From the history of the Ukrainian people. How did the Ukrainians actually appear? The settlement of fertile lands

This book presents the history of Ukrainian lands from antiquity to the present. The authors of the book are members of the Russian part of the Joint Russian-Ukrainian Commission of Historians. Each of them is a specialist in his field of Ukrainian studies, in its separate chronological period, the history of which he wrote. Taken together, the "History of Ukraine" presented to the reader's judgment is an expression of one of the various concepts available in historiography. What distinguishes the authors of this work from recent attempts at an “innovative” interpretation of the history of the Ukrainian people and Ukrainian lands is, first of all, their commitment to the academic approach in research. The academic style implies an attentive attitude to facts, the opinions of colleagues, knowledge of the modern historiography of the issue, as well as the rejection of politicization and politicking. The history of Ukrainian lands has always been closely connected with the history of its neighbors - Russia, Poland, Turkey and those countries that existed on their territory in different historical periods. At various periods, Ukrainian lands were part of Kievan Rus, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Commonwealth, the Russian Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Soviet Union, etc. The struggle for Ukrainian identity was dramatic and difficult.

This book is not an expression of any official position, but an invitation to a group of authors for a dialogue on a very topical and difficult historical problem.

We believe that knowledge of the past, achievements and mistakes of our ancestors is extremely important for our future.

Co-Chairman of the Joint Russian-Ukrainian Commission of Historians

Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences

A. O. Chubaryan

Our conversation will have to start with a few general provisions, without which the further presentation would not be entirely clear.

Firstly, none of the currently existing states is the direct successor of those state (or pre-state) associations that existed in the distant past.

Secondly, most of the currently existing ethnic groups do not have a single progenitor tribe, ancestor people. All modern peoples arose as a result of a complex interaction of carriers of various anthropological features, languages ​​and cultures.

Thirdly, none of the existing cultures has a single source. All of them are the result of the interaction and modification of several cultural traditions.

Finally, fourthly, the formation of the peoples that now inhabit the territory of Eastern Europe began relatively late: not earlier than the end of the 15th century. Prior to this, their ancestors did not have any ideas about the actual ethnic unity.

All this concerns both the modern Republic of Ukraine, Ukrainians and Ukrainian culture, and the Russian Federation, Russians and Russian culture - or any other state, people, culture.

Nevertheless, our peoples consider themselves, so to speak, the successors of certain ethnic, state and cultural communities that existed in the past (although in most cases these are mythical ideas that only partly correspond to reality). At the same time, the beginning of our history was common: until a certain moment, our ancestors did not suspect that the nationality of their descendants would depend on the territory in which they settled. Let's try to figure out which ethnic groups, cultural traditions and state formations gave life to the modern Ukrainian people, Ukrainian culture and the state of Ukraine.

In order not to retell once again the well-known facts set out, it seems, in all more or less popular essays on the history of Ukraine, we will try to find out what underlies these ideas, from where it is known about “how it really was” - and was "it" like that. At the same time, we will dwell only on the key events and phenomena that precede Ukraine's own history, which will begin much later: in the 15th-16th centuries.

Traditionally - for which there is every reason - it is believed that the common ancestor of the Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian peoples are the Eastern Slavs, who created the first state, which is conventionally called Old Russian (Kyiv or Ancient Russia). It was this association that became the common “ancestor” of subsequent state formations that continued certain traditions of the Old Russian state.

Without dwelling on the highly controversial problem of the origin and initial settlement of the Slavic tribes, let us turn to that time, the memory of which has been preserved in written sources.

The first and most important of these is The Tale of Bygone Years, which covers the period from ancient times to the second decade of the 12th century. It was preserved in the later chronicles of the XIV-XVI centuries. Back in the 30s of the XIX century. it became clear that the "Tale" itself is a continuation of earlier chronicle works. An analysis of the text of the Tale showed that it is based on earlier chronicles: the so-called “Initial Code” (1096–1099), “Nikon Code” (1073) and, finally, the “Ancient Code” (1037–1039), which preceded them, or a kind of plot narrative about the initial history that appeared at the same time (“The Tale of the Beginning of the Russian Land”, or “The Legend of the Initial Spread of Christianity in Russia”, or some other legend). It is important to note that before the Nikon Code, the text of the chronicle was not divided into annual articles. The dates of the early events were "backdated" only in the 70s. 11th century The grounds on which this work was done are not known to us (as, by the way, the time counting systems used by the first chroniclers are not exactly known). In other words, most of the dates of ancient Russian history are conditional and cannot be accepted without special verification (if at all possible).

It is also obvious that the earliest chronicle records could only be based on some kind of oral tradition, which was subsequently reworked by ancient Russian chroniclers for their own purposes. True, conjectures have been repeatedly expressed that until the 1930s. 11th century some sporadic records could be kept (for example, in the margins of Easter tables). However, no sources have yet been found to support these assumptions. So, the earliest period of ancient Russian history is clearly legendary. These legends obviously include the legends about the origin and settlement of the Eastern Slavs.

