The initial documented history of Makarov is connected with the village of Voronin, which was one of the Yasinets estates of the Lithuanian feudal lords Ivashentsevichs (Vasentsevychi [uk]).

During the Khmelnytsky Uprising (1648–1676), the Makariv estate was burned down, and the local population actively joined the Ukrainian national liberation movement.

In early 18th century, the village belonged to Prince Lubomyrskyi, later to monk Kayetan Roscishevskyi, who in 1768 (during the Koliiv region) was forced to flee from the Haydamaks led by Ivan Bondarenko [uk], whose troops took Makariv in mid-July 1768.

[citation needed] In 1917, in particular, Makariv became the focus of a sharp struggle between the local bodies of the Ukrainian Central Rada and the Bolshevik revolutionary committee.

During the Ukrainian Revolution (1917–1921), the government in Makariv changed several times, until in the summer of 1920 the town was finally occupied by Soviet Russia and, in 1921, annexed by USSR.

During the Holodomor (1932-33), crops and food products were taken from Makariv and the surrounding area, resulting about 3,450 deaths from hunger, including 99 children.

At that time, the significant Jewish population of the city was subjected to genocide by the German occupiers, as in many similar towns of Ukraine.

[10] Later that day two civilians (a 72-year-old man and a 68-year-old woman) were killed when their car was blown apart by shots from a Russian infantry fighting vehicle at the intersection of Bogdan Khmelnytsky Street and Okruzhna Road, near the hospital.