Prehistoric Ukraine, as a part of the Pontic steppe in Eastern Europe, played an important role in Eurasian cultural events, including the spread of the Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages, Indo-European migrations, and the domestication of the horse.[1] [2] [3]
A part of Scythia in antiquity, Ukraine was largely settled by Greuthungi, Getae, Goths, and Huns in the Migration Period, while southern parts of Ukraine were previously colonized by Greeks and then Romans. In the Early Middle Ages it was also a site of early Slavic expansion. The hinterland entered into written history with the establishment of the medieval state of Kievan Rus', which emerged as a powerful nation but disintegrated during the High Middle Ages, and was destroyed by the Mongol Empire in the 13th century.
During the 14th and 15th centuries, present-day Ukrainian territories came under the rule of four external powers: the Golden Horde, the Crimean Khanate, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. The latter two would then merge into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth following the Union of Krewo and Union of Lublin. Meanwhile, the Ottoman Empire emerged as a major regional power in and around the Black Sea, through protectorates like the Crimean Khanate, as well as directly-administered territory.
After a 1648 rebellion of the Cossacks against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky agreed to the Treaty of Pereyaslav in January 1654. The exact nature of the relationship established by this treaty between the Cossack Hetmanate and Russia remains a matter of scholarly controversy.[4] The agreement precipitated the Russo-Polish War of 1654–67 and the failed Treaty of Hadiach, which would have formed a Polish–Lithuanian–Ruthenian Commonwealth. In consequence, by the Treaty of Perpetual Peace, signed in 1686, the eastern portion of Ukraine (east of the Dnieper River) was to come under Russian rule.[5]
During the Great Northern War, Hetman Ivan Mazepa allied with Charles XII of Sweden in 1708. However, the Great Frost of 1709 greatly weakened the Swedish army. Following the Battle of Poltava later in 1709, there was a diminishment in Hetmanate power, culminating with the disestablishment of the Cossack Hetmanate in the 1760s and the destruction of the Zaporozhian Sich in the 1770s. Following the Partitions of Poland (1772–1795) and the Russian conquest of the Crimean Khanate, the Russian Empire and Habsburg Austria were in control of all the territories that constitute present-day Ukraine for over a hundred years. Ukrainian nationalism developed in the 19th century.
A chaotic period of warfare ensued after the Russian Revolutions of 1917, as well as a simultaneous war in the former Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria following the dissolution of the Habsburg monarchy after World War I. The Soviet–Ukrainian War (1917–1921) followed, in which the Bolshevik Red Army established control in late 1919.[6] The Ukrainian Bolsheviks, who had defeated the national government in Kiev, established the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which on 30 December 1922 became one of the founding republics of the Soviet Union. Initial Soviet policy on the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian culture made Ukrainian the official language of administration and schools. Policy in the 1930s turned to Russification. In 1932 and 1933, millions of people in Ukraine, mostly peasants, starved to death in a devastating famine, known as the Holodomor. It is estimated that 6 to 8 million people died from hunger in the Soviet Union during this period, of whom 4 to 5 million were Ukrainians.[7]
After the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, the Ukrainian SSR's territory expanded westward. Axis armies occupied Ukraine from 1941 to 1944. During World War II, elements of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army fought for Ukrainian independence against both Germany and the Soviet Union, while other elements collaborated with the Nazis, assisting them in carrying out the Holocaust in Ukraine and their oppression of Poles. In 1953, Nikita Khrushchev, ethnic Russian former head of the Communist Party of Ukraine, succeeded as head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and enabled more political and cultural freedom, which led to a Ukrainian revival. In 1954 the republic expanded to the south with the transfer of Crimea from Russia. Nevertheless, political repressions against poets, historians and other intellectuals continued, as in all other parts of the USSR.