After the story of the division after the Flood of the land between the sons of Noah and the settlement of the Slavs, the chronicler reports: and the friends of gray-haired between Pripet and Dvina and draped Dregovichi; Ini sedosha on the Dvina and naming the Polotsk people, for the sake of speech, even flow into the Dvina, with the name of Polot, from sowing the Polotsk people were nicknamed. Slovene same sedosha near Lake Ilmer, and called by his name, and made hail and called Novgorod. And the friends of the sedosha along the Desna, and along the Seven, along the Sula, and swaying the north.

Traditionally, this message is considered as an exact indication of where certain "tribes" of the Eastern Slavs settled. So, in the fundamental work of Ukrainian historians “History of Ukraine”, in full accordance with the chronicle text, it is indicated: “The tribe of Polyans inhabited the Kiev region and Kanev region on the Dnieper Right Bank, the Drevlyans - Eastern Volyn, the northerners - the Dnieper Left Bank. In addition to them, on the territory of modern Ukraine lived streets (southern Dnieper and Bug), Croats (Carpathian and Transcarpathian), as well as Volynians or, as they were also called, Buzhans (Western Volyn). In other words, the author of the above text believes that the immediate ancestors of the future Ukrainians were representatives of the chronicle glades, Drevlyans, northerners, streets, Croats and Volhynians (Buzhans).

The question of the origin of the Ukrainian nation is one of the most controversial and controversial. Historians of Samostiynaya argue that the roots of the Ukrainian ethnos are the most ancient in Europe, scientists from other countries are trying to refute them.

"Autochthonous" Ukrainians

Today, hypotheses are expressed more and more boldly in the Ukrainian community, according to which the history of the Ukrainian ethnos should start its countdown almost from primitive tribes. At least our southern neighbors are seriously considering the version according to which it was the Ukrainian ethnic group that became the basis for the emergence of the Great Russian and Belarusian peoples.

Kyiv journalist Oles Buzina sneered about this hypothesis: “That is, according to the logic of her followers, a certain pithecanthropus, hatched from a monkey in Africa, came to the banks of the Dnieper, and then slowly reborn into a Ukrainian, from whom Russians, Belarusians and other peoples descended. to the Indians.

Ukrainian historians, who are trying to make their roots ancient in spite of Moscow, forget that for more than a thousand years, the lands from the Don to the Carpathians, subjected to the invasion of the Sarmatians, Huns, Goths, Pechenegs, Polovtsy, Tatars, have repeatedly changed their ethnic appearance. Thus, the devastating Mongol conquest in the second quarter of the 13th century significantly reduced the number of inhabitants of the Dnieper region. “Most of the people of Russia were killed or taken prisoner,” wrote the Franciscan Giovanni del Plano Carpini, who visited these lands.

For a long time, the former territories of the Kyiv Principality plunged into social and political turmoil. Until 1300, they were part of the Nogai ulus, from the 14th century they fell under the rule of the Principality of Lithuania, and two centuries later the Commonwealth came here. Until recently, a strong element of the Old Russian ethnos was thoroughly eroded.

In the middle of the 17th century, Cossack uprisings broke out against Polish rule, which were the first attempts to restore national identity. Their result is the “Hetmanate”, which has become an example of South Russian autonomy under Cossack control.

First self-names

Until the middle of the 17th century, the term "Ukrainian" was not used as an ethnic designation. This is recognized even by the most ideological historians of the Independent. But in the documents of that time there are other words - Russians, Rusyns, Little Russians, and even Russians.

In the “Protestation” of 1622 of the Kyiv Metropolitan Job Boretsky there are the following lines: “to every pious Russian people of the beginning of piety ... to all the pious Eastern Church, obedient to the great people of the Russian people, I will become a pious people of spiritual and svitsky dignity.”

And here is a fragment of a letter from 1651 by Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky to the Turkish Sultan Mehmed IV: "... and all of Russia that lives here, which with the Greeks of the same faith and from them has its origin ...". By the way, in a thought written down from a kobzar from Chernihiv region Andrey Shut, it is said: “What is hetman Khmelnitsky in us, Rusyn.”

Archpriest Simeon Adamovich of Nezhin in a letter to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich is more specific: “... and for those of my labors, from your royal mercy, I didn’t want to leave Moscow, knowing the inconstancy of my brethren of Little Russian residents ...”.

The phrase "Little Russia", as the name of the Dnieper lands, was first recorded in 1347 in the message of the Byzantine emperor John Kantakuzen.

marginal people

The term "Ukraine" for the first time we encounter in 1213. This is the date of the annalistic report about the return of the Russian cities bordering with Poland by Prince Daniel of Galicia. There, in particular, it is said: “Daniel went with his brother and Priya Berestii, and Ugrovesk, and Stolpye, Komov and all Ukraine.”

Such an early mention of the debatable term is often used as evidence of the antiquity of the Ukrainian nation. However, in the chronicle context, in fact, as in the context of that era, "Ukrainians" were called various frontier, outlying lands in the Muscovite kingdom ("Siberian Ukraine") and the Commonwealth ("Polish Ukraine").

The writer Volodymyr Anishchenkov says: “Science ethnology does not mark such a people as “Ukrainian” until the 19th century. Moreover, at first the Poles began to call the local residents “Ukrainians”, then the Austrians and Germans. This name was introduced into the consciousness of the Little Russians for several centuries. Since the 15th century.

