Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe whose capital is Kyiv (Kiev).

Name

Ukraine was known as the Ukrainian S.S.R. (1921-1991). It is also called Ukraina. The name Ukraine has been in common use since the late 19th century. It comes from an Old Slavic root word "krai" which is a homonym for both the word "border" and for the word "land", hence the name "Ukraina" is often described as meaning "borderland". Historically, The two principal names of the Ukrainian territory have been Rus' and Ukraïna. The name Rus' was used as early as the ninth century. Formerly the definite article was used with the country name ("the Ukraine") but the more modern usage is to simply use "Ukraine". The name of the capital city is now spelled "Kyiv" rather than "Kiev".

The national flag consists of a blue horizontal stripe above a yellow horizontal stripe, symbolizing blue sky above golden grain. The national emblem is the trident (called the tryzub).

Geography

Ukraine is located in Eastern Europe, north of the Black Sea and northwest of the Sea of Azov. It is centered on the geographic coordinates 49 00 N, 32 00 E.

Ukraine has one time zone, UTC+2.

Ukraine's land area is 603,700 square kilometers (233,080 square miles) and it has 2,800 kilometers (1750 miles) of coastline.

The neighboring countries bordering on Ukraine are Russia, Poland, Belarus, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, and Slovakia.

Ukraine's physical landscape consists of mostly flat but fertile plains (called "steppes") and also plateaus, with some forests in the north and some mountains in the south. Major rivers include the Dnipro (Dnieper), Donets, Dniester, and Buh rivers. The climate is temperate continental, plus mediterranean in the south

The mountains include the Carpathian Mountains (2000 meters or 6000 feet high), plus the Crimean Mountains in the southern Crimea peninsula.

The major cities include Kyiv (the capital), Lviv, Odessa, Sevastopol (a Russian naval port), and Dnipropetrovsk.

The Crimean Peninsula was detached from Russia and added to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954.

Demographics

Ukraine's population is about 47 million (47,000,000), with a population density of about 80 per square kilometer (200 people per square mile).

Languages spoken in Ukraine include Ukrainian (70%), Russian (20%), plus 10% miscellaneous, such as Crimean Tartar and also Surzhyk in the southeast (a blend of Russian vocabulary with Ukrainian grammar and pronounciation).

The religion is predominately Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

Ukraine is widely known for its lively cossack-style dancing ("hopak") and elaborately batiked easter eggs ("pysanky")

Important Ukrainian literary figures include Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Franko, and Lesia Ukrainka.

Economics

Ukraine is classified as a lower middle-income nation, evolving into a post-soviet developing economy.

Approximate economic statistics are as follows:

• Ukraine's GDP is $103 billion ($103,000,000,000), and has been growing at a rate of 6% fairly consistently.
• Per capita GDP is $2,200, with per capita purchasing power at $7,700.
• Foreign debt is 7% of GDP, and foreign investment is 2% of GDP.
• Average monthly salary is 200 euros per month.
• Commercial prime lending rate is 15%.
• The inflation rate is currently 10%.

The Ukrainian currency is the hryvnia (worth about 20 cents, in $USD), which was introduced 1996 to stabilize runaway inflation (and is currently trading at 5:1 for United States dollars, and at 6:1 for European Union euros).

Taxation rates are as follows:

• Personal income tax is 15%.
• Corporate income tax is 25%.
• Value-added tax (VAT) is 20%.
• Social insurance tax is 30%.

Import/export goods include:

• Metals (35%)
• Machinery (25%)
• Fuel & chemicals (10%)
• Agricultural (10%)
• Other (20%)

Mining includes fuel ores of coal, oil, and natural gas, and metal ores of iron, manganese, titanium, magnesium, nickel, and mercury.

Major trade partners are Russia (25%), then about 5% each for Germany, Poland, Italy, Turkey, and China, and others.

Politics

Ukraine's government is a Democratic Republic with a 450-member legislature, the "Verkhovna Rada" (Supreme Council), plus an executive branch with Viktor Yushchenko as president and Viktor Yanukovych as prime minister, plus a Supreme Court and a Constitutional Court.

There are many political parties, coalitions, and blocks, including Rukh, the Yulia Tymoshenko block, Socialists under Oleksandr Moroz, plus some old-time communists and also Russian separatists.

Ukraine is now nuclear-weapon-free (as of 1996) per the 1992 START and 1994 NNP Treaties, and has reduced its army from one million soldiers after the fall of the Soviet Union to around 300,000 soldiers.

Ukraine is neutral in its alliances, but has some limited military links to both NATO and CIS countries.