Ukraine became independent when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. This started a period of transition to a market economy, in which Ukraine suffered an eight-year recession.[8] Subsequently however, the economy experienced a high increase in GDP growth until it plunged during the Great Recession.[9]
A prolonged political crisis began on 21 November 2013, when president Viktor Yanukovych suspended preparations for the implementation of an association agreement with the European Union, instead choosing to seek closer ties with Russia. This decision resulted in the Euromaidan protests and later, the Revolution of Dignity. Yanukovych was then impeached by the Ukrainian parliament in February 2014. On 20 February, the Russo-Ukrainian War began when Russian forces entered Crimea. Soon after, pro-Russian unrest enveloped the largely Russophone eastern and southern regions of Ukraine, from where Yanukovych had drawn most of his support. An internationally unrecognized referendum in the largely ethnic Russian Ukrainian autonomous region of Crimea was held and Crimea was de facto annexed by Russia on 18 March 2014. The War in Donbas began in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine involving the Russian military. The war continued until 24 February 2022, when Russia launched a major invasion of much of the country.
See also: Ukrainian stone stelae. 1.4 million year old stone tools from Korolevo, western Ukraine, are the earliest securely dated hominin presence in Europe.[10] Settlement in Ukraine by members of the genus Homo has been documented into distant Paleolithic prehistory. The Neanderthals are associated with the Molodova archaeological sites (45,000–43,000 BC), which include a mammoth bone dwelling.[11] [12] The earliest documented evidence of modern humans are found in Gravettian settlements dating to 32,000 BC in the Buran-Kaya cave site of the Crimean Mountains.[13] [14]
In the late Neolithic times, the Cucuteni-Trypillian Culture flourished from about 4,500–3,000 BC.[15] The Copper Age people of the Cucuteni-Trypillian Culture resided in the western part, and the Sredny Stog Culture further east, succeeded by the early Bronze Age Yamna ("Kurgan") culture of the Pontic steppes, and by the Catacomb culture in the 3rd millennium BC.
See main article: Bosporan Kingdom, Greeks in pre-Roman Crimea and Roman Crimea.
During the Iron Age, these peoples were followed by the Dacians as well as nomadic peoples like the Cimmerians (archaeological Novocherkassk culture), Scythians and Sarmatians. The Scythian kingdom existed here from 750 to 250 BC.[16] In the Scythian campaign of Darius the Great in 513 BC, the Achaemenid Persian army subjugated several Thracian peoples, and virtually all other regions along the European part of the Black Sea, such as parts of nowadays Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, and Russia, before it returned to Asia Minor.[17] [18]
Greeks colonized Crimea and other coastal areas of Ukraine in the 7th or 6th century BC during the Archaic period.[19] The culturally Greek Bosporan Kingdom thrived until it was invaded and occupied by the Goths and Huns in the 4th century AD.[20] From 62 to 68 AD the Roman Empire briefly annexed the kingdom under Emperor Nero when he deposed the Bosporan king Tiberius Julius Cotys I.[21] Afterwards the Bosporan Kingdom was made into a Roman client state with a Roman military presence during the middle of the 1st century AD.[22] [23]
In the 3rd century AD, the Goths migrated into the lands of modern Ukraine around 250–375 AD, which they called Oium, corresponding to the archaeological Chernyakhov culture.[24] The Ostrogoths stayed in the area but came under the sway of the Huns from the 370s. North of the Ostrogothic kingdom was the Kiev culture, flourishing from the 2nd–5th centuries, when it was also overrun by the Huns. After they helped defeat the Huns at the battle of Nedao in 454, the Ostrogoths were allowed by the Romans to settle in Pannonia. Along with other ancient Greek colonies founded in the 6th century BC on the northeastern shore of the Black Sea, the colonies of Tyras, Olbia, and Hermonassa continued as Roman and Byzantine (Eastern Roman) cities until the 6th century AD. Gothic influence waned by the end of the 5th century AD, when the Eastern Roman Empire reaffirmed its control and influence over the region.[25] The Hunnic king Gordas ruled the Bosporan kingdom in the early 6th century AD and maintained good relations with Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I, but the latter invaded and occupied the country once Gordas was killed in a revolt in 527 AD.[26] As late as the 12th century AD the Eastern Roman emperors claimed dominion over the territory of Cimmerian Bosporos.[27]