However, in the minds of the Cossack elites, a single ethnic group living on the territory of Little Russia began to separate and oppose its neighbors already in the second half of the 17th century. Zaporozhye ataman Ivan Bryukhovetsky wrote in an address to hetman Petro Doroshenko: “Having taken God to help, near their enemies to Moscow, there are Muscovites, having no more friendship with them ... so that we know about such Moscow and Lyatsk unprofitable intention for us and Ukraine, prepared doom is to be expected, but they themselves and the entire Ukrainian people were not glad to lead themselves to a driven decline.

The term "Ukrainians" came to the inhabitants of the Western regions of Ukraine, which were part of Austria-Hungary, the latest - at the beginning of the 20th century. "Westerners" traditionally called themselves Rusyns (in the German version, "rutens").

“Mogul! Moghuls!

It is curious that the poet Taras Shevchenko, the pride of the Ukrainian nation, did not use the ethnonym "Ukrainian" in any of his works. But in his message to fellow countrymen there are such lines: “The Germans say:“ You could. “Mogul! Moghuls! Golden Tamerlane is taught naked.

In the pamphlet “Ukrainian Movement” published in Berlin in 1925, Russian emigrant and publicist Andrei Storozhenko wrote: “Observations on the mixing of races show that in subsequent generations, when crossing already occurs within the same people, nevertheless, individuals can be born that reproduce in the pure form of an ancestor of someone else's blood. Getting acquainted with the leaders of the Ukrainian movement, starting from 1875, not from books, but in living images, we got the impression that the “Ukrainians” are precisely individuals who deviated from the all-Russian type in the direction of reproducing the ancestors of someone else’s Turkic blood.”

But one of the most popular images of Ukrainian folklore - "Cossack-knight Mamai" - is a clear confirmation of this assumption. Where did the character of folk pictures get a purely Tatar nickname? Isn't he the personification of Beklarbek Mamai, whose descendants took part in the formation of the Cossacks in Ukraine?

Translated from the Turkic languages, “Cossack” means “robber”, “exile”. That is how they called the fugitives from the army of Genghis Khan who did not want to obey the despot, who settled in the steppe regions of present-day Ukraine. The medieval Polish chronicler Jan Długosz wrote about Crimean Tatars who attacked Volyn in 1469: "The Tatar army is made up of fugitives, miners and exiles, whom they call Cossacks in their language."

The results of archaeological excavations at the site of the battle of Berestechko (1651) also suggest the Tatar roots of the current Ukrainian nation: it turns out that the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks did not wear pectoral crosses. Archaeologist Igor Svechnikov argued that the idea of ​​the Zaporizhzhya Sich as a stronghold of Christianity is greatly exaggerated. It is no coincidence that the first church in Zaporizhzhya freemen appeared only in the 18th century, after the Cossacks accepted Russian citizenship.

What do geneticists say?

It is impossible not to pay attention to the ethnic diversity of the population of modern Ukraine. Ethnographers argue that the Pechenegs, Polovtsy and Tatars played no less a role in shaping the appearance of the “wide” Ukrainian than the Rusyns, Poles or Jews.

Genetics as a whole confirms such assumptions. Similar studies were carried out by the Laboratory of Population Genetics of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, using genetic markers of the Y-chromosome (transmitted through the male line) and mitochondrial DNA (pedigree of the female line).

The results of the study, on the one hand, revealed a significant genetic similarity of Ukrainians with Belarusians, Poles and residents of the West of Russia, but on the other hand, they showed a noticeable difference between the three intra-Ukrainian and clusters - western, central and eastern.

In another study, already by American scientists at Harvard University, the distribution of Ukrainians by haplogroups was analyzed in more depth. It turned out that 65-70% of Ukrainians belong to the haplogroup R1a, which is typical for the steppe peoples. For example, among the Kyrgyz it occurs in 70% of cases, among Uzbeks - in 60%, among Bashkirs and Kazan Tatars - in 50%. For comparison, in the Russian regions of the north-west - Novgorod, Pskov, Arkhangelsk, Vologda regions - the R1a group belongs to 30-35% of the population.
Other haplogroups of Ukrainians were distributed as follows: three of them at once - R1b (Western European), I2 (Balkan), and N (Finno-Ugric) each have about 10% representatives, another one - E (Africa, Western Asia) has approximately 5% .

As for the “autochthonous” inhabitants of the territory of Ukraine, genetics is powerless here. “The genotypes of modern Ukrainians cannot tell us anything about the ancient history of the population of Ukraine,” admits the American geneticist Peter Forster.

The Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Volodymyr Omelyan publicly reflected in the sense that Ukraine should “return” not only the Donbass and Crimea, but also the Kuban. Russian historian Oleg Nazarov and director of the Institute of Archeology of Ukraine Petr Tolochko recently discussed this topic.

Is it possible to consider, for example, President Poroshenko a literate person? After all, he claimed that Prince Vladimir (the baptizer of Russia) was the founder of Ukraine. Meanwhile, the very concept of Ukraine appeared 600 years later than the reign of Vladimir. Bogdan Khmelnytsky, who signed an agreement with Moscow in 1654, did this on behalf of the Zaporizhzhya army, because the inhabitants of the eastern Polish territories were considered “outskirts” (Ukrainians). Little Russia of the times of Bogdan Khmelnitsky was an autonomy within the part of modern Ukrainian regions on the left side of the Dnieper. The Poles ruled on the right bank of the Dnieper.