Current issues in Ukraine include:

• The parliament was recently disbanded by the president and new elections will likely be required.
• Russia has used its energy imports in attempts to control Ukrainian politics and economics.
• A strong (20%) Russian minority (mostly in the south and east) is campaigning for partition.
• The legal and ecomomic systems are still controlled by powerful and secretive oligarchs.

History

Major historical periods for Ukraine include:

• Prehistory: Neolithic Trypillian culture existed between 4500 BCE and 3000 BCE.
• Ancient history: Kyiv grew into an extensive Slavic state (Kievan Rus') between 800 and 1100 CE.
• Medieval history: Ukraine was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth between 1300 and 1600 CE.
• Cossack history: A Cossack ("kozak") state was established by various rebellions between 1600 to 1800 CE, but was eventually absorbed by the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires.
• Soviet history: Ukraine was part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) between 1922 to 1991.
• Modern history: After the fall of the Soviet Union, Ukraine achieved full independence in 1991, and the mostly non-violent "Orange Revolution" street protests of 2004 (after a controversial presidential election) brought in the current reformist government under Viktor Yushchenko.

Early history to 1100AD

Beginning in the first millennium B.C., the territory of what is now Ukraine was populated by Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Goths, and other nomadic peoples. Ancient Greek colonists set up city-states in southern Ukraine. Eastern Slavic tribes settled in Ukraine in the sixth century A.D. Kiev was established in the sixth or seventh century and was taken by the Varangian prince Oleg of Novgorod in 882 A.D.. Well located at the intersection of major trade routes, Kiev soon developed into the center of a mighty state, Rus'. At its height under grand princes Vladimir I (980-1015) and Yaroslav I the Wise (1019-1054), Kievan Rus' was the largest state in Europe in terms of area. Vladimir I adopted Christianity in 988; Yaroslav the Wise codified the laws he married his daughters advantageously to the kings of France, Hungary, and Norway.

Although Russian historians identify Rus' as the progenitor of modern Russia, it was also the progenitor of Ukraine and Byelarus. Ukrainian scholars are divided whether the Rus' comprised a loosely organized conglomerate of diverse peoples, or whether it was a more homogeneous nation of Ukrainians.

Decline of Rus'

Feudal fragmentation caused the decline of Kievan Rus' in the 12th century. In 1169 Kiev was sacked by Prince Andrei Bogoliubsky of Vladimir; in 1240 it was virtually destroyed by the Mongols under Batu Khan. The Principality of Galicia-Volhynia continued as the successor state of Kievan Rus' in what is now Ukraine until the 14th century, when it was annexed by Poland and Lithuania. In the 13th and 14th centuries the Ukrainian people developed a distinct culture.

Peasant refugees from Polish landlord rule escaped to the steppes of Ukraine in the 15th and 16th centuries, where they became frontiersmen called Cossacks. Their main center was Zaporizhska Sich, located beyond the rapids on the lower Dnieper River. Some Cossacks aligned with Poland; others led rebellions against the Poles in the 16th and 17th centuries. Rebellions climaxes in 1648-1654 in a popular uprising, accompanied by widespread pogroms, led by the Cossack hetman (general) Bohdan Khmelnytsky (1595-1657). Khmelnytsky's victory over Poland led to a Cossack state, the hetmanate. In 1654, Khmelnytsky signed the Treaty of Pereiaslav, forming a military and political alliance with Russia. In 1657-1686 came "The Ruin," a devastating war between Russia, Poland, Turks and Cossacks for control of Ukraine. It ended in defeat in 1686 as the "Eternal Peace" between Russia and Poland gave Kiev and the Cossack lands east of the Dnieper over to Russian rule and the Ukrainian lands west of the Dnieper to Poland. In 1709 Hetman Ivan Mazepa (1687-1709) sided with Sweden against Russia in the Great Northern War (1700-1721). The Cossacks and the Swedes were defeated by Tsar Peter I the Great at the Battle of Poltava (1709). The hetmanate was abolished in 1764; the Zaporizhska Sich in 1775. With the partitioning of Poland in 1772, 1793, and 1795, the Ukrainian lands west of the Dnieper were divided between Russia and Austria.

19th century

In the 19th century the Ukrainian was a rural area largely ignored by Russia and Austria. With growing urbanization and modernization, and a cultural trend toward nationalism inspired by romanticism, a Ukrainian intelligentsia committed to national rebirth and social justice emerged. The serf-turned-national-poet Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861) and the political theorist Mykhailo Drahomanov (1841-1895) led the growing nationalist movement. Nationalist and socialist parties developed in the late 19th century. Austrian Galicia, which enjoyed substantial political freedom under the relatively lenient rule of the Hapsburgs, became the center of the nationalist movement. The Russian government responded to nationalism by sponsoring pogroms against Jews and by placing severe restrictions on the Ukrainian language.