See main article: Early Slavs. With the power vacuum created with the end of Hunnic and Gothic rule, Early Slavs, in the aftermath of the Kiev culture, began to expand over much of the territory that is now Ukraine during the 5th century, and beyond to the Balkans from the 6th century. Although the origins of the Early Slavs are not known for certain, many theories suggest they may have originated near Polesia.[28]
In the 5th and 6th centuries, the Antes Union (a tribal federation) is generally regarded to have been located in the territory of what is now Ukraine. The Antes were the ancestors of Ukrainians: White Croats, Severians, Polans, Drevlyans, Dulebes, Ulichians, and Tiverians. Migrations from Ukraine throughout the Balkans established many South Slavic nations. Northern migrations, reaching almost to Lake Ilmen, led to the emergence of the Ilmen Slavs, Krivichs, and Radimichs. After a Pannonian Avar raid in 602 and the collapse of the Antes Union, most of these peoples survived as separate tribes until the beginning of the second millennium.[29]
In the 7th century, the territory of modern Ukraine was the core of the state of the Bulgars (often referred to as Old Great Bulgaria) with its capital city of Phanagoria. At the end of the 7th century, most Bulgar tribes migrated in several directions and the remains of their state were absorbed by the Khazars, a semi-nomadic people from Central Asia.[24]
The Khazars founded the Khazar kingdom near the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus. The kingdom included western Kazakhstan and parts of Crimea, eastern Ukraine, southern Russia and Azerbaijan. The Khazars dominated enough of the Pontic–Caspian steppe such that there was a Pax Khazarica in terms of trade, which allowed long distance trade to occur in safety, including groups like the Radhanite Jews who traded as far as China to Tabriz, as well as the trade networks that surrounded Volga Bulgaria. This attracted other traders such as the Vikings in the Viking Age who would found Kievan Rus'.
See main article: Kievan Rus'.
It is uncertain how the state of Kievan Rus' came to be, but the Varangian nobleman Oleg the Wise is generally credited with having established a principality at the city of Kiev somewhere around the year 880. Kiev had already been established, but its origins are nebulous as well. According to archaeologists and historians such as Petro Tolochko (2007), Slavic settlement existed from the end of the 5th century in the area that later developed into the city.[30] Kiev may have paid tribute to the Khazars before Oleg conquered it. Tolochko and other scholars also theorise that 'Kiev was not the center of any particular tribe but the intertribal center of a vast realm'; critical analysis of the Primary Chronicle, De Administrando Imperio and other sources suggests it may have been a cosmopolitan urban home to Slavic and non-Slavic groups, such as Scandinavian Varangians and Finno-Ugric peoples. Slavic peoples that were reportedly native to Ukraine included Polans (or Polianians), Drevlyans, Severians, Ulichs, Tiverians, White Croats and Dulebes, but their precise identity and interrelationships are difficult to establish and verify, as the sources are vague, contradictory and at times inaccurate.
In the 10th and 11th century, Kiev became one of the richest commercial centres of Europe, and the Kievan Rus' empire around it steadily expanded.[31] Initially a benefactor of the worship of Slavic deities such as Perun, Vladimir the Great converted to Orthodox Christianity in the 980s, tying the realm into a political and ecclesiastical alliance with the Byzantine Empire.[31] The reign of Yaroslav the Wise is generally regarded its zenith. Kievan Rus' was never a fully centralized state, but rather a loose aggregation of principalities ruled by members of the Rurik dynasty.
See main article: Christianization of Kievan Rus'. While Christianity had made headway into the territory of modern Ukraine before the first ecumenical council, the Council of Nicaea (325) (particularly along the Black Sea coast, with the clearest evidence being the Christianization of the Crimean Goths) and, in western Ukraine during the time of the Empire of Great Moravia, the formal governmental acceptance of Christianity in Rus' occurred in 988. The major promoter of the Christianization of Kievan Rus' was the Grand-Duke Vladimir the Great whose grandmother, Princess Olga, was a Christian. Later the Kievan ruler, Yaroslav I promulgated the Russkaya Pravda (Truth of Rus') which continued through the Lithuanian period of Rus'.