The Pereyaslav Rada, which approved the entry of the Zaporizhian Army into the Muscovite State, served as a prologue to another Russian-Polish war. As a result, the Russian tsar returned Smolensk, Chernigov and Dorogobuzh, lost in the Time of Troubles, under his hand. The border between the Russian and Polish states passed strictly along the Dnieper, and Kyiv was then redeemed from the Poles in gold. Little Russia was ruled by hetmans, but after Mazepa's betrayal of Peter I, this form was transformed into an ordinary Russian province, then revived under Catherine II for Razumovsky's favorite. However, in 1764 autonomy was finally curtailed.

The Russian monarchs looked at Little Russia in exactly the same way as they looked at the Urals or Siberia, that is, as at the "indigenous" Russian land. Novorossia was conquered from the Crimean Khanate and the Nogai Horde. It was after this that the inhabitants of modern Russian and central Ukrainian regions flocked there. Not for nothing that Kirovograd used to be called Yelisavetgrad, and Dnepropetrovsk Yekaterinoslav. At the same time, Kherson, Odessa and Nikolaev began to develop rapidly. The project for the development of Little Russia (Southern Russia) is a project of the tsarist time.

Ukraine emerged only after the fall of the monarchy in Russia. In 1918, the Ukrainian People's Republic was proclaimed. As a result of the Bolshevik idea to separate Ukraine from the USSR as a separate republic, Donetsk, Krivoy Rog and all of Novorossia were slaughtered for it. After Lenin, Stalin added modern western regions to Ukraine, and Khrushev, having debunked the “cult of personality” of his former leader, added Crimea to Ukraine. All this was done because the Soviet Union of that time had absolutely no intention of disintegrating.

Currently, Ukraine is dominated by political forces that proclaim Ukrainians as a “special people”, not related to Russians. History has already been rewritten for this case. The point is in the well-known theory that says that whoever controls the past controls the present, and whoever controls the present controls the future. The future in this political project for Ukraine is the servants of Europe. This is despite the fact that in terms of its industrial potential, Ukraine after the collapse of the USSR was not inferior to Germany.

Kuban? This territory has never been part of Ukraine. Rather, left-bank Ukraine and Novorossiya would have returned to a single state with the Russians. This is a question of history and the role of individuals in history. Some individuals expand the territory of the state, while others reduce it. The question is not in the Kuban, the question is that the situation in Ukraine is being watched with interest in Romania, Hungary and Poland. The main deterrent is the general political lack of independence. Ukrainians normally developed as a people under the tsars and later soviets (the number of Ukrainians increased numerically).

Actually, Razumovsky, Khrushchev or Brezhnev mentioned here are Ukrainian cadres. And there have always been no few such nominees to power from Ukrainian territory. What will happen next with the Ukrainian population in the "European project" is clear. Degradation of education, degradation of industry, degradation of culture. And the reduction of the population as in the Baltic states, Bulgaria and Romania. Usual political technologies and betting on soft and hard violence.

Russia in the image of an enemy is traditional for the policy of the "developed West" in the "undeveloped" Eastern Europe. Such approaches are successful exactly as long as Moscow is weak. Globalization will try to erase both Ukrainians and Russians from history. History is being transported now in a way that is beneficial to those who ensure the process of globalization. In hindsight, the concepts needed at the moment appear, history is rewritten and redrawn. However, this is no longer history, but ideology.

The meaning of the quality of states is always the same - the development or degradation of their population. Main indicators: natural increase and migration; level of education and science; level of industrial development, average life expectancy and official retirement age. If the state does not develop its human resources, then it develops other people's resources. Practically for the control of human resources modern “hybrid wars” are being waged.

