History of Ukraine

gigatos | June 11, 2022

Post Views: 15

Summary

The history of Ukraine chronologically narrates historical events in the lands of present-day Ukraine, the Ukrainian people and ֶֶֶֶֶothers nationalities, from prehistoric times to the present.

Ukraine was one of the first centers where civilizations were established and urban planning appeared, it is part of the area where the domestication of the horse, the invention of the wheel and metal working began. Different waves of Indo-European migration to Europe and later in the opposite direction formed the basis and characteristics of the Ukrainian population. The Greek colonization of the Black Sea coast influenced the territory of Ukraine within the framework of the Greek civilization as its northern border.

The great migration of peoples in the 5th century BC continued and ended up forming various Slavic tribes. These Slavic tribes converged to form the medieval state of Kievan Rus in 882 in the East European plain. After the invasion of Kievan Rus by the Golden Horde, the state disintegrated and fragmented into various fiefdoms such as the Ruthenian kingdom. The western lands of Rus, hereinafter Ruthenia to refer to Ukraine, were reunified by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which, seeking allies in the struggle against the Muscovites (present-day Russians) and the “ostsiedlung” (Baltic Germans), dynastically unified with the Kingdom of Poland, after which Ruthenia became part of the Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth.

With the need to protect Ruthenia from Tatar incursions in the south, a Ruthenian military stronghold was formed, the Cossacks, who fought and kept the Tatar troops of the Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth at bay. The Ruthenians, henceforth Ukrainians, under Lithuanian-Polish occupation had the desire to establish their own independent state, which is why many Cossacks fled to the Free Ukraine region, a region that was not controlled by any state. There the Zaporizha Sich was established, a fortified island formed by Cossack military men. In 1648, Bogdan Khmelnitskyi with the support of the Ukrainian population and the Cossacks rebelled against Poland demanding recognition of an independent state. Successful Ukrainian rebellion led by Khmelnitskyi, the Cossack Hetmanate was established with the Sich of Zaporizha as its administrative center. The Cossack Hetmanate was governed in such a way that it can be considered as one of the first democracies in Europe, the Hetman (the largest force in the state) being elected by popular choice and not by dynastic descent like most states in Europe at that time.

For a short period of time the Ukrainian nation enjoyed autonomy but the Hetmanate found itself in a situation between three swords and the wall; the Crimean Tatars from the south, the Poles from the west and the Muscovites from the east. Unable to defend itself against three powers, the Hetmanate was forced to sign a treaty of vassalage with the Muscovite Tsarist. The Hetmanate gradually lost its autonomy until the Muscovites, henceforth Russians, completely annexed its territory in 1764 and Ukraine was occupied and divided between Poland and Russia.

Ukrainian culture developed in parallel and in different ways in the areas occupied by the Russian Empire and the Polish Kingdom, later the Austrian Empire. Differences that can be seen even to this day. The western part of Ukraine retained a nationalistic character, while the Ukrainian heartland and the east were severely Russified; the Ukrainian language was banned in many occasions and spheres (see acts against the Ukrainian language), forced migration of Russian population to Ukrainian cities to make them Russian-speaking, deportation of Ukrainian population to Siberia (which would still lead to the emergence of Ukrainian colonies such as Green Ukraine or Grey Ukraine), as well as discrimination and status denoting towards the Ukrainian-speaking population.

Despite Russification and attempts to assimilate the Ukrainian population, the Ukrainian People”s Republic declared its independence from Russia in 1917 and the Western Ukrainian People”s Republic declared its independence from Austria and Poland in 1918; the Ukrainian war of independence began, in the course of which the two Ukrainias were unified in the Zluky Act. However, as in the past, Ukraine was between a rock and a hard place: the Polish Republic and the Bolshevik movement. Having to cede the western region and ally with Poland, Ukraine lost the war of independence, was again divided and the Russian SFSR annexed several regions of northern and eastern Ukraine, in addition to the nominally controlled territories of Kuban and Crimea, assigning the remaining territory to the Ukrainian SSR.

Between 1921 and 1929, the Soviet Union implemented policies to gain the confidence of the population skeptical towards communism in its member states, in the case of Ukraine this period was called Ukrainization, but after the so-called Great Rupture declared by Stalin everything changed. The Russification of Ukraine intensified with the banning of the Ukrainian language in schools, the destruction of monuments and historical documents, the death of between 4 and 12 million Ukrainians during the Holodomor famine of 1932-1933.

After 70 years of Russification and attempts at independence (see Carpathian Ukraine or the UPA), Ukraine was once again reborn as an independent republic on August 24, 1991. Since then it continues to fight for its independence and for a free democracy, as in the Orange Revolution or Euromaidan.

Before the formation of the first state in relation to Ukraine, Kievan Rus, there were different peoples and cultures that laid the foundations of Ukrainian culture.

Also read, biographies – Æthelred the Unready

Culture of Tripilia

Located between 5500 BC and 2750 BC it extended from the Carpathian Mountains to the Dniester and Dnieper regions, centered on present-day Moldavia and covered substantial parts of western Ukraine and northeastern Romania, encompassing an area of 350,000 km², with a diameter of 500 km; roughly from Kiev in the northeast to Brașov in the southwest.

Among some of its characteristics are the high quality polychrome ceramics, of which it has been possible to follow the evolution in the shapes, in the use of colors and in the technical progress.

Currently, more than 2,000 settlements of this ancient people have been found.

Also read, important-events – Berlin Blockade

Yamna Culture

Some characteristics of this culture are the burials in kurgans (burial mounds), in burial pits in which the body was placed in the supine position with the knees bent. The bodies were covered with ochre. Multiple burials have been found in these kurgans, often with later inclusions. It has been found that they made offerings of animals (cattle, pigs, sheep, goats and horses), a characteristic associated with both Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Indo-Iranian peoples.

The oldest remains found in the Eastern European area of a wheeled chariot were found in the Storozheva Mohyla kurgan (Dnipro), which was made by people belonging to the Yamna culture. The recently discovered sacrificial site in Lugansk is considered to be a hill-sanctuary where human sacrifices were practiced.

Culture of the catacombs

The name derives from their burial practices. They are similar to those of the Yamna culture, but with a hollowed-out space in the main chamber, which creates the catacomb. Animal remains have been found in only a minority of the tombs. In some tombs a clay mask was modeled over the face of the deceased, creating a slight association with the famous golden funerary mask of Agamemnon (see also Tashkyt culture).

The economy was essentially livestock, although traces of grain have been found. They seem to have been skilled specialists in metalworking.

Sarmatians

Sarmatians settled in present-day central and eastern Ukraine, Sarmatia was a region of Scythia, the Scythian state reached its greatest extent in the 4th century B.C. during the reign of Ateas. Isocrates believed that the Scythians, and also the Thracians and Persians, were “the most capable of power, and are the peoples with the greatest power”. In the 4th century B.C., under King Athenaeus, the tripartite structure of the state was eliminated and the ruling power became more centralized. Later sources no longer mention three basileia. Strabo says that Athenaeus ruled over most of the barbarians of northern Pontus.

The military technology of the Sarmatian people influenced the technology of their allies as much as that of their enemies. The warlike qualities of the Sarmatians, of their ancestors, the Sauromata, and of their descendants, the Alans, have often been described by ancient authors. Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Flavius Josephus, Tacitus, Pausanias or Dion Cassius have left very vivid testimonial pictures of these Iranian tribes that had such exotic customs for the Greeks and Romans.

Very hierarchical, the Sarmatians had several kings and at least one queen: Amagê. In fact, women had a high social position and the warrior women of the ancient phase, who really existed, have contributed to keep alive the myth of the Amazons.

Initially settled between the Don and the Ural, the first Sarmatians invaded the territories of the Scythians. Later, they defeated the Parthians and the Armenians. From the end of the 1st century BC, they confronted the Romans in the south of the Danube. During the 2nd century, after several confrontations, the Romans recruited several Sarmatian spearmen. Later, they created units of cataphracts, taking from the Sarmatians the scale armor, the long spear (contus), the sword with ring cheek and even their insignia: the Draco (a kind of tubular stick whose bronze mouthpiece represents the mouth of a dragon).

