History of Ukraine
From prehistoric times, migration and settlement
patterns in the territories of present-day Ukraine varied fundamentally
along the lines of geographic zones. A number of soil-tilling cultures
succeeded one another (Trypillya Culture, Chernyakhivska Culture,
Zarubynetska Culture and others). In the first millennium BC, the
Scythian civilization spread over a greater part of the present-day
Ukraine. During the 1st millennium BC the steppe hinterland was
occupied successively by the Cimmerians, Scythians, and Sarmatians.
The Scythians, both nomads and tillers of the soil, intrepid warriors
and refined artists, remain, to a large extent, an enigma waiting
to be explored. Beginning in the 7th-6th centuries BC, numerous
Greek colonies were founded on the northern coast of the Black Sea,
in the Crimea, and along the Sea of Azov; these Hellenic outposts
later came under the hegemony of the Roman Empire. The early Ukrainians
practiced agriculture and animal husbandry, engaged in such domestic
industries as cloth making and ceramics, and built fortified settlements,
many of which later developed into important commercial and political
canters. Among such early settlements was Kyiv on the high right
bank of the Dnipro River.
The emergence of Ukraine as a powerful state is
closely connected with the rise of Kyiv, its capital. We know little
of the early stages of Kyiv’s development, but there is enough
evidence to suggest that Kyiv emerged no later than AD 5th century,
and many historians argue it happened much earlier. In the 9th century
Kyiv becomes the capital of a state that stretched from the Baltic
Sea in the north, from the Black Sea in the south, from the Carpathian
Mountains in the west to the Volga River in the east. This state,
usually referred to as “Kyivan-Rus-Ukraine,” incorporated
many eastern Slavic tribes. AD 988 saw the adoption of Christianity
by this state which became a Christian bulwark against the incursions
of the heathen nomads of the steppes. Kyivan-Rus-Ukraine, which
flourished in the 10th – 12th centuries, was treated with respect
by Byzantine and western European powers. The east European Slavic
cultures of later ages of sprang up from the culture of Kyivan-Rus-Ukraine.
The feuds among princes and local rulers of the
state gradually undermined its power and continuous fighting for
the possession of Kyiv proved to be disastrous: when the Mongol-Tartar
hordes invaded the country in the 13th century they did not meet
a unified opposition. Kyiv, after a siege, fell in 1240 and was
practically razed to the ground. But the cultural traditions were
picked up by the states that emerged later in the lands of what
used to be Kyivan-Rus-Ukraine. The Halytsko-Volynska State with
King Danylo at its head managed to withstand the pressure of the
Mongols from the east and of the crusaders from the west. The continuity
of culture was not disrupted. Meanwhile, Kyiv and other lands of
the former Kyivan-Rus-Ukraine came under the dominance of the Grand
Principality of Lithuania, but preserved their own cultural identity.
In the early 15th century, Kyiv was granted the status of a free
city under the Magdeburg Law. Powerful neighbors of Ukraine - Rzeczpospolita
(Poland), Muscovy and the Ottoman Empire never stopped their attempts
to grab great chunks of the Ukrainian territory, which attracted
them by its fertility and natural resources.
The Zaporizhian Sich, a free republic of the Ukrainian
Cossacks that was established at the end of the 16th century, later,
in the 17th century, turned out to be a decisive political power
in Ukraine’s struggle for independence. The Zaporizhian Cossacks
came out in support of all the Ukrainians who lived under foreign
domination and sought freedom. They were also successors and continuations
of the cultural traditions. After a period of cruel wars, Ukraine
gained independence in the middle of the 17th century, with a Hetman
as an elected ruler and military leader of the state. In 1654 Hetman
Bohdan Khmelnytsky was forced by the pressure of political circumstances
to sign a treaty, which put Ukraine under Russian tzar’s protection.
For another hundred years though, Ukraine retained much of its autonomy,
including its own laws and army. The union of the freedom-loving
Ukraine and of the suppressive Moscow Empire was not a happy one
from the outset. In the early 17th century Hetman Ivan Mazepa made
an attempt to extricate Ukraine from much too tight an embrace of
the Russian State and joined Sweden in its struggle against Russia.
The attempt failed after the combined Swedish and Ukrainian forces
were defeated in the Battle of Poltava.
