History of Ukraine
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Ukraine in World War II
Following the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, in September 1939, German and Soviet troops divided the territory of Poland, including Galicia with its Ukrainian population. Next, after France surrendered to Germany, Romania ceded Bessarabia and northern Bukovina to Soviet demands. The Ukrainian SSR incorporated northern and southern districts of Bessarabia, the northern Bukovina, and additionally the Soviet-occupied Hertsa region, but ceded the western part of the Moldavian ASSR to the newly-created Moldavian SSR. All these territorial gains were internationally recognized by the Paris Peace Treaties, 1947.
When Nazi Germany with its allies invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, many Ukrainians, particularly in the west where they had experienced only two years of the harsh Soviets rule, initially regarded the Nazis as "liberators", and some hoped to establish an autonomous Ukrainian state. German policies initially gave some encouragement to such hopes through the vague promises of sovereign 'Greater Ukraine' as the Germans were trying to take advantage of anti-Soviet, anti-Polish and anti-Jewish sentiments among some Ukrainians.[6] However, after the initial period of a limited tolerance, the German policies soon abruptly changed and the Ukrainian national movement was brutally crushed.
Most Ukrainians, however, utterly resisted the Nazi onslaught from its start and a partisan movement immediately spread over the occupied territory. Also some elements of the Ukrainian nationalist underground formed a Ukrainian Insurgent Army that fought both Soviet and Nazi forces. After 1944 the surviving Polish population was expelled. In some western regions of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army survived underground and continued the resistance against the Soviet authorities well into the 1950s, though many Ukrainian civilians were murdered in this conflict by both sides.
The Nazi administrators of conquered Soviet territories made little attempt to exploit the population's possible dissatisfaction with Soviet political and economic policies. Instead, the Nazis preserved the collective-farm system, systematically carried out genocidal policies against Jews, and deported many Ukrainians to forced labour in Germany. In their active resistance to Nazi Germany, the Ukrainians comprised a significant share of the Red Army and its leadership as well as the underground and resistance movements.
Total civilian losses during the War and German occupation in Ukraine are estimated at seven million, including over a million Jews shot and killed by the Einsatzgruppen.
Many of civilians fell victim to atrocities, forced labor, and even massacres of whole villages in reprisal for attacks against Nazi forces. Of the estimated eleven million Soviet troops who fell in battle against the Nazis, about a quarter (2.7 million) were ethnic Ukrainians. Moreover Ukraine saw some of the biggest battles of the war starting with the encirclement of Kiev (later acclaimed as a Hero City) where more than 660,000 Soviet troops were taken captive, to the fierce defence of Odessa, and on to the victorious storming across the Dnieper river.
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Post-war
Over the next decades the Ukrainian republic not only surpassed pre-war levels of industry and production but also was the spearhead of Soviet power. Ukraine became the centre of Soviet arms industry and high-tech research. The republic was also turned into a Soviet military outpost in the cold war, a territory crowded by military bases packed with the most up-to-date weapons systems.
Such an important role resulted in a major influence of the local elite. Many members of the Soviet leadership came from Ukraine, most notably Leonid Brezhnev a Soviet leader from 1964 to 1982, as well as many prominent Soviet sportsmen, scientists and artists. In 1954, the Russian-populated oblast of Crimea was transferred from the Russian to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic.
However, the relatively underdeveloped industrial branches such as coal- and iron ore mining, metallurgy, chemical and energy industry dominated the republic’s economy. Once a Cossack steppe, the southern oblasts of Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia were turned into a highly industrialized area with rapidly increasing impact on environment and public health. A pursuit to energy production sufficient for growing industry led to the gigantic nature-remastering: turning the Dnieper River into a regulated system of large reservoirs.
The products of the rapidly developed high-tech industry in Ukraine were largely directed for military consumption, similarly to the much of the Soviet economy, and the supply and quality of consumer goods remained low compared even to the neighboring countries of the Eastern block. A state-regulated system of production and consumption lead to gradual decreasing of life level and growing “shadowisation” of retail infrastructure as well as of corruption.
The town of Pripyat, Ukraine was the site of the Chernobyl accident, which occurred in April 26, 1986 when a nuclear plant exploded. The fallout contaminated large areas of northern Ukraine and even parts of Belarus. This spurred on a local independence movement called the Rukh that helped expedite the break-up of the Soviet Union during the late 1980s.
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Independence
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On January 21, 1990, over 300,000 Ukrainians[7] organized a human chain for Ukrainian independence in memory of the 1919 unification of the Ukrainian People's Republic and the West Ukrainian National Republic. Citizens came out to the streets and highways, forming live chains by holding hands in support of unity.
Ukraine declared itself an independent state on August 24, 1991, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and was a founding member of the Commonwealth of Independent States. On December 1, 1991 Ukrainian voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum formalizing independence from the Soviet Union. The Union formally ceased to exist in December 25, 1991, and with this Ukraine's independence was officially recognized by the international community.
The history of Ukraine between 1991 and 2004 was marked by the presidencies of Leonid Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma. This was a time of transition for Ukraine. While it had attained nominal independence from Russia, its presidents maintained close ties with their neighbours.