20th century to 1939

Defeat in World War I and the Russian revolutions of 1917 destroyed the Hapsburg and Russian empires. The Ukrainian elite declared statehood: the Ukrainian People's Republic was proclaimed at Kiev on Nov. 20, 1917, becoming independent on Jan. 22, 1918, and the West Ukrainian People's Republic was proclaimed at Lviv on Nov. 1, 1918. A rival Ukrainian Soviet Republic was established at Kharkiv on Dec. 24, 1917. On Jan. 22, 1919, the two people's republics united. By then, however, the military situation was desperate, as Polish and Bolshevik armies pressed the Ukrainian nationalists from west and east and the peasant anarchists led by Nestor Makhno took control of large areas. The war in Ukraine continued for another two years; by 1921, however, most of Ukraine had been taken over by the Soviet Union, while Galicia and Volhynia were incorporated into independent Poland.

A powerful underground Ukrainian nationalist movement rose in Poland in the 1920s and 1930s, led by the Ukrainian Military Organization and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). The movement attracted a militant following among students and harassed the Polish authorities. Legal Ukrainian parties, the Ukrainian Catholic Church, an active press, and a business sector also flourished in Poland. Economic conditions improved in the 1920s, but the region suffered from the Great Depression in the 1930s. The situation in Soviet Ukraine under Communist control were sharply different. Moscow encouraged a national renaissance in literature and the arts, under the aegis of the Ukrainization policy pursued by the national Communist leadership of Mykola Skrypnyk (1872-1933). With Stalin's change of course in the late 1920s, however, Moscow's toleration of Ukrainian national identity came to an end. Systematic state terror of the 1930s destroyed Ukraine's writers, artists, and intellectuals; the Communist Party of Ukraine was purged of its "nationalist deviationists"; and the peasantry was crushed by means of collectivization, resulting in the great famine of 1932-1933, which claimed some 3-7 million livess food was forcibly removed to the cities.

1939-1991

In 1939, after Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland, Galicia and Volhynia were annexed to Soviet Ukraine. Northern Bukovina, formerly part of Romania, was incorporated into Ukraine in 1940, as was formerly Czechoslovakian Subcarpathian Ruthenia (the Transcarpathian Oblast) in 1945.

The German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 was welcomed by many Ukrainians at first; the OUN even attempted to establish a government under German auspices. Very soon the realization that Nazi policies were brutal toward all the Ukrainians, and not only the Jews and Communists, drove most Ukrainians into opposition to the Nazia. The OUN created a nationalist partisan fighting force, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA); many Ukrainians also joined the Soviet partisans and fought in the Soviet Army against the Germans. After World War II, the OUN and the UPA continued a hopeless guerrilla struggle against Soviet rule until 1953.

The devastation caused by the war included major destruction in over 700 cities and towns and 28,000 villages. Reconstruction proceeded rapidly in the late 1940s and the 1950s, as the Soviets n\eeded the food and raw materials of Ukraine. Political repression of nationally conscious Ukrainians also intensified. Stalin's death in 1953 finally brought relief. The "thaw" initiated by Nikita Khrushchev, who had served as Ukrainian party chief in the 1930s, led to the emergence in the late 1950s and the early 1960s of the "sixties generation" of writers, artists, and intellectuals. Following Khrushchev's downfall in 1964, Moscow, under Leonid Brezhnev initiated a series of crackdowns on Ukrainian dissidents, including Ivan Dziuba (b. 1931), the author of Internationalism or Russification?; Vyacheslav Chornovil (b. 1938), the editor of the underground Ukrainian Herald; and Valentyn Moroz (b. 1936), the author of stinging attacks on Soviet policy. In 1972, Petro Shelest, the national-Communist Ukrainian party chief, was replaced by hardliner Volodymyr Shcherbytsky.

The arrival of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 started a slow revolution. The Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986 undercut trust in Moscow. "Glasnost" permitted Ukrainian intellectuals to discuss the "blank spots" in their history, and growing political liberalization led to the reemergence of dissident groups and the emergence of nationally minded cultural organizations. A major turning point occurred in late 1989, with the founding of Rukh and the removal of Shcherbytsky from power.

Independence, 1991-

In 1990 Leonid Kravchuk, formerly in charge of ideology in the CPU, was appointed chairman of the presidium of a revamped supreme soviet, one fourth of whose deputies were nationalists and "democrats" elected in the semifree elections of 1990. On July 16, 1990, Ukraine proclaimed its sovereignty, an ambiguous formula that meant independence to the nationalists and autonomy to the Communists. On Nov. 21, 1990, Ukraine and Russia signed a treaty recognizing each other's sovereignty and promising not to interfere in each other's affairs.

