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History, Ukraine

Maciej Mońka

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The current territory of what is today the nation of Ukraine was a southern part of the first Eastern Slavic state, Kievan Rus'. Its capital was Kyiv, the capital of the modern Ukraine. Kievan Rus' was founded by Vikings, or so-called Varangians, from the area that later became Sweden. Varangians later became assimilated to the local population of Rus' (Ruthenian/Ukrainian) and gave Ukraine its first powerful dynasty, the Rurik dynasty. During the 10th and 11th centuries the territory of Ukraine became the center of the most important state in Europe--laying the foundation for Ukrainian national identity through subsequent centuries. The term "Rus'" referred to many of the purely East Slavic principalities in the region (Rus' Chervona--Red Rus'/Ruthenia, for example). Kiev, and Kievian Rus' was the seat of the Grand prince of the Rurik Dynasty. The ruler of Kiev was also in effect the ruler of all the Rus' principalities. Kievan Rus' declined during the Mongol invasions. Eventually, Kievan Rus' became weakened by internal quarrels and destroyed by Mongol and Tatar invasions. On Ukrainian territory, the state of Kievan Rus' was succeeded by the principalities of Halych and Volodymyr-Volynskii, which were merged into the state of Halych-Volynia, later subjugated by Lithuania and Poland, and after the 1376 marriage of Lithuania's Grand Duke Jagiello to Poland's Queen Jadwiga, ruled by the Poles (see the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). During the mid-17th century the Cossack Hetmanate, was established by Ukrainians fleeing from Polish serfdom, in central Ukraine, an independent military state. Independence was eventually lost to Russia over time, as a consequence of the controversial Treaty of Pereyaslav. After the partitions of Poland by Prussia, Austria and Russia at the end of the 18th century, Western Ukraine was taken over by Austria while Eastern Ukraine was progressively assimilated into the Russian Empire. Ukrainians played an important role in continuous wars between East-European monarchies and Ottoman Empire. Since then, the territory of Ukraine became a bridge betweeen Europe and Asia (Russia). Many Ukrainians played important roles in the Russian civil war. Following the Russian Revolution in 1917, Ukraine was briefly independent in two states, then united, in 1920. By 1922 Ukraine was split between Poland and Soviet Union. The Soviet Ukraine experienced two famines (1921-1922 and 1932-1933) - the second of which was deliberate, and termed the "Holodomor" - in which many millions died (scholarly estimates range from 4 to 10 million dead). At the onset of the World War II, in 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland and incorporated the Western Ukraine into the Ukrainian SSR. In 1941 the German invaders and their Axis allies crushed the Red Army. In the encirclement battle of Kiev, for the fierce resistance of the Red Army and of the local population, the city was acclaimed by the Soviets as a "Hero City," more than 660,000 Soviet troops were taken captive. Initially, the Germans were received as "liberators" by a small part of the Ukrainian population. It should be noted that this generally stemmed from the ferocious repressions of the landed pesantry (a class that included almost all Ukrainians) by Stalin, and to a feeling of Ukrainian nationalism. Soon, however, the Germans began their bloody regime of genocide, killing and deporting Jews and Ukrainian civilians and burning down entire villages, leading many Ukrainians to conclude that Nazi rule was just as terrible, or even worse, than the Soviet regime which had killed 4 to 10 million of the Ukrainian nation, albeit over a longer period of time. Total civilian losses during the War and German occupation in Ukraine are estimated at 7 million, including over half a million Jews shot and killed by the Einsatzgruppen. Of the estimated 11 million Soviet troops who fell in battle against the Nazis, about a fourth (2.7 million) were ethnic Ukrainians. Thus, the Ukrainian nation is distinguished as the first nation to fight the Axis powers during WW II in Carpatho-Ukraine and one that saw one of the greatest bloodsheds during the War. After the WWII, the borders of then Soviet Ukraine were extended to the West, (as stipulated in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, see also Curzon line), uniting most Ukrainians under one political state. In 1954, Crimea was transferred from the RSFSR to Ukraine (Crimea has no continuous land bridge to the Russian Federation.) This decision of Nikita Khrushchev, intended to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the controversial Treaty of Pereyaslav, seen in Soviet historiography as the 'union of two fraternal peoples', led to tensions between Russia and Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Independence was achieved in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union and Ukraine was a founding member of the Commonwealth of Independent States.