The country adopted its constitution on June 28th, 1996.
The Cassette Scandal of 2000 was one of the turning points in post-independence history of the country.
In 2004, Leonid Kuchma announced that he would not run for re-election. Two major candidates emerged in the 2004 presidential election. Viktor Yanukovych, the incumbent Prime Minister, supported by both Kuchma and by the Russian Federation, wanted closer ties with Russia. The main opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, called for Ukraine to turn its attention westward and eventually join the EU. In the runoff election, Yanukovych officially won by a narrow margin, but Yushchenko and his supporters cried foul, alleging that vote rigging and intimidation cost him many votes, especially in eastern Ukraine. A political crisis erupted after the opposition started massive street protests in Kiev and other cities (Orange Revolution), and the Supreme Court of Ukraine ordered the election results null and void. A second runoff found Viktor Yushchenko the winner. 5 days later Viktor Yanukovych resigned from office and his cabinet was dismissed on January 5, 2005.
In March 2006, Verkhovna Rada elections took place and three months later the official government was formed by the "Anti-Crisis Coalition" among the Party of Regions, Communist, and Socialist parties. The latter party switched from the "Orange Coalition" with Our Ukraine, and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc. The new coalition nominated Viktor Yanukovych for the post of Prime Minister. Yanukovych once again became Prime Minister, while the leader of the Socialist Party, Oleksander Moroz, managed to secure the position of chairman of parliament, which is believed by many to have been the reason for his leaving the Orange Coalition, where he had not been considered for this position.
On April 2, 2007, President Yushchenko dissolved the Verkhovna Rada because members of his party were defecting to the opposition.[8] His opponents called the move unconstitutional. When they took the matter to the Constitutional Court, Yushchenko dismissed 3 of the court's 18 judges, accusing them of corruption.
Relations between Russia and Ukraine sometimes appear strained. In 2005, a highly-publicized dispute over natural gas prices took place, involving Russian state-owned gas supplier Gazprom, and indirectly involving many European countries which depend on natural gas supplied by Russia through the Ukrainian pipeline. A compromise was reached in January 2006.
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See also
- Kievan Rus
- Ruthenia
- Ukrainian language
- History of Belarus
- History of Lithuania
- History of Poland
- History of Russia
- Crimean Khanate
- History of the Soviet Union: 1917-1927, 1927-1953, 1953-1985, 1985-1991
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References
- ^ Trypillian Civilization 5,508 - 2,750 BC. The Trypillia-USA-Project. Retrieved on 2007-12-16.
- ^ Scythian. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved on 2007-09-12.
- ^ a b Magocsi, Paul Robert (1996). A History of Ukraine. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 27. ISBN 0-8020-0830-5.
- ^ Ukrainian Tribal Divisions and Ethnographic Groups
- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica, Ukraine article, page 51.
- ^ Google Books
- ^ Subtelny, Orest (2000). Ukraine: A History. University of Toronto Press, 576. ISBN 0-8020-8390-0.
- ^ Steven Lee Myers Published: May 31, 2007, Confusion, chaos and comedy in Ukrainian politics International Herlad Tribune
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Further reading
- Subtelny, Orest (1988). Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0802083900. A Ukrainian translation available online.
- Andrew Wilson. The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation. Yale University Press; 2nd edition (2002) ISBN 0-300-09309-8.
- Anna Reid. Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine. London, Orion Books; 4th impression (1998, preface 2003) ISBN 1-84212-722-5.
- Paul Robert Magocsi. A History of Ukraine. Toronto: University of Toronto Press (1996) ISBN 0-8020-0830-5.
- Mykhailo Hrushevsky. History of Ukraine-Rus’ in 9 volumes. Selected volumes translated into English. Available online in Ukrainian as "Історія України-Руси".
- Mykhailo Hrushevsky. Illustrated History of Ukraine (1913). Available online (in Ukrainian)
- I. Krypiakevych. "History of Ukraine (in Ukrainian)
- Natalia Polons'ka-Vasylenko. History of Ukraine in two volumes. Available online, in Ukrainian.
- Abridged History of Ukraine at Portals of the World: Ukraine project by the Library of Congress
- Essays on History on Ukraine (in Ukrainian)
- Volume 1 by Natalia Yakovenko, "From the Earliest Times until the End of the 18th Century"
- Volume 2: Ярослав Грицак (Yaroslav Hrytsak) (1996). Формування модерної української нації XIX-XX ст. (Formation of the Modern Ukrainian Nation in the late 19th–20th centuries). Kiev: Генеза (Heneza). ISBN 966-504-150-9., (in Ukrainian). Available online.
- Handbook on the History of Ukraine (in Ukrainian)
- "Ukraine: Briefly about Her Past and Present", in Welcome to Ukraine, 2003, 1.
- Askold Krushelnycky. An Orange Revolution: A Personal Journey Through Ukrainian History. (2006). ISBN 0-436-20623-4. 320 pages.
- Yekelchyk, Serhy (2007). Ukraine: Birth of a Modern Nation. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-530545-6.
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External links
- Ukrainian history overview published in Den.
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