As the Communist system collapsed in 1991, Ukraine, Russia, and the other republics engaged in lengthy negotiations with Gorbachev over the form of a new union. In August 1991 an abortive coup by conservatives in Moscow destroyed Gorbachev's strength and impelled the republics to go their own way. Ukraine declared independence on Aug. 24, 1991. Several days later the CPU was suspended and its property was confiscated. A popular referendum on independence was held on December 1, and over 90 percent of the voters supported the declaration. Most of the countries of the world recognized Ukraine in the months that followed. Ukraine became a member of the Council on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the International Monetary Fund, the Consultative Council of NATO, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

The nominal successor to the Soviet Union was the Commonwealth of Independent States; Ukraine joined on Dec. 8, 1991. Serious tensions soon emerged with Russia as Moscow seized all former Soviet government property, while some Russian politicians wanted the Donbas and the Crimea; the latter, conquered by Russia in 1783, had been transferred to Ukraine by the Soviet authorities in 1954. The Ukrainian government responded by taking steps to create its own army and navy. The pro-secessionists elected Yuri Meshkov as president of the Crimea in early 1994. The government established closer economic and political ties with Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. Ukraine's fears of Russia led it to postpone action on its earlier promise to give up strategic nuclear missiles, prompting concern in the West. After the signing of a tripartite agreement by the presidents of Ukraine, Russia, and the United States in early 1994, Ukraine began shipping these weapons to Russia. Thereafter, Ukraine's relations with the United States and western Europe improved.

Leonid Kravchuk, the most powerful politician, became Ukraine's first popularly elected president, with over 60 percent of the vote, on Dec. 1, 1991. His authority, like that of the legislature, declined precipitously, however, as he proved unable to solve the country's mounting economic difficulties. In contrast to Rukh, which had split into pro-Kravchuk and anti-Kravchuk factions in 1992, the former Communists remained strong, controlling many local government councils, industrial plants, and collective farms. The CPU was officially reconstituted as a powerful political force in late 1993. An extreme right-wing movement also emerged. Elections for the supreme soviet in March 1994 yielded a legislature in which the CPU and its left-wing allies were the strongest bloc, followed by the center-right nationalist democrats grouped about what remained of Rukh and the centrist pro-government "independents." Kravchuk ran for reelection in the presidential election in June 1994. No candidate won a majority, so a second round was held in July, pitting Kravchuk against former premier Leonid Kuchma. Kuchma won the election with 52 percent of the vote.

The national goal was the creation of a market-oriented economy and the establishment of stable democratic institutions and a system of laws. However the goals were partly frustrated by political deadlock, inexperience, an inefficient state apparatus, a collapsing economy, and tensions with Russia.

Regions

Subdivisions: Ukraine is divided into 24 provinces ("oblasti") plus the autonomous republic of Crimea. The 24 provinces are further subdivided into 494 districts ("raions"). The province ("oblast") names are:

1. Cherkasy
2. Chernihiv
3. Chernivtsi
4. Crimea (autonomous)
5. Dnipropetrovsk
6. Donetsk
7. Ivano-Frankivsk
8. Kharkiv
9. Kherson
10. Khmelnytski
11. Kirovohrad
12. Kyiv
13. Luhansk
14. Lviv
15. Mykolaiv
16. Odessa
17. Poltava
18. Rivne
19. Sumy
20. Ternopil
21. Vinnytsia
22. Volyn
23. Zakarpattia
24. Zaporizhia
25. Zhytomyr

Bibliography

• Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopedia. ed by Volodymyr E. KubijovyČ; University of Toronto Press. 1963; 1188pp online at Questia
• Birch, Sarah. Elections and Democratization in Ukraine Macmillan, 2000 online edition
• Dalton, Meredith. Ukraine (Culture Shock! A Survival Guide to Customs & Etiquette) (2001)
• Hrushevsky, Michael. A History of Ukraine (1986)
• Luckyj, George S. Towards an Intellectual History of Ukraine: An Anthology of Ukrainian Thought from 1710 to 1995. (1996)
• Kuzio, Taras. Ukraine: State and Nation Building Routledge, 1998 online edition
• Magocsi, Paul Robert. A History of Ukraine (1996)
• Reid, Anna. Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine (2003) online edition
• Subtelny, Orest. Ukraine: A History (2000)
• Whitmore, Sarah. ''State Building in Ukraine: The Ukrainian Parliament, 1990-2003 Routledge, 2004 online edition
• Wilson, Andrew. The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation, 2nd ed. 2002; online excerpts at Amazon
• Zon, Hans van. The Political Economy of Independent Ukraine. 2000 online edition

External Links

• CIA Factbook
• Ukraine page at The Economist
• www.ukraine.org