Onoguros

The Onogurs were an Oghurian population of equestrian nomads from Central Asia who moved to the Pontic steppe at the end of the 5th century.

Some authors point out that these populations have their origin in the Western Tiele tribes mentioned in Chinese sources and from which the Uighurs and Oğuz also originated.12 The historian Prisco mentions that the Onoguros and Saraguros moved westward under pressure from the Sabirs and came in contact with

The Kiev region dominated the entire state for the next two centuries. The grand prince (veliki knyaz) of Kiev controlled the lands surrounding the city, and his relatives theoretically subordinate to him ruled in other cities and paid tribute to him. The height of his power came during the reigns of the Vladimir princes (r. 1019-1054). Both rulers continued the expansion of the principality begun by Oleg.

In its Second Golden Age Byzantine art spread to Armenia. In 1017 the construction of the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Kiev began. Faithfully following the influences of the architecture of Constantinople, it was structured in the form of a basilica with five naves ending in apses. In Novgorod, the churches of St. George and St. Sophia, both with a central plan, were built.

Kievan Rus was unable to maintain its status as a prosperous and dominant power, in part because of the agglomeration of disparate domains ruled by one clan. As the members of this clan grew in number, they became identified with regional interests rather than a larger common heritage. Thus, the princes were pitted against each other, eventually forming alliances with outside groups such as the Poles or Magyars. During the period 1054-1224, no less than 64 principalities had an ephemeral existence, 293 princes claimed succession rights and their disputes provoked 83 civil wars. In 1097, the Council of Liubech, the first known federal council of Kievan Rus, took place amidst the constant regional rivalries between the princes.

The Crusades led to a shift in European trade routes that accelerated the decline of Kiev. In 1204, the forces of the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople, precipitating the decline of the Dnieper trade route. With the decline, Kievan Rus split into several principalities and a few large regional centers: Novgorod, Vladimir-Suzdal, Ruthenia, Polatsk, Smolensk, Chernigov and Pereyaslavl. The inhabitants of these centers would eventually give rise to three nationalities: Ukrainian in the southeast and southwest, Belarusian in the northwest and Russian in the north and northeast.

The consequences of the Mongol invasion in Kievan Rus was not the same for all its regions, cities like Kiev never recovered from the devastation of the attack, because of this there was approximately 200 years of delay in introducing important social, political and economic reforms and scientific innovations in the region of the former Kievan Rus in comparison with Western Europe. Some claim that the yoke had a severe destructive influence on the system of unwritten laws regulating the daily life of the society; for example, Valeriya Novodvórskaya mentions that the death penalty, long-term imprisonment and torture had not existed in Kiev before the Mongols invaded the country. Moreover, half of the population died during the invasion.

Historians have discussed the long-term influence of the Mongol regime on Kievan Rus” society. They have blamed the Mongols for the destruction of Kievan Rus and its disintegration.

Kingdom of Ruthenia

The kingdom of Ruthenia before existing as such was a principality within Kievan Rus, known as the principality of Galicia and Volhynia, was the result of the unification of the principality of Galicia with the principality of Volhynia in 1199. Shortly after the breakup of Kievan Rus in 1256, the principality became a kingdom.

The Kingdom of Ruthenia or Kingdom of Rus was a medieval monarchical state of Eastern Europe, which ruled the regions of Galicia and Volhynia between 1199-1349. Together with the Republic of Novgorod and the Principality of Vladimir-Suzdal, it was one of the three most important powers that emerged from the fall of Kievan Rus. After the enormous destruction caused by the Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus in 1239-41, Danilo Romanovich was forced to swear allegiance in 1246 to Batu Khan of the Golden Horde. He strove, however, to rid his kingdom of the Mongol yoke, trying unsuccessfully to establish military alliances with other European rulers.

Under the rule of the Republic of the Two Nations, the Ukrainian peasantry increasingly felt the oppression of serfdom by the Polish high nobility, likewise, the population of the cities was dissatisfied with the lack of self-government and the lower nobility did not have the same rights and opportunities as the high nobility. The Orthodox clearly saw the difference between their rights and the rights of Catholics. However, most Ruthenian politicians gradually assimilated, changing their affiliation to the Catholic Church and their nationality by becoming de facto Poles in order to obtain privileges, so the role of developing political ideas and the formation of Ukrainians as an independent nation passed to the stratum of free and armed Cossacks.

Jmelnitski Rebellion

The reason for the Cossack uprising and the end of the “golden peace” was the attack of the Polish lieutenant Daniel Chapliansky in 1647 on Chihirin, the village of Bogdan Jmelnitskyi. In the attack Bogdán”s son was killed and his wife captured, Jmelnitskyi and his children fled to the Zaporizha Sich. Bogdan attracted the Cossacks to his side, who elected him their leader. Khmelnitskyi enlisted the support of 40 000 nogay, cavalry troops from the Crimean Khanate in early February 1648 and defeated the army of the Sich and started a rebellion against Poland. In 1648 several victories were won over the armies of the Polish nobility near Zhovti Vody, Korsun and Pylyavets. The rebellion was supported by the rural people, peasants and Ruthenian burghers attacked the estates of the nobility and murdered Catholic priests and Jews. The rebel troops arrived in Zamost, where the news of the Sejm”s election of a new king and the appointment of Prince Yarema Vyshnevetsky as commander-in-chief of the common army awaited Bogdan. Hoping to come to an agreement with the new king, Bogdán left Warsaw and on January 2, 1649 solemnly visited Kiev as a national hero through the Golden Gate. While in Kiev, Bogdan significantly changed his idea of “Cossack autonomy” under the influence of the Polish-Lithuanian Republic to the complete independence of all Ruthenian people from Zaporizha to Lviv, Jolm and Halych, so it was not possible to come to an agreement with the newly elected King John II Casimir. The result of the Battle of Zbóriv was the Zbóriv agreements, where the Hetmanate got autonomy under the Kiev, Chernígov and Brátslav voivodeships, the promise to abolish the Union of Brest, amnesty and the expulsion of Jews, Jesuits and Polish troops from the Ukrainian lands. Thus, the king received Khmelnitskyi on August 20, 1649, accepted his terms, the siege of Zbarazh was lifted and the Polish king”s troops retreated to Lviv, Khmelnitskyi”s troops to Kiev and the Tatars to the Crimea. Thus, the Ukrainian state appeared on the world stage as an independent state.

Bogdan”s first step as an independent force was the attempt during the Moldavian campaign of 1650 to arrange a “dynastic marriage” with the Moldavian ruler Vasily Lupul, to marry his son Timis to his daughter Rosanda and thus gain an ally in the war against Poland. On June 28, 1651, the biggest battle of the liberation war took place: the Battle of Berestechko, where the army of 140 000 Ukrainians and Tatars opposed 200 000 Polish troops. Due to the treachery of the Tatars who captured Khmelnitskyi and the skill of the Polish army, the Cossacks retreated. Ivan Bohun assumed the role of acting Hetman. Due to a misunderstanding between the peasant and Cossack units of the army, 8 000 soldiers were killed, part of the artillery, the Hetman”s mace and the seal were lost. As a result of the battle, the Bila Tserkva agreements were signed, according to which the Polish nobility returned property in the Bratslav and Chernygov voivodeships, and the Hetmanate was limited to Kiev. Cossack troops were halved and independent foreign policy was prohibited. The population of the Ukrainian Right Bank, worried about the appearance of Polish overlords, began to leave their homes and moved east to the Left Bank and Free Ukraine.

The following year, Bogdan Jmelnitskyi, on his part, violated the agreement and marched on Moldavia, where he married Timis to Rosanda. In 1653, Khmelnitskyi defeated the Polish army near Batoh and besieged the Cossack-Tatar army of King John II Casimir in Zhvanets. During which the Tatar troops did not allow a complete victory and in the eyes of Khmelnitskyi ceased to be a reliable ally. As a result, the articles of the Zboriv Agreement were renewed. On October 11, at the request of Bogdan Khmelnitskyi, the Moscow State decided to accept the Cossack Army under its authority.