UKRAINE. STORY
In the I millennium BC. The steppes of Ukraine were inhabited, replacing each other, by the Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Goths and other nomadic peoples. Ancient Greek colonists lived in several city-states on the Black Sea coast in the 7th-3rd centuries. BC. In the 6th c. AD the northern part of the territory of modern Ukraine was settled by the tribes of Slavs displaced by nomads from the Danube. Kyiv was founded in the 6th century. clearings and captured in 882 by the Slovene prince Oleg from Novgorod. Thanks to its convenient location on important trade routes "from the Varangians to the Greeks," Kyiv turned into the center of a powerful state. During the period of its highest prosperity during the reign of the Grand Dukes Vladimir I (980-1015) and Yaroslav I the Wise (1019-1054), Kievan Rus was one of the largest states in Europe. In 988-989 Vladimir I abandoned paganism and adopted Orthodox Christianity. Yaroslav the Wise put the laws of the state in order; his daughters married the kings of France, Hungary and Norway. Due to the blocking of the trade route along the Dnieper by nomads and internal intrigues, Kievan Rus by the middle of the 12th century. fell into disrepair. In 1169, Grand Duke Andrei Bogolyubsky transferred the capital of Russia to Vladimir. In 1240, Kyiv was destroyed to the ground by the Mongol-Tatars under the leadership of Batu Khan, and then captured by Lithuania. Vladimir-Suzdal principality in the interfluve of the Oka and Volga in the middle of the 13th century. was conquered by the Mongol-Tatars. The Carpathian principality of Galicia-Volyn continued to exist independently until joining Poland and Lithuania in the 14th century. National, social and religious oppression in Catholic Poland caused a mass exodus of peasants to the south of Ukraine in the 15th-16th centuries. and contributed to the emergence of the Cossacks. Zaporizhzhya Sich - an independent community located beyond the thresholds of the lower reaches of the Dnieper - became the stronghold of the Cossacks. Poland's attempts to suppress the Cossacks led to mass uprisings, especially during the liberation war of 1648-1654. The uprising was led by the Cossack hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky (1595-1657). The victorious war of Khmelnytsky against the Poles led to the creation of the Ukrainian Cossack state. In 1654 Khmelnytsky signed the Treaty of Pereyaslav on the creation of a military and political union with Russia. As Russian influence grew, the Cossacks began to lose autonomy and repeatedly initiated new uprisings and rebellions. In 1709 Hetman Ivan Mazepa (1687-1709) took the side of Sweden against Russia in the Northern War (1700-1721), but the Cossacks and Swedes were defeated in the Battle of Poltava (1709). The Hetmanate and the Zaporizhzhya Sich were abolished - the first in 1764, and the second in 1775 - after Russia ousted the Turks from the Black Sea region. During the partitions of Poland in 1772, 1793 and 1795, Ukrainian lands west of the Dnieper were divided between Russia and Austria. In the first half of the 19th century Ukrainian lands remained the agrarian outskirts of Russia and Austria. The development of the Black Sea and Donbass, the opening of universities in Kharkov (1805), Kyiv (1834) and Odessa (1865) stimulated the growth of the national consciousness of the Ukrainian intelligentsia. People's poet Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861) and political publicist Mikhailo Drahomanov (1841-1895) gave impetus to the growth of national identity. At the end of the 19th century Nationalist and socialist parties emerged in Ukraine. The Russian state responded to nationalism with persecution and restrictions on the use of the Ukrainian language. Austrian Galicia, which had much greater political freedom, became the center of national culture. The First World War and the revolution in Russia destroyed the empires of the Habsburgs and the Romanovs. Ukrainians got the opportunity to create their own state; On November 20, 1917, the Ukrainian People's Republic was proclaimed in Kyiv, on December 12, 1917, in Kharkov, the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, and on November 1, 1918, in Lvov, the Western Ukrainian People's Republic. On January 22, 1919, the people's republics united. However, the military position of the new state became hopeless under the blows of the Polish troops from the west and the Red Army from the east (1920). The southeastern part of Ukraine was for some time controlled by anarchist peasants led by Nestor Makhno. The war in Ukraine continued until 1921. As a result, Galicia and Volyn were included in Poland, and eastern Ukraine became a Soviet republic. Between the First and Second World Wars, there was a powerful Ukrainian nationalist movement in Poland. It was led by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Military Organization. Legal Ukrainian parties, the Greek Catholic Church, the Ukrainian press and entrepreneurship found opportunities for their development in Poland. In the 1920s in Soviet Ukraine, thanks to the policy of Ukrainization, there was a national revival in literature and art, carried out by the republican communist leadership. When the leadership of the CPSU(b) changed its general political course in the late 1920s, the Communist Party of Ukraine was purged for its "nationalist bias." As a result of the terror of the 1930s, many Ukrainian writers, artists, and intellectuals were destroyed; the peasantry was crushed by collectivization and the mass famine of 1932-1933. After Germany and the USSR divided Poland in August-September 1939, Galicia and Volhynia were annexed to Soviet Ukraine. Northern Bukovina, which ended up in Romania after 1917, was included in Ukraine in 1940, and the Transcarpathian region, which had previously been part of Czechoslovakia, in 1945. The German attack on the USSR in 1941 was welcomed by many Western Ukrainians; The OUN even tried to create a Ukrainian state under German auspices. However, Nazi policies alienated most Ukrainians. The OUN created nationalist partisan detachments - the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA); many eastern Ukrainians joined the Soviet partisans or fought in the Red Army against the Germans. After the Second World War, the OUN and UPA continued their partisan struggle against Soviet power in Western Ukraine until 1953. The war devastated the country. Its entire territory was occupied. 714 cities and 28 thousand villages were destroyed, which were restored in the late 1940s and early 1950s. At the same time, political repression intensified in Western Ukraine. With the death of I.V. Stalin in 1953 the situation changed. Under N.S. Khrushchev (who headed the Communist Party of Ukraine in 1938-1949), a whole galaxy of writers, artists, intelligentsia, the so-called. "Generation of the Sixties". After the removal of Khrushchev in 1964, the Soviet regime began to persecute dissidents such as Vyacheslav Chornovil (1938-1999), editor of the underground Ukrainskiy Vestnik, Valentin Moroz (b. 1936), critic of Soviet policy towards Ukraine, and others. Rise to power in the Kremlin, MS Gorbachev in 1985 led to political changes in Ukraine. The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in April 1986 caused radioactive contamination of vast areas and undermined the credibility of the party leadership, which tried to cover up the accident. Glasnost made it possible to fill in the "white spots" in the history of Ukraine, and the growing political freedom - to rehabilitate dissident groups and create cultural organizations with a national orientation. The turning point in public life was the formation of Rukh at the end of 1989 and the removal of V.V. Shcherbitsky from power. In 1990, the former secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, L.M. Kravchuk, was appointed chairman of the presidium of the cosmetically updated Supreme Council, which included 25% of deputies from national and democratic movements elected in semi-free elections in 1990. On July 16, 1990, Ukraine declared its sovereignty. This term meant independence for the nationalists, and autonomy for the communists. November 21, 1990 Ukraine and the RSFSR signed an agreement on sovereignty and non-interference in each other's internal affairs. While the union government continued to disintegrate, Ukraine, the RSFSR and other republics were engaged in negotiations with Gorbachev about the form of the future union. After the failed coup on August 24, 1991, Ukraine declared independence. A few days later, the Communist Party of Ukraine was banned and its property confiscated. A popular independence referendum was held on 1 December; about 90% of those who voted supported the Declaration of Independence. Most of the world's countries recognized Ukraine over the next few months. The Ukrainian Republic became a member of the Council for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the International Monetary Fund, the NATO Advisory Council and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. December 8, 1991 Ukraine created with Russian Federation and Belarus Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). However, immediately after that, tensions arose between Ukraine and Russia. The Russian Federation took over practically all the property of the Soviet state; at the same time, some Russian politicians demanded the annexation of the Donbass and Crimea to Russia (the latter was conquered by Russia from Turkey in 1783 and transferred to Ukraine by N.S. Khrushchev in 1954). The Ukrainian government responded to these demands by taking steps to create its own army and navy. Despite the signing of a number of agreements, relations between the Russian Federation and Ukraine remained very tense, especially after the election of Yuri Meshkov, a supporter of the separation of Crimea from Ukraine, as president of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in 1994. After the signing of a tripartite agreement between the presidents of Ukraine, the Russian Federation and the United States (1994), Ukraine began to transfer nuclear weapons to Russia. As a result, Ukraine's relations with the US and Western European countries have improved. Ukraine has established closer economic and political ties with Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. On December 1, 1991, L.M. Kravchuk was elected President of Ukraine (60% of the votes were cast for him). When the presidential re-elections were held in June 1994, they were won by former Prime Minister L.D. Kuchma, who proposed a moderate political program (52% of the vote). Kuchma began his tenure as president with promises to embark on economic and political reforms, create a market economy, and strengthen democratic institutions. Although the beginning of reforms was announced in the fall of 1994, progress in their implementation turned out to be insignificant due to the lack of legislative framework and corruption at all levels of government. Elections to a new parliament in March 1998 did little to change the political situation. Out of 450 seats, left-wing radicals and left-centrists (122 communists, socialists, the Peasant Party, the Union bloc) took more than 200 seats, centrists and right-centrists - about 130 (including the presidential People's Democratic Party and Rukh), right - 6 and independent - more than 110 seats. On April 19, 1999, the composition of deputies from the main parties was as follows (indicating the number of those who left): KPU - 122 (1), NDP - 53 (39), "Rukh" (Kostenko) - 30 (18), "Rukh" (Chornovil) - 16 (0), SDPU - 27 (5), Revival of regions - 27 (1), SPU - 24 (13), Gromada - 28 (17). In July 1997, Ukraine signed a charter that defined "special" relations between Ukraine and NATO. Relations with Russia improved in 1997 thanks to new economic agreements and the achievement of an acceptable solution for the division of the Black Sea Fleet. In November 1999, Leonid Kuchma was re-elected President of Ukraine.