In 1322, Pope John XXII established a diocese in Caffa (modern day Feodosia), which broke apart the Diocese of Khanbaliq (modern day Beijing), the only Catholic presence in the Mongol lands. For a few centuries it was the main see over an area from the Balkans to Sarai.[32]
See main article: Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus'.
Conflict among the various principalities of Rus', in spite of the efforts of Grand Prince Vladimir Monomakh, led to decline, beginning in the 12th century. In Rus' propria, the Kiev region, the nascent Rus' principalities of Halych and Volhynia extended their rule. In the north, the name of Moscow appeared in the historical record in the Principality of Suzdal, which gave rise to the nation of Russia. In the north-west, the Principality of Polotsk increasingly asserted the autonomy of Belarus. Kiev was sacked by the Principality of Vladimir (1169) in the power struggle between princes and later by Cuman and Mongol raiders in the 12th and 13th centuries, respectively. Subsequently, all principalities of present-day Ukraine acknowledged dependence upon the Mongols (1239–1240). In 1240, the Mongols sacked Kiev.
See main article: Galicia-Volhynia. A successor state to the Kievan Rus' on part of the territory of today's Ukraine was the Principality of Galicia-Volhynia. Previously, Vladimir the Great had established the cities of Halych and Volodymyr as regional capitals. The region was inhabited by the Dulebe, Tiverian and White Croat tribes. Initially both Volhynia and Galicia were separate principalities, ruled by descendants of Yaroslav the Wise (Galicia by Rostislavich dynasty, and Volhynia initially by Igorevich and eventually by Iziaslavich dynasty). During the rule Yaroslav Osmomysl (1153-1187) Galicia extended to the Black Sea. Rulers of both principalites were trying to extend the rule over another. It was finally achieved by Roman the Great (1197-1205), who not only united both Galicia and Volhynia, but also extended his rule to Kiev for a short period of time.
His death was followed by a period of turmoil that lasted until his son Daniel regained the throne in 1238. Daniel managed to rebuild his father's state, including Kiev. Daniel paid tribute to the Mongol khan, who appointed him baskak, responsible for collecting tribute from the Rus princes. In 1253 he was crowned by a papal delegation "King of Rus ; previously, the rulers of Rus' were termed "Grand Dukes" or "Princes."
See main article: Genoese colonies, Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. From the 13th century, the many parts of the coast of present-day Ukraine were dominated by the Republic of Genoa, which created numerous colonies around the Black Sea, most of them situated in today's Odesa Oblast. The Genoese colonies were well fortified, and there were garrisons in the fortresses and were used by the Genoese republic mainly for the purpose of dominating trade in the Black Sea. Genoa's dominance in the region would last until the 15th century.[33] [34] [35]
During the 14th century, Poland and Lithuania fought wars against the Mongol invaders, and eventually most of Ukraine passed to the rule of Poland and Lithuania. More particularly, Red Ruthenia, and part of Volhynia and Podolia became part of Poland. King of Poland adopted the tile of "lord and heir of Ruthenia" ([36]). Lithuania took control of Polotsk, Volhynia, Chernihiv, and Kiev following Battle of Blue Waters (1362/63), and the rulers of Lithuania then adopted the title of ruler of Rus'.
After the downfall of Kievan Rus' and Galicia–Volhynia, their political, cultural and religious life continued under Lithuanian control.[37] Ruthenian aristocrats, for example, the Olelkovich, joined the governing class of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as members of the grand duke's privy council, senior military leaders, and administrators. Despite Lithuanian being the native language of the ruling class, the main written languages within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were Latin, Old Church Slavonic, as well as Ruthenian, with East Slavonic Chancery being replaced by Polish in the early modern period.[38]
Eventually, Poland took control of the southwestern region. Following the union between Poland and Lithuania, Poles, Germans, Lithuanians and Jews migrated to the region, forcing Ukrainians out of positions of power they shared with Lithuanians, with more Ukrainians being forced into Central Ukraine as a result of Polish migration, polonization, and other forms of oppression against Ukraine and Ukrainians, all of which started to fully take form.