Also read, biographies – John Sigismund Zápolya

Partnership with Muscovia and Sweden

On January 8, 1654, Khmelnitskyi convened a council in Pereyaslav at which some Cossacks swore allegiance to the Moscow tsar Alexis Mikhailovich. Several colonels from Uman, Brátslav, Poltava and Kropyvnytsky together with Ivan Bohun, as well as the clergy, did not take the oath. The decision of the Pereyáslav council was enshrined in the March articles, which proclaimed Moscow”s protectorate and allowed an independent foreign policy, except with Poland and the Ottomans. Moscow undertook to go to war against the Polish-Lithuanian Republic and its troops were established on the borders of the Hetmanate. Thus, Ukraine would lose its short-lived complete autonomy and its affairs would become interstate. In the spring of 1654, Moscow captured Smolensk and advanced towards the Berezina River, which would begin the long war between Moscow and Poland. The following year, the Swedish King Charles X Gustav, dissatisfied with the consolidation of Poland”s royal power, suddenly launched a war against the Commonwealth during the Armistice of Sturmdorf. Swedish troops occupied Upper Poland, Livonia, Curland, besieged Krakow in autumn and stormed Warsaw, Bogdán Jmelnitskyi, together with Muscovite troops, besieged Lviv, and King John Casimir fled to Austrian Silesia. This period of occupation by Swedish Lutherans in Polish historiography is called the “Swedish Flood”. Stefan Charnetsky, a count of Kiev known for his brutal massacres of both insurgents and the Ukrainian civilian population, played an important role in the popular guerrilla struggle against the Orthodox known as the Sharpan War. In October 1656 near Vilna, the Vilna Armistice was signed between Moscow and Poland, with Alexis Mikhailovich promising to become King of Poland after the death of John Casimir. On the contrary, Khmelnitskyi launched diplomatic activities, which resulted in the approval of the anti-Polish coalition between Semigorod, Sweden, Brandenburg and the Hetmanate (together with Moldavia and Wallachia) and plans for the first partition of the Commonwealth. The death of Jmelnitskyi on August 6, 1657 and the rapprochement between Austria and Poland thwarted these plans.

Also read, biographies – Mahatma Gandhi

Ruin

The period after Bogdan Khmelnitskyi”s death, between 1657 and 1687, marked by the collapse of the Hetmanate, the struggle, the division of the Dnieper between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Moscow State and foreign intervention, is called “Ruin” in Ukrainian historiography.

After Bogdan”s death, his young son Yuri was elected Hetman and the general secretary Ivan Vigovsky was elected his regent. Vigovski made efforts to get closer to the Polish nobility, which resulted in the signing on September 16, 1658 of the Treaty of Hadiach, which agreed on the transformation of the Commonwealth into a three-party federation of the Polish Crown, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Ukraine with a joint Sejm of the army and foreign policy. However, it was not implemented due to pro-Moscovite Ukrainian opposition and Vigovsky was forced to relinquish power in favor of Yuri Khmelnitskyi. In October 1658, the Moscow government broke the Vilnius armistice and resumed hostilities, capturing almost all of Belarus and Lithuania. At the new council of Pereyaslav in 1659 the autonomy of the Cossack army was reduced. In 1660 the Peace of Oliva was signed near Gdańsk between Poland and Sweden, at this time, Stefan Charnetsky”s troops liberated Belarus and Lithuania, near Chudnov, the Poles surrounded Sheremetyev and Yuri Khmelnitskyi”s forces and forced them to sign the Slobodyshche Treaty. This marked a division of Ukraine between supporters of a unity with Moscow, Left Bank Ukraine, and supporters of a union with the Commonwealth, Right Bank Ukraine. After a failed campaign against Joakim Somko, Yuri Khmelnitskyi resigned from power and was tonsured as a monk named Gideon.

In 1663, the Black Council was held in Nizhyn, where Ivan Briukhovetsky was elected Hetman of the Left Bank with the support of Ivan Sirko. He signed the Moscow Articles, which initiated the Russification of the Left Bank of Ukraine. In the same year, Pavel Teterya was elected Hetman of the Right Bank, who in 1665 ceded power in favor of Petro Doroshenko. On February 9, 1667, the Peace of Andrusovo was concluded between the Poles and Muscovites, which according to its terms the land of Smolensk and the Left Bank of Ukraine were ceded to Muscovy and Sich of Zaporizha was to be under the joint control of both states. In response to the division of Ukraine, Doroshenko carried out a series of reforms, recruited a mercenary army and defeated Briukhovetsky. At the Korsun council he was elected hetman of “both banks of the Dnieper” and together with the Crimean Khan in September 1668 surrounded the detachments of the Polish Hetman Jan Sobieski near Pidhaitsi. But the Cossack-Tatar alliance was broken by Sirko”s march to the Crimea.

Sobieski concluded peace treaties with Tatars and Cossacks, the following year, the Poles recognized Doroshenko as the elected hetman of the Right Bank. Doroshenko was not satisfied with the Polish concessions and in March 1669 at the Cossack council near Korsun, the Cossack army proclaimed its transition to the Muslim protectorate of Porta, all ethnic Ukrainian lands were proclaimed Ukrainian Sanjacs. In the same year, Demian Mnogohrishny, who signed the Hlujiv articles with Moscow, was elected Hetman of the Left Bank Hetmanate. In the summer of the same year, the pro-Polish party led by Mykola Janenko on the Right Bank took allegiance to the Polish king at a council near Uman. Between 1671 and 1672, Sobieski and Janenko established their power in Podolia, but Doroshenko, with the help of the Turkish and Tatar armies, besieged Kamianets and Lviv. According to the results of the Treaty of Buchach of 1672, Podolia was ceded to the Ottoman Empire and Doroshenko took power in the Right Bank of Ukraine. In the same year, Ivan Samoilovich was elected Hetman of the Left Bank, who signed the Konotop treaties, which significantly limited its independence. In 1673, Sobieski defeated the Turks near Jotyn and was elected the new king of the Republic of the Two Nations under the name of John III. Failures in the war against the Turkish-Ukrainian alliance forced Sobieski to sign peace with the Ottomans three years later. Petro Doroshenko resigned from power, swore allegiance to the Tsar in Moscow and served in exile. Yuri Khmelnitskyi was again proclaimed Hetman of the Turkish part of Ukraine. His 1677-1681 war with Moscow and the Left Bank destroyed the Right Bank and in 1679 deported part of the population to the Left Bank and Free Ukraine. The war ended with the Peace of Bakhchisaray and the consolidation of the Right Bank to Turkey. In 1683, the Polish army with the participation of the Right Bank Cossacks led by Simon Pali came to the aid of the Austrian army during the siege of Vienna. In a general battle on September 12, the forces of the European coalition completely defeated the Turkish army and stopped the Ottoman expansion in Europe. On May 6, 1686, the Eternal Peace was signed in Moscow, according to which the Smolensk land, the Left Bank of Ukraine and the border was ceded to the Russian state.

Also read, battles – Battle of Marathon

Mazepa Hetmanate

In 1687, as a result of Kolomatsky”s coup, Samoilovich was assassinated and Ivan Mazepa was elected Hetman of the Left Bank of Ukraine, ending the Ruin period.

Mazepa signed the Kolomatsky Treaty, which limited his power and strengthened Moscow”s presence in the Hetmanate. Mazepa was a close friend of Russian Tsar Peter I, helped him capture the Turkish fortress of Azov and gain access to the Black Sea. In 1697, the Saxon elector Frederick Augustus was elected king of the Republic of the Two Nations under the name Augustus II. The following year, in a personal meeting in Rava-Ruska, he involved Peter I in the war with Sweden.

