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| The History Of Ukraine Ukraine has a very rich, interesting, and long history. This is the reason why this page might seem a bit to lengthy, but all of this information is essential for your understanding of the history of Ukraine. The first identifiable groups to populate what is now Ukraine were Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Goths, and other nomadic peoples who arrived throughout the first millennium BCE. These people were well known to colonists and traders in the ancient world, including Greeks and Romans, who established the trading outposts that eventually became city-states. Slavic tribes occupied central and eastern Ukraine in the sixth century CE and played an important role in the establishment of Kyiv. Situated on lucrative trade routes, Kyiv quickly prospered as the center of a powerful state of Kyivan-Rus. In the 11th century, Kyivan-Rus was, geographically, the largest state in Europe. Christianity reached the coast of the Black Sea and the lower Danube in the early years of the Christian era. From there it spread slowly northward, carried by merchants and other travelers. There is no doubt that in the course of the ninth century the Christian faith was well rooted in the chief commercial cities of Ukraine or Kyivan-Rus. Greek Orthodox missionaries sent to Rus in the 860s baptized so many people that shortly after this a special bishop was sent to care for their needs. In Kyiv, the capital, in the early 10th century, there were many Christians, including Grand Princess Olha, the wife of Grand Price Ihor. History has recorded that his army included both pagan and Christian warriors. Olha attempted to persuade her son, Sviatoslav, a well-known warrior who succeeded his parents on the throne of Kyivan-Rus, to accept Christianity but he declined. However, his children, who remained in the court with their grandmother, were imbued with Christian ideas. Among them was Volodymyr, who came to be known as St. Volodymyr the Great. In his adult years, many missionaries approached Volodymyr, each urging him to accept their religion. Volodymyr decided to find out for himself, which was the best religion and sent out envoys to many lands to gather information and report to him. Those sent to Constantinople found Greek Orthodoxy the best. Among Volodymyr’s campaigns were successful attacks against Greek settlements in Crimea. Emboldened by his victory, Volodymyr sent an envoy to the joint Byzantine Emperors, Basil and Constantine, to demand their sister, Anna, in marriage. They consented on the condition that he is baptized. Volodymyr gladly accepted, having already convinced himself that Orthodox Christianity suited him. In 988 Volodymyr was baptized and married Anna. He also had his entire realm baptized, thus marking the acceptance of Christianity by ancient Ukraine. Volodymyr is also known to have conceived on the trident (tryzub) crest, which he had imprinted on Kyivan-Rus coins. This crest came to be the state emblem of today’s Ukraine. Throughout the early years of the second millennium Kyivan-Rus was a strong empire. However conflicts among the descendants of Volodymyr the Great weakened Kyivan-Rus and left it vulnerable to attacks by Polovtsians, Mongols and princes of Suzdal in the North. One of them, Andrei, of the Yury Monomakh house, founders of the later Muscovite dynasty, took advantage of the disarray among the early Ukrainian princes and sent an army in 1169 to destroy Kyiv. The attack was successful and for many days the victors pillaged the churches and monasteries. The soldiers carried away icons, rare books, vestments, and killed many of the inhabitants. Most of the territory was annexed by Poland and Lithuania in the 14th century; however, during that time, Ukrainians began to conceive of themselves as a distinct people, an identification that survived subsequent partitioning by greater powers over the next centuries. Ukrainian peasants who fled the Polish effort to force them into servitude came to be known as Kozaks (Cossacks) and earned a reputation for their fierce martial spirit. The Kozak era began in the 16th century. The rulers, or hetman, of Kozak Ukraine sought to liberate Ukraine from Russian, Polish or Asian subjugation. One of the more heroic battles was one in which the Kozak army of Hetman Ivan Mazepa was defeated by the Russian Army in the Battle of Poltava in 1709 and by the late 18th century eastern Ukraine was subjugated by Russia. The 19th century found the region largely agricultural, with a few cities and centers of trade and learning. The region was under the control of the Austrians in the extreme west and of the Russians elsewhere. Ukrainian writers and intellectuals were inspired by the Spring of Nations in Europe and the nationalistic spirit stirring other European peoples existing under other imperial governments. The literature they created strove to revive Ukrainian linguistic and cultural traditions and establish a Ukrainian nation-state. The Russians, in