In 1490, due to increased oppression of Ukrainians at the hands of the Polish, a series of successful rebellions was led by Ukrainian Petro Mukha, joined by other Ukrainians, such as early Cossacks and Hutsuls, in addition to Moldavians (Romanians). Known as Mukha's Rebellion, this series of battles was supported by the Moldavian prince Stephen the Great, and it is one of the earliest known uprisings of Ukrainians against Polish oppression. These rebellions saw the capture of several cities of Pokuttya, and reached as far west as Lviv, but without capturing the latter.[39]
The 15th-century decline of the Golden Horde enabled the foundation of the Crimean Khanate, which occupied present-day Black Sea shores and southern steppes of Ukraine. Until the late 18th century, the Crimean Khanate maintained a massive slave trade with the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East,[40] exporting about 2 million slaves from Russia and Ukraine over the period 1500–1700.[41] It remained a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire until 1774, when it was finally dissolved by the Russian Empire in 1783.
See also: History of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1648).
After the Union of Lublin in 1569 and the formation of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Ukraine fell under the Polish administration, becoming part of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. The period immediately following the creation of the Commonwealth saw a huge revitalisation in colonisation efforts. Many new cities and villages were founded and links between different Ukrainian regions, such as Halych Land and Volhynia were greatly extended.[42]
New schools spread the ideas of the Renaissance; Polish peasants arrived in great numbers and quickly became mixed with the local population; during this time, most Ukrainian nobles became polonised and converted to Catholicism, and while most Ruthenian-speaking peasants remained within the Eastern Orthodox Church, social tension rose. Some of the polonized mobility would heavily shape Polish culture, for example, Stanisław Orzechowski.
Ruthenian peasants who fled efforts to force them into serfdom came to be known as Cossacks and earned a reputation for their fierce martial spirit. Some Cossacks were enlisted by the Commonwealth as soldiers to protect the southeastern borders of Commonwealth from Tatars or took part in campaigns abroad (like Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny in the battle of Khotyn 1621). Cossack units were also active in wars between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Tsardom of Russia. Despite the Cossack's military usefulness, the Commonwealth, dominated by its nobility, refused to grant them any significant autonomy, instead attempting to turn most of the Cossack population into serfs. This led to an increasing number of Cossack rebellions aimed at the Commonwealth.
| Voivodeship | Square kilometers | Population (est.) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 45,000 | 446,000 | ||
| 42,000 | 294,000 | ||
| 19,000 | 98,000 | ||
| 35,000 | 311,000 | ||
| 117,000 | 234,000 | ||
| Belz (two regions) | 19,000 | 133,000 | |
| 10,000 | 233,000 | ||
See also: History of the Cossacks.
See also: Zaporozhian Sich.
See main article: Cossack Hetmanate.
See also: Khmelnytsky Uprising.
The 1648 Ukrainian Cossack (Kozak) rebellion or Khmelnytsky Uprising, which started an era known as the Ruin (in Polish history as the Deluge), undermined the foundations and stability of the Commonwealth. The nascent Cossack state, the Cossack Hetmanate, usually viewed as precursor of Ukraine,[44] found itself in a three-sided military and diplomatic rivalry with the Ottoman Turks, who controlled the Tatars to the south, the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania, and the Tsardom of Russia to the East.