The Great Northern War began in 1700. In July 1701, King Charles XII of Sweden defeated the Saxon-Moscow army at Western Dvina and invaded Lithuania. The richest magnates of Sapieha sided with Sweden. In May 1702, Warsaw was captured and a Swedish confederation was formed, which dethroned Augustus II and elected Stanislaus I Leszczynski king, after which a civil war broke out in the country. Between 1702 and 1704, the Cossacks, led by Simon Paliy, seized the Right Bank and strengthened their positions. In 1704 Ivan Mazepa suppressed the uprising and annexed these lands to his possessions. During the war, the Ukrainians were sent to forced labor, forced to keep troops stationed, without providing mutual military assistance under the Kolomatsky agreements, which provoked indignation among the Cossacks. In 1708, the Swedish king and his army began to move into the Hetmanate, so Mazepa decided to forge a new alliance with Sweden, under which the Ukrainian principality was formed. The Hetman was supported by the Cossacks in this decision. For this, Peter I ordered the destruction of the capital of the Hetmanate, Baturyn and imposed an ecclesiastical anathema on Mazepa. The Cossacks, loyal to the tsar, elected Ivan Skoropadsky Hetman, who signed the treaty of Reshetyliv. In the decisive battle of Poltava in 1709, the Swedish-Cossack army lost to Moscow and Little Russia. Ivan Mazepa and Charles XII retreated to Bender in the Ottoman Empire and 23 000 soldiers of the Swedish army capitulated.

After Mazepa”s death in 1711, the Cossacks elected a new Hetman, Pylyp Orlyk, who formed with the Cossacks the first Ukrainian constitution, according to which power was divided into three independent powers: executive (president headed by the Hetman), legislative (general council) and judicial. In the same year, in alliance with the Swedish king, the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Khanate, he conducted an unsuccessful campaign on the Right Bank. As a result, the Russian government in 1711-1713 carried out a new deportation , forcibly relocating up to 200 000 people from the Right Bank to the Left Bank of Ukraine, all the regiments of the Right Bank were liquidated and most of the houses were destroyed. In accordance with the Prut Peace Treaty and the Adrianople Agreement, the Moscow state renounced its claims to the Ukrainian Right Bank and recognized Turkish jurisdiction over Zaporizha.

Also read, biographies – Philip VI of France

End of the Hetmanate

After Skoropadsky”s death in 1722, Pavlo Polubotko was elected acting Hetman. He was soon imprisoned in St. Petersburg and in his place created the collegium of Little Russia, an executive body of six Russian officers. But as soon as a new threat from the Ottoman Empire arose in 1727, in order to get help from Cossack troops, the collegium was liquidated and Apostle Daniel was allowed to be elected as Hetman. He agreed with the tsar on decisive points, according to which the Hetmanate returned to relative autonomy. After his death in 1734, Empress Anna Ioannovna created the Hetman Government Board (with 3 Cossack and 3 Russian representatives), which existed until 1750. In 1750, when Empress Elizabeth restored the position of the Hetman, the position was given to Cyril Rozumovsky, one of the first Ukrainian Freemasons and its last Hetman. He returned the capital to Baturyn, made officers nobles, transformed the Cossack councils into a general assembly, and carried out judicial and military reforms. A well-known architect of the time, Ivan Hryhorovych-Barsky, built the Razumovsky Palace in Baturyn and the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin in Kozelka, which are fine examples of Ukrainian baroque.

The new Russian Empress Catherine II persuaded Cyril to return to St. Petersburg and instead of the Hetmanate created the Second Collegium of Little Russia in 1764 and the regimental system was abolished in Free Ukraine. During his activity the unification of the state system with the All-Russian one took place, the General Inventory of Little Russia was made, serfdom was introduced and in 1783 Ukrainian peasants were enslaved. The governorates of Kiev, Chernobyl, Novgorod-Siversky and Kharkov were established. The last Cossack Sich was destroyed in 1775. Some Cossacks crossed the Danube, where with the permission of the Turkish sultan they founded the Danube Sich, some were allowed to conquer the North Caucasus and move to the Kuban region. Catherine II in a secret order to the attorney general of the Senate, gave the following instructions: “it should be done in the easiest way so that they russify and stop looking like wolves in the forest”.

Also read, history – Regnans in Excelsis

Ukraine under the Russian Empire

The victory in the war against Napoleon inspired to transform Russia into a progressive democracy with a constitutional order. After St. Petersburg, the broadest field of activity of the Decembrist movement was Ukraine, where in 1821, the Southern society was formed in Tulchyn and the society of united Slavs in Novohrad-Volynskyi. In 1817, the Cossacks of the Bug”s army opposed their transfer to military settlements, and in 1819, the Chuguiv uprising of military peasants against inhuman living conditions in the Arakchei region broke out. During the failed uprising of the Decembrists in 1825 in St. Petersburg, the uprising of the Chernigov Regiment led by Sergei Muravyov lasted until January 1826. During the November 1830-1831 uprising, the Poles attempted to revive the Two-Nation Republic.

During the following Turkish-Russian war, Britain, France and the Kingdom of Sardinia sided with the Ottoman Empire, whose protectorate, Wallachia, was occupied by Russia and the Crimean War of 1853-1856 began. To destroy the Sevastopol naval base in 1854, Eupatoria was chosen as the site of the joint landing. In 1855, the peasants of the Kiev region began the recruitment of militias known as the Kiev Cossacks, who organized autonomous communities and refused to perform their duties. The surrender of Sevastopol after the Russian defeat and the flooding of the Black Sea fleet resulted in the untimely death of Nicholas I.

The new emperor Alexander II undertook to reform the country following the western model. Between 1861 and 1865 he carried out a series of reforms: agrarian (peasants ceased to be property, received land in exchange for ransom and civil rights), judicial (prosecutors, lawyers, juries and public hearings), military (replacement of 25-year service by 6-year military service), self-government (villages were united in vólosts, “zemstvos” were elected and town councils were formed). But zemstvos were not introduced on the Right Bank until 1911, for fear of Polish self-organization. The industrial revolution led to the rapid growth of industrial enterprises that needed workers, and peasants moved en masse to the cities in search of a better life. In 1865, the first 200-kilometer-long railroad line was built between Odessa and Balta to deliver bread to the port for export. Sugar beet cultivation was booming in the Podolia and western region of Ukraine, and tobacco in the eastern region. In the 1870s, British businessman John Hughes built the largest metallurgical plant in the empire in the city of Donetsk. The development of metallurgy fostered the industrial development of coal deposits in the Donetsk basin and iron ore in Kryvyi Rih. Parallel to industrialization, there was massive urbanization. Cities changed their appearance: streets were paved, electricity appeared in 1854, horse and electric streetcars appeared in 1892, and a centralized sewerage system was built in 1894.

Due to the expansion of the circle of educated people and enlightenment, the ideas of human rights, nationalism and democracy appeared. The Ukrainian national revival had an extensive evolution divided into different stages. In the second half of the 18th century, representatives of the Ukrainian elite conducted a study of the Ukrainian language, history and traditions of Ukrainian culture. This study would become the basis of national enlightenment in the second half of the 19th century, the basis on which nationalist ideas appeared and were spread among the population, leading to the formation of national art, literature and sciences. At the beginning of the 20th century, these changes turned into a political stage with the formation of specific laws to ensure the rights of Ukrainians in all spheres of life, cultural, political and economic.

The beginning of the renaissance of Ukrainian literature is considered to be the publication in 1798 of the Aeneid, a burlesque written by Ivan Kotliarevsky, which is an interpretation of an ancient classical work, the Aeneid. The first circle of intellectuals in Kharkov was founded around the city”s university, where collections of folklore were published, the first grammatical rules of Ukrainian were formed and the first Ukrainian writers appeared; Petro Hulak, Hryhoriy Kvitka and Mikhail Ostrogradsky. In the 1820s, Hryhoriy Konysky”s History of Ruthenia appeared, which corroborates the succession of Ruthenia to Ukraine, and not to the northeastern principalities of Moscow and Russia. In 1834 the Kiev University was opened. Kobzar by Taras Shevchenko was published in St. Petersburg in 1840. During 1845-1847, the Brotherhood of Cyril and Methodius operated clandestinely in Kiev, which worked in Mykola Kostomarov”s Book of the Existence of the Ukrainian People. The brothers sought to form a confederation of free Slavic republics and abolish serfdom from the Russian Empire. In March 1847, the activities of the brotherhood were banned, the members were arrested and Taras Shevchenko was sent to serve in the army in Kazakhstan.