The Russian pressure on Ukraine was stepped up,
and by brutal force the Russian tzars did away with Ukraine’s
autonomy and whatever liberties there might have been left. The
free peasants were turned into serfs and self-government in any
form was abolished. By the end at the 18th century Ukraine was no
more then just another province of the Russian Empire, with the
western Ukrainian lands finding themselves under the dominance of
the Empire of Austria and Hungary. The 19th century saw a gradual
re-establishment of the Ukrainian national identity and after the
World War I, an opportunity presented itself to Ukraine to go once
again independent.
In the wake of the collapse of the Russian Empire
and of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Ukraine proclaimed its Independence
of January 22, 1918, with Mykhaylo Hrushevsky, a prominent political
figure and historian, becoming its first president. The Civil War
of 1917-1920 that raged across the former Russian Empire was the
fiercest in Ukraine. It became a scene of battles of many forces
fighting for the supremacy of Ukraine: national liberation forces,
Bolshevik armies, White armies commanded by the Russian generals,
anarchists, armed forces of Germany, Austria, Hungary, Britain,
France, Romania, Greece, and numerous bandit groups into the bargain.
The Ukrainian People’s Republic succumbed under enormous pressure
and was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1922.
The thirties and forties turned out to be even
more dramatic and tragic to Ukraine than anything it had lived through
before. The Soviet totalitarian regime wrought havoc in Ukraine
with purges, extermination of Ukrainian wealthy peasants and intellectuals,
artificially induced famines (the famine of 1932-1933 took a terrible
toll of several million lives). Ukrainian culture suffered enormous
losses both in terms of intellectuals shot or dispatched to concentration
camps, and of destruction of historical and architectural monuments,
books, etc.
The Second World War brought new tragedies and
new suffering, with three million Ukrainians killed in action at
the battlefronts and five more million dying in the Nazi-occupied
territories. The material losses of Ukraine in the war are estimated
to have been almost a thousand billion dollars. In the postwar years,
Ukraine developed its economy rather fast but lack of democracy
continued to stifle Ukrainian national culture.
On April 26, 1986, a reactor at the Chornobyl
Nuclear Power Plant experienced a meltdown of its core and exploded.
This disaster affected the lives of millions of people in Ukraine.
In the mid-eighties, there began in Ukraine and
upsurge of the movement for national independence. This time, millions
of Ukrainians, rather then individual dissidents and nationalists
joined the movement. Newly formed half-clandestine democratic organization
and a widening search for national identity destabilized the communist
regime. On July 16, 1990, the Verkhovna Rada, Ukrainian parliament,
adopted The Act of State Sovereignty, which was the first major
step toward true independence.
After a coup to reestablish the tight Soviet control
failed in Moscow in August of 1991, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine
adopted the Declaration of Independence on August 24, 1991. On December
1 of the same year, the all-Ukrainian Referendum confirmed the desire
of the part of the majority of Ukrainians to live in an independent
state. Ukraine inherited form the defunct Empire an enormous rocket
and nuclear arms potential which made it the third mightiest nuclear
power in the world. Ukrainian parliament soon after Ukraine had
become independent, made an unprecedented move - it has been decided
to get rid of all the nuclear weapons. In was the first time ever
a nuclear power scrapped its nuclear weapons.
The first few years of independence turned out
to be extremely difficult for Ukraine (in fact, they were difficult
for all the former Soviet states): the economy in shambles; many
industrial enterprises too big to be renovated; enormous military-industrial
complex; obsolete technologies; totally defective agricultural system;
depleted fertilities of the soil; badly polluted environment; ecological
situation very much aggravated by the consequences of the Chornobyl
disaster; ruined social sphere; no money for properly financed education,
science and culture; runaway inflation (which turned all Ukrainians
into “millionaires” who could hardly make ends meet).
A list of woes is a long one indeed.
Recent years have brought about a change for the
better. The national currency – hryvnya – was introduced
more than four years ago and ever since in has remained more or
less stable. For the first time since the collapse of the Soviet
Union the economic decline slowed down and finally stopped and in
many industries a definite increase of production has been observed.
Cultural life is on the upswing. Small and middle-sized
businesses are more active than ever before. Ukrainian foreign policy
has been successful in making Ukraine much better known on the arena
of international politics. There is enough confidence generated
now to look into the future with hope. The new century – and
the new millennium – should become a new era in Ukraine’s
development.
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