Collier Encyclopedia. - Open society. 2000 .

See what "UKRAINE. HISTORY" is in other dictionaries:

State in east. parts of Europe. The name Ukraine in the meaning of outskirts, border territory was first mentioned in the annals under 1187. Initially, it denoted part of the southwest. lands of Ancient Russia, mainly the Middle Dnieper, the territory of Galicia ... Geographic Encyclopedia

History of Rus or Little Russia History of Rus or Little Russia Author: Archbishop of Belarus Georgy Konisky Genre: history Original language: Russian Original published by ... Wikipedia

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Ukrainian Republic, a state in Eastern Europe. In the south it is washed by the waters of the Black and Azov Seas; in the east and northeast it borders with the Russian Federation, in the north with Belarus, in the west with Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, in the south ... ... Collier Encyclopedia

History of Ukraine ... Wikipedia

Ukraine is the largest state in Europe. Although some historians claim that the country is the cradle of European culture and has been around for centuries, this is not true. The formation of Ukraine as a state actually took place 23 years ago. This is a young country that is just learning to live independently, without anyone's support. Of course, Ukraine has its own centuries-old history, but still there is no mention of the country as a full-fledged state. Scythians, Sarmatians, Turkic peoples, Russians, Cossacks once lived on this territory. All of them in one way or another influenced the development of the country.

Ancient history

You need to start with the fact that the word "Ukraine" in translation from Old Russian means "outskirts", that is, no man's land, borderland. These territories were also called the "wild field". The first mention of the Black Sea steppes date back to the 7th century BC, when the Scythians settled there. They are described in the Old Testament as an unmerciful and cruel nomadic people. In 339 BC. e. the Scythians were defeated in battle with Philip of Macedon, the beginning of their end.