The Zaporozhian Host, in order to leave the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, sought a treaty of protection with Russia in 1654.[44] This agreement was known as the Pereiaslav Agreement.[44] Commonwealth authorities then sought compromise with the Ukrainian Cossack state by signing the Treaty of Hadiach in 1658, but—after thirteen years of incessant warfare—the agreement was later superseded by the 1667 Polish–Russian Truce of Andrusovo, which divided Ukrainian territory between the Commonwealth and Russia. Under Russia, the Cossacks initially retained official autonomy in the Hetmanate.[44] For a time, they also maintained a semi-independent republic in Zaporizhzhia and a colony on the Russian frontier in Sloboda Ukraine. Thus, while right-bank Ukraine belonged to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth until late 1793, left-bank Ukraine had been incorporated into Tsardom of Russia. 1657–1686 was the period characterised by continuous strife, civil war, and foreign intervention by neighbours of Ukraine. In 1672, Podolia was occupied by the Turkish Ottoman Empire, while Kiev and Braclav came under the control of Hetman Petro Doroshenko until 1681, when they were also captured by the Turks, but in 1699 the Treaty of Karlowitz returned those lands to the Commonwealth.
In 1686, the Metropolitanate of Kiev was annexed by the Moscow Patriarchate through the Synodal Letter of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Dionysius IV.
Ukrainian culture had great influence on the Russian tsardom after Ukraine's incorporation. At the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century, the "Ukrainian school" dominated Russian literature.[45] Ukrainian-born clerics such as Theophan Prokopovich and Stefan Yavorsky, both alumni of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, played an important role in the church reform of Peter the Great and were among the first presidents of the Most Holy Synod.[46] At the time when the empire was proclaimed in 1721, the ideologists of the autocracy and empire were often Ukrainians.[45]
See also: Liquidation of the Zaporozhian Sich. During the 18th century, Russian tsarist rule over central Ukraine gradually replaced "protection". Sporadic Cossack uprisings were now aimed at the Russian authorities, but eventually petered out by the late 18th century. After the victory of the Russian Empire in the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774 with the support of the Ukrainian Cossacks, Zaporozhian Sich was destroyed by Russian troops in 1775, a smaller part of the Ukrainian Cossacks fled across the Danube to the lands of the Ottoman Empire, or moved to the Kuban, and the majority was deported by the Russian government to Siberia. All their documents (more than 30,000), weapons and valuables testifying to the history of Ukraine in the 16th-18th centuries were kept for a long time in the fortress of St. Elizabeth, until they were evacuated to Kyiv in 1918. This fortress played an important role in the victory over the Turks in 1774, as a result of this war, Russia conquered the coast of the Black and Azov Seas and actually gained control over the Crimean Khanate, although de jure Crimea was recognized as independent. Also it was from this fortress at the end of May 1775 that 8 cavalry regiments, 10 infantry regiments, 20 hussar squadrons, 17 pike squadrons and 13 squadrons of the Don Cossacks (45 thousand people) under the command of General Peter Tekeli left to the Sich, which was defended by the garrison 3,000 Cossaks. On June 15 Sitch was completely destroyed, the last leader of the Zaporozhians, Petro Kalnyshevskyi, died in prison in Solovetsky Islands.[47] [48] [49] [50]
Meanwhile, in the right-bank Ukraine, as corvée obligations and the abuse of power by Polish magnates and nobles and their Jewish stewards in Ukraine increased, bands of haidamaks plundered and burned towns and nobles' estates, killing nobles, Roman Catholic and Uniate clerics, and Jews. Major uprisings took place in 1734, 1750, and the largest – usually referred to as Koliyivschyna – in 1768.[51]
Most of Ukraine fell to the Russian Empire under the reign of Catherine the Great; the Crimean Khanate was annexed by Russia in 1783, following the Emigration of Christians from Crimea in 1778, and in 1793 right-bank Ukraine was annexed by Russia in the Second Partition of Poland.[52]
See main article: Modern history of Ukraine.
Ukraine under the reign of Alexander I (1801–1825) saw Russian presence only involving the imperial army and its bureaucracy, but by the reign of Nicholas I (1825–1855), Russia had by then established a centralized administration in Ukraine. After suppressing the November Uprising of 1830, the tsarist regime instituted Russification policies on the Right Bank.[53]
The 1861 emancipation greatly impacted Ukrainians as 42% of them were serfs. During the late 19th century, heavy taxes, rapid population growth and lack of land impoverished the peasantry. However the steppe regions managed to produce 20% of world production of wheat and 80% of the empire's sugar. Later, industrialization arrived with the first railway track constructed in 1866. Ukraine's economy by now was integrated into the Russian imperial system and it saw much urban development.