In 1862, the tsarist government banned more than 100 Ukrainian Sunday schools and, in 1863, the Minister of the Interior, Petró Valuev, issued a circular banning the use of the Ukrainian language outside the home. In 1866, Odessa University, polytechnic institutes in Kiev, Kharkov and Dnipro were opened. At that time, Ukrainian historians Mykola Kostomayev, Volodymir Antonovich, Dmytro Yavornitsky and Mikhail Hrushevsky were working on an article of Ukrainian-Ruthenian history. Much literature was also imported from the Galician region. In 1876, Alexander II issued the Ems Decree, which restricted the use of the Ukrainian language in Russia, prohibited the publication of books in Ukrainian, import from abroad, theatrical plays, etc.

Mikhail Drahomanov emigrated to Switzerland, where he spread the ideas of social socialism and the creation of a pan-European confederation of peoples with Ukraine as part of it. During the 1880s, members of the Kiev community tried to continue their educational activities, but only in the Russian language in the pages of the journal Kyivskaia Staryna. In contrast, radical nationalists, supporters of national autonomy, formed the Tarasivtsi Brotherhood in 1891, one of whose members was Boris Grinchenko. Ukrainian representatives of modernism were; in architecture, Vladislav Gorodetsky); poetry, Mikhail Semenko; literature, Olga Kobilianska, Ivan Franko, Lesya Ukrainka, Mikhail Kotsiubinsky; painting, Oleksander Murashko, Ivan Trush, Kazimir Malevich.

When I die, bury me in a high grave, in the middle of the steppe of my beloved Ukraine, so that I can see the wide fields, the Dnieper, its churning dams, and hear its waters roaring! And when the river will carry across the Ukraine to the blue sea so much blood, then I will leave the fields and the mountains and fly to God to raise my prayer, but until it comes from God I will not know anything … To me, bury me, but you, standing up, break the chains that bind you, and with the impure blood spilled, sprinkle the sacred Freedom! And now in a huge family, a free and new family, do not forget to remember me with a good word!

The minorities that lived in the regions of Yellow Ukraine or Gray Ukraine were simply assimilated and their Ukrainian self-identification was lost, although nowadays important agglomerations of Ukrainian-speaking population can be found in the north of Kazakhstan. In the Green Ukraine region, the population was forcibly Russified, there were executions and deportations; as in Raspberry Ukraine, although in Raspberry Ukraine the blow was much more severe, since it was one of the most affected areas of the Holodomor, where between 4 000 000 and 12 000 000 Ukrainians died in 1933.

Also read, biographies – Caterina Sforza

Ukraine under the Habsburg Empire

As a result of the division of the Republic of the Two Nations, the region of Red Ukraine passed to the Austrian Empire. In 1772 a new administrative unit, the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, was formed. Maria Theresa and her son Joseph II immediately carried out a series of reforms of local self-government, Greek Catholics were equated with Roman Catholics, the University of Lviv was reopened, schools were allowed to be taught in their native language, and the personal dependence of peasants on serfdom was abolished, but serfdom was retained. After the joint military actions of Russia and Austria against the Ottoman Empire in 1774, Bukovina was ceded to Vienna. From 1786 to 1849 it was part of Galicia, and in 1862 it became an independent crown land of the empire. In 1781, Emperor Joseph II issued a decree uniting all parishes and monasteries within Austrian Bukovina into a single diocese and subordinating it to Bishop Dosifey Hereskul. On December 12, the episcopal cathedral was moved to Chernivtsi. During the Napoleonic Wars, the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria was formed in 1809, and the lands of Lublin and Western Volhynia were ceded to the Duchy of Warsaw, which was absorbed by Russia in 1815, ceding the region of Ternopil. In 1846 the principalities of Krakow and Auschwitz and Zator were annexed to Galicia.

Also read, biographies – Chiang Kai-shek

Ukraine”s role in the outbreak of the war

For the Russian Empire, Ukrainians were considered as Little Russians and had the support of the Russian-speaking community among the Ukrainian population in the region of Galicia. Austria, on the other hand, supported the rise of Ukrainian nationalism in the late 19th century. Western Ukraine was a major confrontation for the Balkans and the Orthodox Slavic population it was home to.

A Balkan war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia was inevitable, as Austria-Hungary”s influence waned and the pro-Slav movement grew. The rise of ethnic nationalism coincided with the growth of Serbia, where anti-Austrian sentiment was perhaps strongest. Austria-Hungary had occupied the former Ottoman province of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which had a large Serb population in 1878. It was formally annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908. Growing nationalist sentiment also coincided with the decline of the Ottoman Empire. Russia supported the pro-Slav movement, motivated by ethnic and religious loyalties and a rivalry with Austria dating back to the Crimean War. Recent events such as the failed Russo-Austrian treaty and the century-old dream of a warm-water port also motivated tensions.

Religion also played a key role in the confrontation. When Russia, Prussia and Austria partitioned Poland in the late 18th century, they inherited largely Eastern Rite Catholic populations. Russia did everything possible to revert the population to Orthodox Christianity, often peacefully, but sometimes by force as happened in Chełm.

The final factor was that by 1914, Ukrainian nationalism had matured to a point where it could significantly influence the future of the region. As a result of this nationalism and the other major sources of Russo-Austrian confrontations, including Polish and Romanian lands, both empires eventually lost these disputed territories when these territories formed new independent states.

Also read, important-events – Cuban Missile Crisis

The course of World War I in Ukraine

The Russian advance into Galicia began in August 1914. During the offensive, the Russian army successfully pushed the Austrians to the Carpathian ridge, occupying all the lowland territory and fulfilling their long-standing aspirations to annex the territory.

The Ukrainians were divided into two separate and opposing armies. 3.5 million fought with the Imperial Russian Army, while 250,000 fought for the Austro-Hungarian Army. Many Ukrainians ended up fighting each other. In addition, many Ukrainian civilians suffered when the armies shot and killed them after accusing them of collaborating with the opposing armies.

During World War I, the western Ukrainian village was located between Austria-Hungary and Russia. Ukrainian villages were regularly destroyed in the crossfire. Ukrainians can be found participating on both sides of the conflict. In Galicia, more than twenty thousand Ukrainians suspected of sympathizing with Russian interests were arrested and placed in Austrian concentration camps, both in Talergof and Styria.

The Soviet era in Ukraine began in 1921, after the defeat of the Ukrainian People”s Republic in the war of independence, its territory was annexed with great territorial losses and the Ukrainian SSR was established in its place, representing the Ukrainian people within the Soviet Union. The Ukrainian SSR existed until 1991 and, although during this 70-year period no democratic state existed, groups of Ukrainian nationalists such as the UPA tried unsuccessfully to establish an independent state. There were also independence movements in other regions not controlled by the Soviet Union, such as in the Transcarpathian region, where Carpathian Ukraine existed ephemerally in 1939, before being annexed by Hungary.

There are two fundamental and opposing views on the political responsibility for the tragedy, and many intermediate views in between. According to the first point of view, disseminated by Nazi Germany, the Holodomor would have been an intentional act of extermination unleashed by the Soviet central power headed by Iosif Stalin, and in particular, against the Ukrainian nationality. According to the other point of view, the tragedy would have been a consequence of the historically poor conditions of the Ukrainian countryside and the sabotage undertaken by the rich peasants, called kuláks, who would have hoarded and destroyed crops and livestock, as a method of opposing the collectivization process.

Also read, battles – Battle of Ceresole

Western Ukraine under occupation

According to the 1931 census of the Second Polish Republic, 9 million people lived in western Ukraine of which 5.6 million were Ukrainians and 2.2 million were Poles.