For four centuries, the Black Sea region was dominated by the Sarmatians. These were kindred nomadic tribes who migrated from the Lower Volga region. In the 2nd century A.D. e. The Sarmatians were pushed back by the Turkic peoples. In the 7th century, Slavs began to settle on the banks of the Dnieper, who at that time were called Rusichs. That is why the lands they occupied were called Kievan Rus. Some researchers argue that the formation of Ukraine as a state took place in 1187. This is not entirely true. At that time, only the term “Ukraine” appeared, which meant nothing more than the outskirts of Kievan Rus.

Tartar raids

At one time, the lands of modern Ukraine were subjected to raids. Rusichs tried to develop the rich, fertile lands of the Great Steppe, but constant robberies and murders did not allow them to complete their plans. For many centuries, the Tatars posed a great threat to the Slavs. Huge territories remained uninhabited only for the reason that they were adjacent to the Crimea. The Tatars carried out raids because they needed to somehow support their own economy. They were engaged in cattle breeding, but it did not give a big profit. The Tatars robbed their Slavic neighbors, took young and healthy people prisoner, then exchanging slaves for finished Turkish products. Volyn, Kiev region and Galicia suffered the most from the Tatar raids.

The settlement of fertile lands

Grain growers and landowners were well aware of the benefits that could be derived from fertile free territories. Despite the fact that there was a threat of an attack by the Tatars, rich people appropriated the steppes, built settlements, thus attracting peasants to themselves. The landowners had their own army, thanks to which they maintained order and discipline in the territories they controlled. They provided the peasants with land for use, and in return they demanded the payment of dues. The grain trade brought untold wealth to the Polish magnates. The most famous were Koretsky, Pototsky, Vishnevetsky, Konetspolsky. While the Slavs labored in the fields, the Poles lived in luxurious palaces, basking in wealth.

Cossack period

The freedom-loving Cossacks, who began to populate the free steppes at the end of the 15th century, sometimes thought of the creation of a state. Ukraine could be a haven for robbers and vagabonds, because it was they who originally inhabited this territory. People who wanted to be free came to the deserted outskirts, so the bulk of the Cossacks were farm laborers who were running away from pan slavery. Also here came the townspeople and priests-cutters in search of a better life. Among the Cossacks there were people of noble origin, they were mainly looking for adventure and, of course, wealth.

The gangs consisted of Russians, Poles, Belarusians and even Tatars, they accepted absolutely everyone. Initially, these were the most common robber gangs who robbed the Tatars and Turks and lived on the stolen goods. Over time, they began to build sichs - fortified camps, in which a military garrison was always on duty. They returned there from their trips.

Some historians believe that 1552 is the year Ukraine was formed as a state. In fact, at that time, the famous one of which the Ukrainians are so proud arose. But it was not the prototype of the modern state. In 1552, the Cossack gangs were united, and their fort was built on the island of Malaya Khortitsa. All this was done by Vishnevetsky.

Although initially the Cossacks were ordinary robbers who robbed the Turks for their own benefit, over time they began to protect the settlements of the Slavs from the raids of the Tatars, freed their fellow countrymen from captivity. To Turkey, this freedom-loving brethren seemed like a punishment from heaven. Cossacks on their seagulls (long, narrow boats) silently swam to the shores of the enemy country and suddenly attacked the strongest fortifications.

The state of Ukraine wanted to create one of the most famous hetmans - Bogdan Khmelnitsky. This ataman waged a grueling struggle with the Polish army, dreaming of the independence and freedom of all fellow countrymen. Khmelnitsky understood that he alone could not cope with the Western enemy, so he found a patron in the person of the Moscow Tsar. Of course, after that, the bloodshed in Ukraine ended, but it never became independent.

Fall of tsarism

The emergence of Ukraine as a state would have been possible immediately after the overthrow of the Romanov dynasty from the throne. Unfortunately, local politicians did not have enough strength, intelligence, and, most importantly, solidarity to bring their plan to the end and make their country independent. Kyiv learned about the fall of tsarism on March 13, 1917. In just a few days, Ukrainian politicians created the Central Rada, but ideological limitations and inexperience in such matters prevented them from holding power in their hands.

According to some reports, the formation of Ukraine as a state took place on November 22, 1917. It was on this day that the Central Rada promulgated the Third Universal, proclaiming itself the highest authority. True, at that time she had not yet decided to break all ties with Russia, so Ukraine temporarily became an autonomous republic. Perhaps such caution by politicians was unnecessary. Two months later, the Central Rada decided to form a state. Ukraine was proclaimed an independent and completely independent country from Russia.

Interaction with Austrians and Germans

The period when Ukraine appeared as a state was not easy. For this reason, the Central Rada was forced to ask for support and protection from European countries. On February 18, 1918, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed, according to which Ukraine was to carry out mass food supplies to Europe, and in return received recognition of independence and military support.

The Austrians and Germans brought troops into the territory of the state in a short period of time. Unfortunately, Ukraine could not fulfill its part of the terms of the agreement, so at the end of April 1918 the Central Rada was dissolved. On April 29, Pavel Skoropadsky began to rule the country. The formation of Ukraine as a state was given to the people with great difficulty. The trouble is that there were no good rulers in the country who could defend the independence of the controlled territories. Skoropadsky did not last even a year in power. Already on December 14, 1918, he fled in disgrace along with the allied German troops. Ukraine was left to be torn to pieces, European countries did not recognize its independence and did not provide support.