Ukrainian national revival movement dates from the end of the 18th century when modern Ukrainian literature began, foremostly the works of Ivan Kotliarevsky. The prominent Ukrainian-language authors of the 19th century were Taras Shevchenko, Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky and Lesya Ukrainka in the Russian Empire and Ivan Franko in Austria-Hungary.
Russian government, fearing separatism, imposed strict limits on attempts to elevate the Ukrainian language and culture, even banning its use and study: in 1863, the Valuev Circular banned the use of Ukrainian in religious and educational literature, in 1876, the Ems Ukaz outlawed Ukrainian-language publications outright, as well as the import of texts published abroad in Ukrainian, the use of Ukrainian in theatrical productions and public readings, the use of Ukrainian in schools.[54] The Russophile policies of Russification and Panslavism led to an exodus of a number of Ukrainian intellectuals (such as Mykhailo Drahomanov and Mykhailo Hrushevsky) into the Austrian Western Ukraine. However, many Ukrainians accepted their fate in the Russian Empire and some were able to achieve great success there.
The fate of the Ukrainians was far different under the Austrian Empire where they found themselves in the pawn position of the Russian–Austrian power struggle for Central and Southern Europe. Unlike in Russia, most of the elite that ruled Galicia were of Austrian or Polish descent, with the Ruthenians being almost exclusively kept in peasantry. During the 19th century, Russophilia was a common occurrence among the Slavic population, but the mass exodus of Ukrainian intellectuals escaping from Russian repression in Eastern Ukraine, as well as the intervention of Austrian authorities, caused the movement to be replaced by Ukrainophilia, which would then cross over into the Russian Empire.The 2.4 million Ukrainians under the Habsburg Empire lived in eastern Galicia and consisted mainly of the peasantry (95%) with the remainder being priestly families. The Galician nobility were majoritively Poles or Polonized Ukrainians. Development here lagged behind Russian-ruled Ukraine and was one of the poorest regions in Europe.
The rise in national consciousness arose in the 19th century, with representation of the intelligentsia declining among the nobles and increasing towards commoners and peasants, they saw a process of nation-building to improve national rights and social justice but was uncovered soon after by the tsarist authorities. After the 1848 revolutions, Ukrainians established the Supreme Ruthenian Council, demanding autonomy, they also opened the first Ukrainian-language newspaper (Zoria halytska).
See main article: Ukraine during World War I, Ukrainian War of Independence and Ukraine after the Russian Revolution.
See also: Ukrainian War of Independence, Ukrainian–Soviet War, Battle of Kiev (1918) and Polish–Ukrainian War.
When World War I and a series of revolutions across Europe, including the October Revolution in Russia, shattered many existing empires such as the Austrian and Russian ones, people of Ukraine were caught in the middle. Between 1917 and 1919, several separate Ukrainian republics manifested independence, the Makhnovshchina, the Ukrainian People's Republic, the Ukrainian State, the West Ukrainian People's Republic, and numerous Bolshevik revkoms.
Historian Paul Kubicek says:
Between 1917 and 1920, several entities that aspired to be independent Ukrainian states came into existence. This period, however, was extremely chaotic, characterized by revolution, international and civil war, and lack of strong central authority. Many factions competed for power in the area that is today’s Ukraine, and not all groups desired a separate Ukrainian state. Ultimately, Ukrainian independence was short-lived, as most Ukrainian lands were incorporated into the Soviet Union and the remainder, in western Ukraine, was divided among Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania.[55] Canadian scholar Orest Subtelny says:
In 1919 total chaos engulfed Ukraine. Indeed, in the modern history of Europe no country experienced such complete anarchy, bitter civil strife, and total collapse of authority as did Ukraine at this time. Six different armies-– those of the Ukrainians, the Bolsheviks, the Whites, the Entente [French], the Poles and the anarchists – operated on its territory. Kiev changed hands five times in less than a year. Cities and regions were cut off from each other by the numerous fronts. Communications with the outside world broke down almost completely. The starving cities emptied as people moved into the countryside in their search for food.[56]
The area stabilized with the creation of Soviet Ukraine in 1921, which became one of the founding republics of the USSR on 30 December 1922.