At that time, the lands of western Ukraine, which became part of Poland followed a policy of Polonization, increasing national oppression. Ukrainians constituted one third of the population of the Republic of Poland, so 300,000 Poles moved to the east and a large number of Ukrainians were forced to emigrate abroad in search of work. With the coming to power of Józef Pilsudski, an authoritarian regime known as rehabilitation was established in eastern Poland. Political opposition was persecuted by legal means and methods. A policy of cultural repression was pursued against national minorities, which in the autumn of 1930 turned into massive repression against the Ukrainian population of Galicia and Volhynia. Polish police and army units were deployed in more than 800 villages, more than 2,000 people were arrested, Ukrainian organizations were liquidated and about 500 houses were burned. It came to the point that in 1932 the League of Nations condemned the actions of the Polish government against the Ukrainian population, the response was the rise of the nationalist movement. As early as 1920, the colonel of the Ukrainian People”s Republic, Yevgen Konovalets, created the Ukrainian Military Organization, which was transformed in 1929 into the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) for the purpose of clandestine terrorist struggle. In 1921, the Ukrainian Secret University was established in Lviv, and in the year of its closure, in 1925, Dmytro Levitsky founded the Ukrainian National Democratic Union, which chose legal methods of struggle. A group of OUN members headed by Stepan Bandera carried out a series of political assassinations: in 1933, a Soviet diplomat responsible for the Holodomor, in 1934, Polish Interior Minister Bronislav Peratsky for pacification. In the same year, the Bereza Kartuzka concentration camp for political prisoners was established, show trials were held and several OUN activists were arrested.

Transcarpathia was inhabited by 500,000 million Ukrainians who had limited autonomy within Czechoslovakia. At that time, there were four political currents in the region: the Magyars (who considered themselves Hungarians), the Russians (who sought to establish themselves as a separate nation), the Russophiles (who sought unification with Russia) and the Ukrainophiles, who spread their ideas with determination and quickly overtook their competitors. As a result of the Munich Conspiracy in October 1938, the Carpathian Ukraine was formed, headed by Augustyn Voloshin. But in November, as a result of the Vienna Arbitration, it was partially occupied by Hungary. On March 15, 1939, the Sejm of Carpathian Ukraine proclaimed an independent republic. The blue and yellow flag and the anthem Ukraine is not dead yet were chosen as symbols of the state. On the same day began the final occupation of Hungary, after the invasion of the Kingdom of Hungary, the region was occupied and annexed in the spring of 1939, an invasion in which 27 000 Ukrainian civilians were killed.

On August 23, 1939, in Moscow, the foreign ministers of the USSR, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Germany, Joachim von Ribbentrop, signed a secret peace agreement with an amendment on the division of Eastern Europe: the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. Pact according to which Western Poland became an area of interest of the Third Reich, the USSR regained all the lands of the Russian Empire and received Galicia and Bukovina in order to level the borders. On September 1, German armies crossed the Polish border, France and Great Britain entered the war on the side of Poland; this was the beginning of World War II. On September 17, Soviet troops crossed the Polish border from the east.

Also read, biographies – Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Eastern Front

On June 22, 1941, formed Operation Barbarossa to defeat the Soviet Union and win the strategic territory, the armies of the Third Reich went on the offensive against the Soviet troops along the entire border and formed the Eastern Front. The battalions of the southern army was sent to Ukraine, the number of Soviet troops and equipment was equal to the German army, but the surprise factor led to a rapid and fierce advance by Germany. The Germans, using blitzkrieg tactics perfected in European countries, advanced rapidly in mechanized units to the rear of the Soviet troops, encircling entire armies. After breaking the Soviet tank counteroffensive in the Lutsk area, German troops were close to Kiev within a few weeks. In September, almost the entire Soviet southwestern front, 660,000 troops, was sent to concentration camps. After a three-month defense in October, Allied German troops captured Odessa. In November the siege of Sevastopol began, which drew part of the German troops into the Caucasus.

After the failure of the German Blitzkrieg near Moscow in the winter of 1941, Soviet troops unsuccessfully attempted a counteroffensive in the spring of 1942. In July 1942, the Germans occupied their last settlement in the USSR. After the defeats at El Alamein and Stalingrad, the Third Reich lost its main ally, Italy, and a military-tactical advantage. On December 18, 1942, Soviet troops began to liberate the occupied territories. By occupying northern Italy and establishing the puppet Republic of Salo, the Germans attempted to seize the initiative on the Eastern Front, recapturing Kharkov. But in August 1943, the Germans lost the Battle of Kursk and Allied troops landed in southern Italy. This finally turned the tide of the war and opened the way for the Soviet military machine to the West. In May 1944, Crimea being liberated, the Soviet authorities carried out the forced deportation of Crimean Tatars for collaborationism. October 28, 1944 was the last day of the liberation of Ukraine from the fascist invaders. On May 7, 1945, Germany capitulated and May 8 was declared Victory in Europe Day. On September 2, 1945, Japan capitulated and World War II ended.

Resistance

The German occupation forces annexed the former Austro-Hungarian lands and formed the Reich Commissariat for Ukraine with its capital at Rivne and ruled by Erich Koch. The lands west of the Dniester River were ceded to Romania as Transnistria, the rest of the Ukrainian territory was under the control of the military administration. According to the Ost plan, the Germans made maximum use of local resources, exploited the population as labor, deported them to Germany (in total more than 4 million inhabitants). In Ukraine, the resistance movement had two currents: Ukrainian nationalism in the west and Soviet communism in the east. German Abwehr intelligence used the radical branch of the OUN, the OUN(b), for sabotage. Instead, the nationalists hoped to use the Germans to restore the Ukrainian state. On June 30, 1941, Yaroslav Stetsko proclaimed the Act on the Restoration of the Ukrainian State at a general meeting, after which he and Stepan Bandera were deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Until the defeat in 1942, the OUN(m) continued to organize resistance groups towards the center, south and east of Ukraine, in Volhynia, Taras Bulba-Borovets organized the Ukrainian Revolutionary Army. On October 14, 1942 the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, later led by Roman Shukhovych, was formed with the aim of fighting against both imperialisms, Russian communism and German National Socialism. The Polish-Ukrainian national confrontation led to the Volhynian tragedy in 1943, in which up to 90,000 Poles and 30,000 Ukrainians died. In July 1944, when more than 100,000 soldiers were in the ranks of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the Supreme Ukrainian Liberation Council was formed.

In April 1945, a delegation of the Ukrainian SSR headed by Dmytro Manuilsky in New York became one of the founding members of the United Nations. In the same year, an agreement was signed on the Soviet-Polish border and on the annexation of Transcarpathia. A population exchange was carried out on the border with Poland until 1946, in 1947 the Polish authorities deported border Ukrainians to the newly acquired German lands in the west – Operation Vistula, and the Soviets deported 78,000 “unreliable” Ukrainians to Siberia. In the same year, under the Soviet-Romanian treaty, northern Bukovina and southern Bessarabia were officially annexed, but the left bank of the Dniester remained part of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. In the postwar period, a total of 43,000 people under the age of 25 were arrested for anti-Soviet political crimes, including 36,300 in the western regions, and about 500,000 Ukrainians from the western regions were sent into exile. As a result of numerous relocations, migrations and deportations of the first half of the 20th century, the ethnic spectrum of Ukraine”s population has changed significantly in the direction of reducing the proportion of national minorities and at the same time increasing the proportion of Russians. Gathering the majority of ethnic lands within the USSR, northern Bessarabia, Lemkovina, Nadsiania, Jolm, Podlaskie, Brest, Starodub, Podonia and Kuban remained outside the borders of Ukraine and then their population was severely assimilated. In 1945, Metropolitan Joseph “the Blind” was sent to the camp and in March of the following year, the Greek Catholic Church went underground and became a “catacomb”. Between 1947 and 1949, Nikita Khrushchev carried out a rapid Sovietization of the western regions, the cities were industrialized, collective farms were established in the villages, and dissidents moved to eastern Siberia. The UPA fighters, waiting in vain for the West”s Cold War with the USSR to enter a heated phase, continued to resist the Soviet government, resorting to the tactic of fighting small units against the overwhelming forces of the NKVD. At the same time, the Soviet government tried to discredit the insurgents in the eyes of the population through mass deportations, provocations and propaganda. In 1950, the commander-in-chief of the UPA, Roman Shukhovych, was assassinated and the fighting ceased.

