Ukraine
The population of Ukraine is about 46.3 million. Ethnic Ukrainians
make up about 73% of the total; ethnic Russians number about 22%,
ethnic Belarusians number about 5%. The industrial regions in the
east and southeast are the most heavily populated, and the
population is about 67% urban. Ukrainian and Russian are the
principal languages. Although Russian is very widely spoken, in the
1989 census (the latest official figures) 88% of the population
identified Ukrainian as their native language. There are also small
Tatar and Hellenic minorities centered mainly in Crimea. The
dominant religions are the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (which practices Orthodox rites but
recognizes the Roman Catholic Pope as head of the Church). The
Ukrainian Orthodox Church is divided between a Moscow Patriarchate
and a separate Kyiv Patriarchate, which was established after
Ukrainian independence and which declared independence from Moscow.
In addition to these, there are also the Ukrainian Autocephalous
Orthodox Church and representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church
Abroad.
The birth rate in Ukraine is declining. About 70% of adult
Ukrainians have a secondary or higher education. Ukraine has about
150 colleges and universities, of which the most important are in
Kyiv, Lviv, and Kharkiv. There are about 70,000 scholars in 80
research institutes. |
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The first identifiable groups to populate what is now Ukraine were
Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, and Goths, among other nomadic
peoples who arrived throughout the first millennium B.C. These
peoples were well known to colonists and traders in the ancient
world, including Greeks and Romans, who established trading outposts
that eventually became city-states. Slavic tribes occupied central
and eastern Ukraine in the sixth century A.D. and played an
important role in the establishment of Kyiv. Kievan Rus Prince
Volodymyr converted the Kievan nobility and most of the population
to Christianity in 988. Situated on lucrative trade routes, Kyiv
quickly prospered as the center of the powerful state of Kievan Rus.
In the 11th century, Kievan Rus was, geographically, the largest
state in Europe. Conflict among the feudal lords led to decline in
the 12th century. Mongol raiders razed Kyiv in the 13th century.
Most of the territory of what is modern Ukraine was annexed by
Poland and Lithuania in the 14th century, but during that time,
Ukrainians began to conceive of themselves as a distinct people, a
feeling that survived subsequent partitioning by greater powers over
the next centuries. Ukrainian peasants who fled the Polish effort to
force them into servitude came to be known as Cossacks and earned a
reputation for their fierce martial spirit and love of freedom. In
1667, Ukraine was partitioned between Poland and Russia. In 1793,
when Poland was partitioned, much of modern-day Ukraine was
integrated into the Russian Empire.
The 19th century found the region largely agricultural, with a few
cities and centers of trade and learning. The region was under the
control of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the extreme west and the
Russian Empire elsewhere. Ukrainian writers and intellectuals were
inspired by the nationalistic spirit stirring other European peoples
existing under other imperial governments and were determined to
revive Ukrainian linguistic and cultural traditions and reestablish
a Ukrainian state. Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861), national hero of
Ukraine, presented the intellectual maturity of the Ukrainian
language and culture through his work as a poet and artist. Imperial
Russia, however, imposed strict limits on attempts to elevate
Ukrainian culture, even banning the use and study of the Ukrainian
language.
When World War I and the Russian revolution shattered the Habsburg
and Russian empires, Ukrainians declared independent statehood. In
1917 the Central Rada proclaimed Ukrainian autonomy and in 1918,
following the Bolshevik seizure of power in Petrograd, the Ukrainian
National Republic declared independence under President Mykhaylo
Hrushevsky. After three years of conflict and civil war, however,
the western part of Ukrainian territory was incorporated into
Poland, while the larger, central and eastern regions were
incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1922 as the Ukrainian Soviet
Socialist Republic.
The Ukrainian national idea persevered during the twenties, but with
Stalin's rise to power and the campaign of forced collectivization,
the Soviet leadership imposed a campaign of terror that ravaged the
intellectual class. The Soviet government under Stalin also created
an artificial famine (called the Holodomor in Ukrainian) as part of
his forced collectivization policies, which killed millions of
previously independent peasants and others throughout the country.
Estimates of deaths from the 1932-33 famine alone range from 3
million to 7 million.
When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, some Ukrainians,
particularly in the west, welcomed what they saw as liberation from
Communist rule, but this did not last as they quickly came to
understand the nature of Nazi rule. Nazi brutality was directed
principally against Ukraine's Jews (of whom an estimated 1 million
were killed), but also against many other Ukrainians. Babyn Yar in
Kyiv was the site of one of the most horrific Nazi massacres of
Ukrainian Jews, ethnic Ukrainians, and many others. Kyiv and other
parts of the country were heavily damaged.
After the Nazi and Soviet invasions of Poland in 1939, the western
Ukrainian regions were incorporated into the Soviet Union. Armed
resistance against Soviet authority continued as late as the 1950s.
During periods of relative liberalization--as under Nikita
Khrushchev from 1955 to 1964 and during the period of "perestroika"
under Mikhail Gorbachev--Ukrainian communists pursued nationalist
objectives. The 1986 explosion at the Chornobyl (Chernobyl in
Russian) nuclear power plant, located in the Ukrainian SSR, and the
Soviet Government's initial efforts to conceal the extent of the
catastrophe from its own people and the world, was a watershed for
many Ukrainians in exposing the severe problems of the Soviet
system. Ukraine became an independent state on August 24, 1991, and
was a co-founder of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, although it has not
officially joined the organization. |
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