration from the Russian,” he explains. “It’s normal practice – as well as correct – to follow the transliteration of the language of the local state.”

Even before the current crisis, there has been a move to correct the pronunciation of the nation’s capital. Ukraine became independent in 1991 and the spelling “Kyiv” was legally approved in 1995. 

The change, however, didn’t become a cause célèbre until the Maidan uprising of 2014, when protests led to the ousting of the pro-Russian leader Viktor Yanukovych, and the rise of a more Western-facing democracy. 

This led to the 2018 “KyivNotKiev” online campaign, started by the Ukrainian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, seen as as a wider move to help shed perceptions of Soviet and Imperial Russia. As a result, Reuters, CNN – and also the BBC – started using the new spelling and pronunciation.

“Other Russian names have been changing to reflect Ukrainian spelling” says Wilson. “Odessa has become Odesa, and Lvov has become Lviv. Ukrainian is a far more beautiful language.” 

Similarly, there has been a move to drop “the” Ukraine, when talking about the nation. “The definite article is rarely used before the names of independent states,” notes Wilson. “This also harks back to Russian Imperialism.”

Other recalibrations of place names took place in the 20th century: with Peking becoming Beijing, Calcutta becoming Kolkata, and Burma becoming Myanmar, for example. 

St Petersburg in Russia wears changing politics in its very identity. Known as Petrograd between 1914 and 1924, it later became Leningrad, before returning to its original name in 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

For younger Ukrainians overwhelmingly supportive of pro-Western policies and lifestyles, “Kiev” is a relic of the communist past. 

So, on a lighter note, will chicken Kiev now become chicken Kyiv? “We’re inconsistent about things like this in the UK,” says Wilson. “We talk about the football team Bayern Munich, mixing up German and English names. And we still talk about Moscow – we’ve never switched to Moskva.” 

But as an expert in the region and a passionate admirer of the independent state, he is entirely behind the continued use of the Ukrainian “Kyiv”.  This is no “woke” fashion, but the redressing of a historical injustice.

“The correct pronunciation supports the principle of sovereign statehood,” he says. “‘Kiev’ legitimises Putin’s expansionism. Besides, we need to do everything we can to annoy the Russians.”