After World War II, which caused severe damage to the country”s economy and population, Ukraine received territories that had belonged to Czechoslovakia, Romania and Poland.

Also read, biographies – Nikos Kazantzakis

Dissent

In 1964, a group of opposition party members led by Leonid Brezhnev removed Khrushchev from office and sent him into retirement. In 1965, reforms began in agriculture and industry, which restored strict centralization and enterprises adopted self-financing. In the countryside, this led to the consolidation of collective farms and the disappearance of a large number of small towns and villages. In general, the social welfare of the population improved, but from the 1970s onwards a systemic crisis of the long trajectory of economic development began. Attempts to overcome the ideological and economic crisis of state development led to the idea of building a developed socialism instead of the central basis of communism until 1980 and stagnation in economic and social life. In the international arena, the mid-1970s were marked by an attempt to establish relations between the ideological camps of the West and the East and to alleviate the tension of a nuclear war.

In 1972, Volodimyr Shcherbitski, was appointed secretary of the communist party central committee and launched a new wave of arrests of intellectuals, some were convicted, some were sent to psychiatric hospitals and many were simply dismissed from the party. In 1976, the Ukrainian Helsinki Group was formed to monitor the USSR”s compliance with the terms of the 1975 Helsinki Accords, consisting of Mykola Rudenko, Petro Grigorenko, Levko Lukienenko, Ivan Kandyba, Vasil Stus, Vyacheslav Chornovil, etc. The following year, most of its participants were deported to the camps and Russification is spreading in public life.

In 1977 a new Constitution of the USSR was adopted, in order to obtain foreign currency for the sale of natural resources, oil and gas fields in Siberia were actively developed, and socialist countries installed a network of pipelines across the territory of Ukraine. The centralization of economic flows depleted Ukraine”s resources, without even giving itself the opportunity to renew production capacity. Urbanization accelerated, with 4.6 million Ukrainian peasants moving to the cities. At the same time, the birth rate slowed, and there was a general aging of the population. In late 1979, the Soviet Union sent troops to Afghanistan in support of pro-Soviet forces and found itself isolated internationally amid falling world hydrocarbon prices, the profits from which helped cover the problems of an inefficient economy.

Also read, biographies – Peter Paul Rubens

Perestroika

After Brezhnev”s death in 1982, a parade of general secretaries took place, dying year after year until the young reformer Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985. He strengthened ties with capitalist countries to try to save the USSR economy, reduced the arms race, withdrew troops from Afghanistan and allowed the unification of the GDR and Germany. In domestic politics, he began to implement a program of economic reform and liberalization of public life, these processes were called Perestroika. On April 26, 1986, an accident occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which with its invisible radioactive flame seemed to shed light on all the accumulated problems in Soviet society. As a result, more than 50 000 km of Ukrainian territory was affected, hundreds of settlements and 100 000 local inhabitants were completely resettled. On the other hand, freedom of speech quickly filled the gaps in people”s historical consciousness and awakened national feelings, the intelligentsia began to unite around various societies. In 1988, the Ukrainian Helsinki Association was formed, headed by Levko Lukyanenko, in 1989 the People”s Movement for Perestroika was formed, miners” strikes broke out in the country and Shcherbytsky was replaced by Volodymir Ivashko. On October 28, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine restored the status of the Ukrainian language to official. On January 21, 1990, a human chain stretched from Lviv to Kiev to mark the act of unification of the West Ukrainian People”s Republic and the Ukrainian People”s Republic. In March of the same year, the Communist Party lost its leading role, political pluralism and multipartyism emerged, and the first elections were held in the Verkhovna Rada. Levko Lukyanenko”s Ukrainian Republican Party became the first Ukrainian political party. In the renewed Rada, 125 newly elected deputies formed the People”s Rada bloc, headed by Igor Yujnovsky, and 239 sovereign communists, headed by Leonid Kravchuk, who headed the parliament, formed For Soviet and Sovereign Ukraine. In 1990, due to severe food shortages and to prevent their outflow to other regions, Ukraine introduced a card system under which only citizens of the republic could buy. In the same year, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was legalized. During the parade of the sovereignties of the Soviet republics on July 16, 1990, Ukraine also proclaimed the Declaration of State Sovereignty, one month after Russia”s proclamation of sovereignty.

In May-June 1991, in the town of Nosivka, then the district center of the Chernobyl region, there was a teachers” hunger strike and mass protests, which were publicized in the Ukrainian media and led to the change of leaders of the Nosivka district.

Without waiting for a political solution to the problem, military troops moved out to retake control of Moscow, on August 19 the State Committee for Emergency Situations (SCES) was formed, Gorbachev was imprisoned and troops were withdrawn from the streets of Moscow. But Russian leader Boris Yeltsin instead brought the people out onto the streets, and on August 21 the SCES fell, the Communist Party was banned in Russia. In Ukraine, the communists initially adopted a wait-and-see attitude, but on August 24, at an extraordinary session of the Verkhovna Rada, fearing dismissal, they supported the democratic forces and voted for the declaration of independence.

Following the referendum on Ukraine”s political status within the USSR on March 17, 1991, the mood for Ukrainian independence grew as it did in the other Soviet republics. Ukraine”s declaration of independence was approved by the Congress of the Verkhovna Rada on August 24, 1991, after which Ukraine became a de facto independent republic.

Also read, biographies – George H. W. Bush

(1991-1994) Term of office of Leonid Kravchuk

(1994-2004) Term of office of Leonid Kuchma

In March 1998, parliamentary elections were held for the first time under a mixed system (proportional majority), with 225 deputies elected in single-member constituencies and 225 in party lists and blocs in multi-member constituencies, according to the results Ivan Plyushch was elected chairman of the Verkhovna Rada. In the second round of the 1999 presidential elections, Kuchma won for the second time, gaining the support of the oligarchs and repeating Yeltsin”s success in 1996 as the only alternative to the communists. The leader of the national democratic forces, Vyacheslav Chornovil was assassinated before the elections. Under Kuchma”s second presidency, with the help of reformers, Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko and his deputy Yulia Tymoshenko, some economic growth was achieved.

After the 2002 parliamentary elections, the parliamentary majority was formed on the basis of pro-Kuchma forces. That same year, Ukraine fell into international isolation over a scandal involving the sale of Kolchuga radars to Saddam Hussein during the Iraq war and the shooting down of a Russian plane over the Black Sea with 72 Israeli citizens during a joint Russian-Ukrainian military exercise.

(2004-2010) Orange Revolution and the rule of Viktor Yushchenko

During Yushchenko”s presidency, Ukraine”s economy recovered for the first time since 1990, received investments from the West and became a member of the World Trade Organization in 2008, but the global economic crisis collapsed GDP by a third that year. The gas wars with Russia ended in 2009 with the signing in Moscow by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko of extremely unfavorable terms for Ukrainian supplies. The Orange team collapsed and Tymoshenko joined the opposition. In the early parliamentary elections of 2007, Yanukovych”s Party of Regions won a majority in parliament.

Also read, history – Grand Duchy of Lithuania

(2010-2014) Term of office of Viktor Yanukovych.