particular, through the Ems Decree, imposed strict limits on attempts to elevate Ukrainian language and culture, even banning its use and study. When World War I and the Bolshevik revolution in Russia shattered the Hapsburg and Russian empires, Ukrainians declared independent statehood. In 1917 and 1918, two separate Ukrainian republics declared independence. The Ukrainian National (People’s) Republic, with its capital Kyiv, issued four declarations of varying levels of autonomy and sovereignty, culminating in the formal break with Russia on 22 January 1918. The Western Ukrainian National (People’s) Republic declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire on Nov. 1, 1918. Armies of both republics sought to defend independence. On Jan. 22, 1919, both republics merged into one united, indivisible Ukrainian National Republic. By 1921-22, however, the western part of the traditional territory had been incorporated into Poland, and the larger, central and eastern part became part of the Soviet Union. The Ukrainian national idea persevered during the inter-war years, and Soviet reaction was severe, particularly under Stalin, who imposed terror campaigns, which ravaged the intellectual class. As part of his forced collectivization policies, Stalin also created famines that killed millions of previously independent landowners and farmers and others throughout the country; estimates of deaths from the 1932-33 famine alone range from three million to seven million. Western Ukraine, incorporated into Poland, felt persecution and repression at the hands of Warsaw. Through its campaign called "Pacification," Poland intended to destroy all vestiges of Ukrainian culture. Ukrainians did not wait passively for a general war in Europe to press forward with their war of national liberation. Among the underground institutions formed to further the goal of independence were the Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO) and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). World War II formally broke out in September 1939. However the Ukrainian people, residents of the independent Transcarpathian Ukrainian Republic, unsuccessfully fought a war of liberation against Nazi Germany’s surrogate, Hungary. After the German and Soviet invasions of Poland in 1939, the western Ukrainian regions were incorporated into the Soviet Union. When the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, many Ukrainians, particularly in the west, welcomed them, but this did not last. The military wing of the OUN, Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) waged war against both the Nazis and the Soviets. On June 30, 1941, the leadership of the OUN declared the reestablishment of the independence of Ukraine. German brutality was directed principally against Ukraine's Jews (of whom one million were killed), but also against many other Ukrainians. Nearly 100,000 Jews and Ukrainians, along with the Kyiv Dynamo soccer team, were shot and buried in Babi Yar, near Kyiv, on Sept. 30, 1941. Kyiv and other parts of the country were heavily damaged. Armed resistance against Soviet government forces continued as late as the 1950s. The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Roman Shukhevych-Taras Chuprynka, died in battle with MVD troops in March 1950. Little changed for Ukraine over the following decades. During periods of relative liberalization -– as under Nikita Khrushchev from 1955 to 1964 -– Ukrainian communists pursued national objectives. The historical proximity of the armed resistance of World War II and this period of a thaw in Soviet repression gave rise to an era of intellectual resistance to Soviet rule and the campaign for national independence. This era was spearheaded by so-called writers or intellectuals of the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s and culminated in the establishment of the Ukrainian Public Group to Promote the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords. These greater and lesser-known dissidents sooner or later met their predecessors in the Soviet concentration camps. In the years of perestroika, under USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev, Ukrainian officials again advanced national goals. By a majority vote of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine became an independent state on Aug. 24, 1991, which was followed by the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Ukraine, Russia and Belarus became founding members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a loose association of the former Soviet republics, whose intention was to ease the effects of the collapse of the USSR. Shortly after independence, Ukraine named a parliamentary commission to prepare a new constitution, adopted a multi-party system, and adopted legislative guarantees of civil and political rights for national minorities. In their first free, democratic elections, held in December 1991, the Ukrainian people voted by 91 percent in support of independence and elected Leonid Makarovych Kravchuk president. Law