See main article: Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
See main article: Holodomor. In 1932-33, a massive famine caused by Joseph Stalin's government claimed several million lives; the famine disproportionally affected Ukraine in what is known as the Holodomor.[57] [58] [59]
See main article: Executed Renaissance. During the repressions of the second half of the 1930s, by the NKVD were destroyed most of the representatives of the then Ukrainian intelligentsia. Some of the artists were sent to Gulag camps, while others were driven to suicide.[60] Slovo Building where some of these intellectuals lived and where they were secretly monitored by the Soviet special services also became known.[61]
In the 1930s, only from Kyiv alone, which in 1934 became the capital of the Ukrainian SSR instead of Kharkiv, tens of thousands people were abducted by the Soviet security forces, who were later subjected to torture and killed. All of them were sentenced to death on fabricated cases. Their bodies were secretly buried in Bykivnia where after the independence of Ukraine and the opening of the KGB archives (before the collapse of the USSR, officials claimed that the bodies of victims of Nazis were buried here), thousands of graves were found and a memorial complex of Bykivnia graves was created.[62] [63]
See also: Reichskommissariat Ukraine and The Holocaust in Ukraine. The Second World War began on 1 September 1939, when Hitler invaded the Western part of Poland. Sixteen days later, the Soviet Union took most of Eastern Poland. Nazi Germany with its allies invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. Between 4.5 and 6 million Ukrainians fought in the Soviet Army against the Nazis.[64] Some Ukrainians initially regarded the Wehrmacht soldiers as liberators from Soviet rule, while others formed a partisan movement. Some elements of the Ukrainian nationalist underground formed a Ukrainian Insurgent Army that fought both Soviet forces and the Nazis. Others collaborated with the Germans. The pro-Polish trend in the Ukrainian national movement, declaring loyalty to the Second Polish Republic and in return demanding autonomy for Ukrainians (e.g. Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance), became marginalized, mainly due to its rejection by the Polish side, where supporters of forced assimilation of Ukrainians into Polish culture dominated.[65] Some 1.5 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis during their occupation.[66] In Volhynia, Ukrainian fighters committed a massacre against up to 100,000 Polish civilians.[67] Residual small groups of the UPA-partizans acted near the Polish and Soviet border as long as to the 1950s.[68] Galicia, Volhynia, South Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and Carpathian Ruthenia that were annexed as a result of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in 1939 were added to the Ukrainian SSR.
After World War II, some amendments to the Constitution of the Ukrainian SSR were accepted, which allowed it to act as a separate subject of international law in some cases and to a certain extent, remaining a part of the Soviet Union at the same time. In particular, these amendments allowed the Ukrainian SSR to become one of the founding members of the United Nations (UN) together with the Soviet Union and the Byelorussian SSR. This was part of a deal with the United States to ensure a degree of balance in the General Assembly, which, the USSR opined, was unbalanced in favor of the Western Bloc. In its capacity as a member of the UN, the Ukrainian SSR was an elected member of the United Nations Security Council in 1948–1949 and 1984–1985.The Crimean Oblast was transferred from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954.[69]
During the famine of 1946-1947, the Soviet government confiscated the entire crop from the peasants, but the western regions were less affected by the famine due to the resistance of the UIA, which is why from western Ukraine several hundred thousand people and their families were most actively deported to Siberia by MSS of Soviet Union in 1947 during the Operation "West" (The report refers to 77,791 people: 18,866 men, 35,685 women and 23,240 minors),[70] [71] who later raised three major uprisings, one of them (the Norilsk Uprising when the majority of prisoners were Ukrainians) put an end to the Gulag system.[72] [73]
In the 1960s and 1980s, it was in Ukraine that the dissident movement gained momentum more actively than in the rest of the USSR.