Written by Dr. dimitrios Antoniou, Greece 2022 HISTORY OF UKRAINE Ukraine is a sovereign state in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Belarus to the northwest, Poland and Slovakia to the west, Hungary, Romania, and Moldova to the southwest, and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south and southeast, respectively. Ukraine is currently in territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula which Russia invaded and annexed in 2014 but which Ukraine and most of the international community recognize as Ukrainian. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km2 (233,062 sq mi), making it the largest country entirely within Europe and the 46th largest country in the world, and a population of about 44.5 million, making it the 32nd most populous country in the world. The territory of modern Ukraine has been inhabited since 32,000 BC. During the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture, with the powerful state of Kievan Rus' forming the basis of Ukrainian identity. Following its fragmentation in the 13th century, the territory was contested, ruled and divided by a variety of powers, including Lithuania, Poland, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. A Cossack republic (*) emerged and prospered during the 17th and 18th centuries, but its territory was eventually split between Poland and the Russian Empire, and later submerged fully into Russia. Two brief periods of independence occurred during the 20th century, once near the end of World War I and another during World War II, but both occasions would ultimately see Ukraine's territories conquered and consolidated into a Soviet republic, a situation that persisted until 1991, when Ukraine gained its independence from the Soviet Union in the aftermath of its dissolution at the end of the Cold War. Before its independence, Ukraine was typically referred to in English as "The Ukraine", but sources since then have moved to drop "the" from the name of Ukraine in all uses. Following independence, Ukraine fell into a log political turmoil, which at the end precipitated the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, and the War in Donbass in March 2014; both are still ongoing as of August 2016. On 1 January 2016, Ukraine joined the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area with the European Union. The country is home to 42.5 million people (excluding Crimea). 77.8% of whom are Ukrainians by ethnicity, followed by a sizeable minority of Russians (17.3%) as well as Romanians/Moldovans, Belarusians, Crimean Tatars, and Hungarians. Ukrainian is the official language of Ukraine; its alphabet is
Cyrillic. The dominant religion in the country is Eastern Orthodoxy, which has strongly influenced Ukrainian architecture, literature and music. (*) The Cossack Hetmanate officially known as the Rus State or Zaporizhian Host was a Ukrainian Cossack state in Central Ukraine between 1649 and 1764 (some sources claim until 1782. The Hetmanate was founded by the Hetman of Zaporizhian Host Bohdan Khmelnytsky during the Uprising of 1648–57, which was a Cossack rebellion within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1648–1657, which led to the creation of a Cossack Hetmanate in Ukrainian lands. Under the command of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the Zaporozhian Cossacks, allied with the Crimean Tatars and local peasantry, fought against the armies and paramilitary forces of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The insurgency was accompanied by mass atrocities committed by Cossacks against civilian population, especially against the Roman Catholic clergy and the Jews. The uprising has a symbolic meaning in the history of Ukraine's relationship with Poland and Russia. It ended the Polish Catholic Szlachta′s domination over the Orthodox Christian population; at the same time it led to the eventual incorporation of eastern Ukraine into the Tsardom of Russia initiated by the 1654 Pereyaslav Agreement, whereby the Cossacks would swear allegiance to the Tsar while retaining a wide autonomy. The event triggered a period of political turbulence and infighting in the Hetmanate known as the Ruin. The success of anti-Polish rebellion, along with internal conflicts in Poland as well as concurrent wars waged by Poland with Russia and Sweden (Russo-Polish War (1654–67) and Second Northern War (1655–1660) respectively), ended the Polish Golden Age and caused a secular decline of Polish power during the period known in Polish history as the Deluge. The signing of a military alliance with the Tsardom of Russia during the Council of Pereyaslav is considered a major benchmark of Cossack Hetmanate in Soviet, Ukrainian, and Russian historiography. The official document, which symbolized union between Russia and Ukraine, however, was never preserved and is thought to be a fiction. Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic-speaking people who became known as members of democratic, self-governing, semi-military communities, predominantly located in Ukraine and in Russia. They inhabited sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper, Don, Terek, and Ural river basins and played an important role in the historical and cultural development of both Russia and Ukraine. The origins of the first Cossacks are disputed, though the 1710 Constitution of Pylyp Orlyk claimed Khazar (a semi-nomadic Turkic people), origin. The traditional post-imperial historiography dates the emergence of Cossacks to
the 14th or 15th centuries, when two connected groups emerged, the Zaporozhian Sich of the Dnieper and the Don Cossack Host. By the 18th century, Cossack hosts in the Russian Empire occupied effective buffer zones on its borders. The expansionist ambitions of the Empire relied on ensuring the loyalty of Cossacks, which caused tension given their traditional exercise of freedom, democratic self-rule, and independence. Cossacks such as Stenka Razin, Kondraty Bulavin, Ivan Mazepa, and Yemelyan Pugachev, led major anti-imperial wars and revolutions in the Empire in order to abolish slavery and odious bureaucracy and to maintain independence. The Empire responded by ruthless executions and tortures, the destruction of the western part of the Don Cossack Host during the Bulavin Rebellion in 1707–1708, the destruction of Baturyn after Mazepa's rebellion in 1708,[13] and the formal dissolution of the Lower Dnieper Zaporozhian Host in 1775, after Pugachev's Rebellion. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Tsarist regime used Cossacks extensively to perform police service (for example, both to prevent pogroms and to suppress the revolutionary movement, especially in 1905–7).[17] They also served as border guards on national and internal ethnic borders (as was the case in the Caucasus War). During the Russian Civil War, Don and Kuban Cossacks were the first nations to declare open war against the Bolsheviks. By 1918, Cossacks declared the complete independence of their nations and formed the independent states, the Ukrainian State, the Don Republic, and the Kuban People's Republic. The Cossack troops formed the effective core of the anti-Bolshevik White Army, and Cossack republics became centers for the Anti-Bolshevik White movement. With the victory of the Red Army, the Cossack lands were subjected to Decossackization, which was the Bolshevik policy of systematic repressions against Cossacks of the Russian Empire, especially of the Don and the Kuban, between 1917 and 1933 aimed at the elimination of the Cossacks as a separate ethnic, political, and economic entity. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Cossacks made a systematic return to Russia.
Principalities of Kievan Rus', 1054–1132.
Historical map of Kievan Rus', last 20 years of the state (1220–1240).
The Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia or Kingdom of Halych-Volynia (1245–1349).
Historical map of Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Rus' and Samogitia until 1434.
Following the Mongol invasion, much of Ukraine was controlled by Lithuania (from the 14th century on) and after the Union of Lublin (1569) was included in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, illustrated here in 1619.
Proposed Polish–Lithuanian–Ruthenian Commonwealth or Commonwealth of Three Nations (1658).
The 1720 Map of Vkraine or Cossack Land created by Johann Baptist Homann.
Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate and territory of Zaporozhian Cossacks under rule of Russian Empire (1751).
Cossack Hetmanate (1740-1750).
The Cossack Hetmanate (1649–1764). is considered as a direct ancestor of today's Ukraine.
Ukraine in 1918.