guarantees freedom of religion, although religious organizations are required to register with local authorities and with the central government. Minority rights are respected in accordance with a 1991 law guaranteeing ethnic minorities the right to schools and cultural facilities, and the use of national languages in conducting personal business. In Crimea and eastern Ukraine, areas with significant Russian minorities, Russian is permitted as a language of official correspondence. It is also recognized as an official language in Crimea. Ethnic tensions in Crimea during 1992 prompted a number of pro-Russian political organizations to advocate secession of Crimea and annexation to Russia. (Crimea was ceded to Ukraine in 1954, as a gift from Khrushchev to mark the 300th anniversary of Ukrainian union with Russia). In July 1992, the Crimean and Ukrainian parliaments determined that Crimea would remain under Ukrainian jurisdiction, while retaining significant cultural and economic autonomy. Crimea held its first presidential elections in January 1994, electing Yuriy Meshkov, a Republican Party of Crimea member who advocated closer ties to Russia. The results of a non-binding poll on March 27, 1994, demonstrated voters' overwhelming support for: greater powers for Meshkov; dual Russian-Ukrainian citizenship for Crimeans and a treaty to govern relations between Crimea and Ukraine on a more equal basis. On March 17, 1995, however, the Ukrainian parliament abolished the 1992 Crimean constitution and dissolved the local presidency. In July 1994, Leonid Danylovych Kuchma was elected Ukraine's second president, replacing Leonid Kravchuk, president since December 1991. Earlier, in March 1994, Ukraine had elected its first post-independence parliament. Between the parliamentary elections of March 1994 and March 1998, there were several changes in government. Following the elections, Vitaliy Masol was chosen prime minister. Economic policy disputes led to the resignation of Prime Minister Masol one year later, in March 1995. Kuchma then appointed Yevhen Marchuk prime minister. Marchuk remained in office a little over a year; he was dismissed in May 1996 and replaced by Pavlo Lazarenko. Lazarenko also lasted only a little more than year; he was removed from office by President Kuchma in June 1997 and was replaced by Valery Pustovoitenko. Marchuk and Lazarenko’s failure to reform and improve the Ukrainian economy is seen as the reason for their removal. Pustovoitenko fared somewhat better than his three predecessors, lasting the longest of the three in office. He remained prime minister until late December 1999, when reformer Viktor Yushchenko, former chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine, replaced him. During Pustovoitenko’s tenure, the second post-independence parliamentary elections were held (in March 1998). Non-partisans won 136 seats. The Communist Party of Ukraine won 123 seats; the People's Movement of Ukraine Rukh won 41 seats; the Socialist Party and the Peasants’ Party combined for 29 seats; and the People's Democratic Party of Ukraine won 28 seats. The All-Ukrainian Association Hromada won 20 seats; the Green Party won 19 seats; and the Progressive Socialist Party and the United Social-Democratic Party each won 14 seats. Other electoral alliances and parties won 26 seats. In the 1999 presidential elections, 13 candidates stood in the first round. Because no candidate received an absolute election majority, a run-off was held between the top two vote recipients, President Leonid Kuchma and Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko. In the second round, Kuchma defeated Symonenko, garnering 56.3 percent of the vote to Symonenko’s 37.8 percent. After the presidential elections, President Kuchma attempted to re-appoint Pustovoitenko, but the Rada rejected this proposal. President Kuchma then nominated Chairman of the National Bank, Viktor Yushchenko, whom the Rada confirmed. Home |
| Key Facts -------------------------------------------- Boundaries Country Length of Boundary Russia 1,576 km Moldova 939 km Belarus 891 km Romania 531 km Poland 428 km Hungary 103 km Slovakia 90 km -------------------------------------------- Ethnic Divisions Ukrainian 73 % Russian 22 % Jewish 1 % Other 4 % -------------------------------------------- Religions Ukrainian Orthodox Moscow Patriarchate Kiev Patriarchate Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Catholic (Uniate) Protestant Jewish -------------------------------------------- National Symbols Flag Emblem Click either the flag or emblem to learn more about them |
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| Eastern Europe 49,811,174 603,700 km 2,782 km Temperate continental; winters vary from cold along the Black Sea to cold farther inland; summers are warm across the greater part of the country. Hot in the south. Ukrainian Russian $1 = 5.42 hryvnia New Year - January 1 Christmas - January 7 Easter - Date Varies Independence Day - August 24 |
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