On February 7, 2010, Viktor Yanukovych became president of Ukraine as a result of winning the second round of the presidential election. On March 11, a new government was formed, headed by Mykola Azarov. He is drastically changing the political management towards authoritarianism, returning the constitutional norms of the presidential-parliamentary state of Kuchma and sending to prison his political opponent Yulia Tymoshenko. He immediately concludes the Kharkov agreements with Russia, under which, in exchange for a discount on gas prices, the deadline for the deployment of the Russian fleet in Sevastopol is extended to 2042. The economic policy of Prime Minister Mykola Azarov”s government brings Ukraine to the brink of bankruptcy and an economic crisis in 2013. In the same year, Russia succeeded in preventing the signing of an Association Agreement with the European Union at the Vilnius summit in November, aimed at including Ukraine in the Eurasian Customs Union. On the night of November 30, police brutally dispersed students peacefully protesting against pro-Russian policies, after which thousands of Kiev residents came out in protest. Thus began the Euromaidan, which became the Revolution of Dignity.

Also read, civilizations – Spanish Empire

Dignity Revolution

On December 30, 2013, at a rally, the leaders of three opposition parties, Vitaly Klichko, Oleg Tiagnibok and Arseniy Yatsenyuk, announced the decision to establish a general center of the national resistance, the next day, an attempted provocation is carried out near the presidential administration building. A permanent camp was organized on Independence Square (Maidan) and hundreds of thousands of supporters gathered there on weekends. On December 8, a monument to Lenin was demolished, the first of the future complete demolition of communist statues. On December 11, despite official promises to Ukrainian leaders not to use force, the first attempt was made to clear the Maidan of protesters. Before the New Year, Yanukovych received $15 billion from Russia to support the economy, demonstrating Russia”s support for his authoritarian regime. On January 16, 2014, the Verkhovna Rada, passed dictatorial laws that further increased tensions in society. At the end of January, administrative buildings were seized, mainly in the west of the country, clashes broke out near Lobanovsky stadium, protesters stormed the government quarter and the first civilian victims were killed. On January 28, Mykola Azarov resigned from office, and the next day the Verkhovna Rada repealed its dictatorial laws and announced amnesty for protesters. Demonstrators protested in front of the Verkhovna Rada, which was considering amendments to the constitution. On February 18-20, during a march of demonstrators to the Verkhovna Rada, the demonstrators were fired upon. The victims of the “Heavenly Hundred” were condemned by the Rada and some police units were withdrawn from Kiev. On the night of February 21, Yanukovych fled to Russia, other high-ranking officials left the capital and the speaker of parliament, Oleksandr Turchinov, became interim president.

Russian military intervention

Following the fall of the Yanukovych government resulting from the Ukrainian revolution of February 2014, a secession crisis began in the Crimean peninsula, which has a significant number of Russian-speaking as well as Russian-speaking citizens. Armed Russian soldiers, dressed in uniforms devoid of identification, began maneuvers in Crimea on February 28, 2014. On March 1, 2014, exiled former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych called on Russia to use military forces “to establish legitimacy, peace, law and order, stability and defense of the people of Ukraine.” On the same day, Russian President Vladimir Putin requested and received authorization from the Russian Parliament to deploy Russian troops in Ukraine and illegally seized control of the Crimean peninsula the following day. Moreover, NATO”s closeness was perceived by most Russians as a danger to Russia”s borders. This weighed heavily on Moscow”s decision to take steps to secure its Black Sea port in Crimea. On March 6, 2014, the Crimean Parliament approved “joining the Russian Federation with the rights of its members” and later held a referendum in which the people of these regions were asked whether they wished to join Russia as a federated state or whether they preferred to restore the 1992 Crimean Constitution and the state of Crimea as part of Ukraine. The first option was approved with an overwhelming majority. Crimea and Sevastopol formally declared independence as the Republic of Crimea and requested that they be admitted as part of the Russian Federation. On March 18, 2014, Russia and Crimea signed the treaty on the annexation of the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol to the Russian Federation.

On March 27, 2014, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 68.

Meanwhile, unrest began in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine. In several cities in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, local militias were organized, seizing police buildings, government buildings and special police stations in several cities in the regions. Talks in Geneva between the EU, Russia, Ukraine and the U.S. produced a Joint Diplomatic Declaration called the Geneva Pact of 2014 in which the parties called for all illegal militias to lay down their arms and vacate occupied government buildings, and also to establish a political dialogue that could lead to greater autonomy for Ukraine”s regions. When it became clear that candidate Petro Poroshenko had won the presidential election, on the election night of May 25, 2014, Poroshenko said, “My first presidential trip will be to Donbas,” where armed pro-Russian rebels had declared autonomy for the breakaway republics of the Donetsk People”s Republic and the Lugansk People”s Republic, and taken control of a large part of the region. Poroshenko also pledged to continue military operations by government forces to end the armed insurgency, stating that “the anti-terrorist operation cannot and should not last two or three months and will not last more than one hour.”

Volunteers of the Donbas Battalion training in Kiev in June 2014 before leaving to fight Russian attackers in the Donbas war. The battalion is subordinate to the Ukrainian National Guard, created in 2014 and composed of former Euromaidan militiamen.

He also compared the armed pro-Russian rebels to Somali pirates. Poroshenko further requested the presence of international intermediaries in negotiations with Russia. Russia responded by saying that it did not need an intermediary in its bilateral relations with Ukraine. As president-elect, Poroshenko promised to pursue the return of Crimea to Ukrainian sovereignty.

The BBC reported, “Hundreds of people have died since the pro-Russian rebellion began in eastern Ukraine.” According to the United Nations, 1 780 946 Ukrainian refugees have fled to other parts of Ukraine and 760,000 have fled to other countries since the beginning of 2014. Following the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014 by anti-aircraft missiles, and due to the following circumstances, the Ukrainian Red Cross considered a state of civil war. A number of observers considered the Ukrainian socio-political situation established in 2014 as typical of a failed state.

On July 8, 2014, the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice requested a ban on the Communist Party of Ukraine for “providing support to separatists in eastern Ukraine.” On July 24, then-Supreme Rada Speaker Oleksandr Turchynov dissolved the parliamentary formation of the Communist Party, following a rule change that left it without enough deputies to form a group. Turchynov stated that he “hopes that there will never again be Communist groups in the Ukrainian Parliament.”

On November 25, 2018, an incident occurred in the Kerch Strait in Crimea with Russia, resulting in the seizure of Ukrainian ships and their crew members in waters where both nations can transit. Days later the Ukrainian Parliament issued martial law, with a duration of 1 month, to minimize the risk of aggression by Russia in all the oblasts bordering areas under Russian control. In September 2019, the 3 ships and their 24 crew members were returned to Ukraine.

(2014-2019) Petro Poroshenko”s term of office.

Significant achievements were made in the field of foreign policy: support for sanctions against Russia, obtaining a visa-free regime with the countries of the European Union, combined with the need to overcome extremely difficult tasks within the country. The fight against corruption was launched, limited to NCO sentences and electronic statements, judicial reform was combined with the appointment of old and compromised judges. In 2017, the president signed a new education law, which met with opposition from national minorities and fell out with the Hungarian government.

On May 19, 2018, Poroshenko signed a decree that put into effect the decision of the National Security and Defense Council on the final termination of Ukraine”s participation in the CIS. On February 21, 2019, the Constitution of Ukraine was amended, to define the rules on Ukraine”s strategic course for membership in the European Union and NATO.

(2019-present) Volodymir Zelenski”s term of office.

On February 2, 2021, a presidential decree banned the television broadcasting of TV channels broadcasting Russian propaganda.

At the June 2021 summit in Brussels, NATO leaders reiterated the decision made at the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine would become a member. As of 2021, Ukraine is preparing to formally apply for EU membership in 2024 to join the European Union in the 2030s.

Also read, biographies – Jacques Cartier

Symbology

The exact origin and meaning of the Ukrainian “Tryzub” or trident has not yet been determined, although it is believed it may be associated with a paronomasia between the old word for freedom and the word for trident, so the most widely accepted belief is that the Ukrainian coat of arms and the trident signify Freedom. It has been the oldest of the coats of arms used by the Ukrainian nation as numerous changes have been introduced since the 13th century. It was the national symbol of the Ukrainian People”s Republic since January 22, 1918, when it proclaimed its independence. It is officially the coat of arms of Ukraine since February 19, 1992.

Also read, biographies – Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot

Territories

Sources