The coming to power of the Bolsheviks

The beginning of the 1920s brought a lot of grief to Ukrainian homes. The Bolsheviks created a system of tough economic measures to somehow stop the collapse of the economy and save the newly formed state. Ukraine suffered the most from the so-called "war communism", because its territories were a source of agricultural products. Accompanied by armed detachments, officials went around the villages and took grain from the peasants by force. It got to the point that freshly baked bread was taken from the houses. Naturally, such an atmosphere did not contribute to an increase in agricultural production, the peasants simply refused to work.

Drought was added to all the misfortunes. The famine of 1921-1922 claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians. The government was well aware that it was not advisable to use the whip method further. Therefore, the law on the NEP (New Economic Policy) was adopted. Thanks to him, by 1927, the area of ​​cultivated land had increased by 10%. During this period, the real formation of the state is noted. Ukraine is slowly forgetting about the horrors of the civil war, famine, dispossession. Prosperity returns to the homes of Ukrainians, so they begin to treat the Bolsheviks more condescendingly.

Voluntary-compulsory entry into the USSR

At the end of 1922, in Moscow, they thought about the unification of Russia, Belarus and the Transcaucasian republics in order to create more stable ties. Until the time when Ukraine was formed as a state, there were some seven decades left. On December 30, 1922, representatives of all the Soviet republics approved the unification plan, thus the USSR was created.

Theoretically, any of the republics had the right to secede from the union, but for this it had to obtain the consent of the Communist Party. In practice, gaining independence was very difficult. The party was centralized and controlled from Moscow. Ukraine in terms of area occupied the second place among all the republics. The city of Kharkov was chosen as the capital. When answering the question about when Ukraine was formed as a state, it should be noted the 20s of the twentieth century, because it was then that the country acquired territorial and administrative borders.

Renewal and development of the country

Breathed life into Ukraine. During this time, 400 new enterprises appeared, the country accounted for about 20% of all capital investments. In 1932, the Dnepropetrovsk hydroelectric power station was built, which at that time became the largest in Europe. Thanks to the labor of the workers, the Kharkov Tractor Plant, the Zaporozhye Metallurgical Plant, and many Donbas factories appeared. In a short time, a huge number of economic transformations have been made. In order to improve discipline and increase efficiency, competitions were introduced for the early implementation of the plan. The government singled out the best workers and awarded them the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.

Ukraine during World War II

In the period 1941-1945. Millions of people died in the country. Most Ukrainians fought on the side of the Soviet Union, but this does not apply to Western Ukraine. In this territory other moods prevailed. According to the militants of the OUN, the divisions of the SS "Galicia", Ukraine was supposed to become independent from Moscow. The history of the formation of the state could be completely different if the Nazis still won. It is hard to believe that the Germans would have given Ukraine independence, but nevertheless, with promises, they managed to win over about 220,000 Ukrainians to their side. Even after the end of the war, these armed formations continued to exist.

Life after Stalin

The death of the Soviet leader brought with it a new life for millions of people living in the USSR. The new ruler was Nikita Khrushchev, who was closely connected with Ukraine and, of course, patronized it. During his reign, she reached a new level of development. It was thanks to Khrushchev that Ukraine received the Crimean peninsula. How the state arose is another matter, but it formed its administrative-territorial boundaries precisely in the Soviet Union.

Then Leonid Brezhnev, also a native of Ukraine, came to power. After the short reign of Andropov and Chernenko, Mikhail Gorbachev took the helm. It was he who decided to radically change the stagnant economy and the Soviet system as a whole. Gorbachev had to overcome the conservatism of society and the party. Mikhail Sergeevich always called for publicity and tried to be closer to the people. People began to feel freer, but still, even under Gorbachev, the communists completely controlled the army, police, agriculture, industry, the KGB, and watched the media.

gaining independence

The date of formation of Ukraine as a state is known to everyone - it is August 24, 1991. But what preceded this momentous event? On March 17, 1991, a poll was held, thanks to which it became clear that Ukrainians are not at all against sovereignty, the main thing is that it does not subsequently worsen their living conditions. The Communists tried in every possible way to keep power in their hands, but it inevitably eluded them.

On August 19, 1991, the reactionaries isolated Mikhail Gorbachev in the Crimea, while in Moscow they themselves tried to seize the initiative by declaring a state of emergency and forming the State Emergency Committee. But the communists failed. On August 24, 1991, when Ukraine appeared as a state, the Verkhovna Rada declared the independence of the country. And after 5 days, the activity of the Communist Party was banned by Parliament. On December 1 of the same year, Ukrainians supported the Act of Independence in a referendum and elected their first president, Leonid Kravchuk.

For many years, the formation of Ukraine as a state took place. The map of the country changed frequently. Many territories were annexed in the Soviet Union, this applies to Western Ukraine, part of the Odessa region and Crimea. The main task of Ukrainians is to preserve the modern administrative-territorial borders. True, it is difficult to do so. So, the third president of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko in 2009 gave part A to Romania. In 2014, Ukraine lost its pearl - the Crimean peninsula, which passed to Russia. Whether the country will be able to keep its territories intact and remain independent, only time will tell.