Ukraine. story

The whole truth about the creation of Ukraine...

Thanks to the inexhaustible energy of “Svidomo” ideologists and propagandists, the myth has become established in our society that the communist regime was a fierce enemy of Ukrainians and “Ukraine”. The Ukrainian conscious intelligentsia, foaming at the mouth, tirelessly broadcasts about the crimes of Lenin and Stalin against the “Ukrainian people.” And this blatant lie is perhaps the most unfair in the Svidomo arsenal. Its injustice lies in the fact that without Lenin and Stalin, without Soviet power and the “national policy” of the Bolsheviks, neither “Ukrainians” nor “Ukraine” would have ever appeared in the form in which we know them. It was the Bolshevik regime and its leaders who created “Ukraine” from the Southwestern region of Russia, and “Ukrainians” from its population. It was they who later added to this new formation territories that had never belonged to Little Rus', the Hetmanate, or the South-Western Territory.

Why did the Bolsheviks create “Ukrainians”

With all the hatred of the “Svidomo” Galicians for the “Soviet”, they would have to admit that without Stalin, Galicia at the beginning of the last century would have remained torn between Poland, Hungary and Romania, and now hardly anyone would talk about the “Ukrainians” of the Carpathian and Transcarpathian regions -I remembered, given the assimilation talents of our Western neighbors.

The strained artificiality of the Ukraine project in those years was obvious to many leaders of the communist movement. Even then, Lenin was warned that his experiments with nation-building and flirting with the half-baked operetta nationalists of the imperial outskirts would sooner or later lead to trouble. The so-called "Ukrainian question". However, Lenin ignored these warnings. And not only because of its so-called “policy of national self-determination.” The Ukrainian people did not exist at the time of the revolution. There was only the southwestern branch of the Russian ethnic group and an insignificant group of “Svidomo” Little Russian and Galician intellectuals who never expressed the interests of ordinary people. And Lenin was well informed about this. He was actively interested in the political situation in Little Russia in those years.

This is the story he told on January 30, 1917 in his letter to I. Armand, which he heard from a soldier who had escaped from German captivity: “I spent a year in German captivity... in a camp of 27,000 people. Ukrainians. The Germans are forming camps according to nations and using all their might to separate them from Russia. The Ukrainians were sent clever lecturers from Galicia. Results? Only, supposedly, 2,000 were for “independence”... The rest supposedly flew into a rage at the thought of secession from Russia and going over to the Germans or Austrians.

A significant fact! It is impossible not to believe. 27,000 is a big number. A year is a long time. The conditions for Galician propaganda are extremely favorable. And yet, closeness to the Great Russians prevailed!” .

That is, already in 1917 Lenin perfectly understood all the absurdity, artificiality and far-fetchedness of the “nation of Ukrainians”. I understood who created this “nation” and why. But, nevertheless, he deliberately continued the Polish-Austrian-German work of removing “Ukrainians” from the Russians of South-Western Rus'.

Here is what, for example, Rosa Luxemburg wrote, accusing Lenin of creating an artificial “people” and deliberately dismembering Russia: “Ukrainian nationalism in Russia was completely different from, say, Czech, Polish or Finnish, nothing more than a simple quirk, the antics of several dozen petty-bourgeois intellectuals, without any roots in the economy, politics or spiritual sphere of the country, without any historical tradition, for Ukraine has never been either a nation or a state, without any national culture, except for the reactionary-romantic poems of Shevchenko. […] And such a ridiculous thing of several university professors and students was artificially inflated by Lenin and his comrades into a political factor with their doctrinaire agitation for “the right to self-determination right up to”, etc.”

Luxemburg was a realist politician and understood perfectly what “Ukraine” was, but she obviously did not know that the Bolsheviks, Poles and the “Ukrainians” they raised had two common properties that put them on the same position regarding the “Ukrainian question” . These are very important properties of their mentality - fear and hatred. THEY EQUALLY FEARED AND HATED RUSSIA AND EVERYTHING RUSSIAN. In this matter they were dominated by a very powerful irrational principle. The international, let's say, elite of the RSDLP (b), in which the Russians still had to be looked for, could not afford to preserve the state-forming ethnic core of the Russian Empire. In their opinion, in a communist paradise neither the Russian people nor Russian culture should have dominated. For them, the Russian people were an oppressor people, the Russian state was an enslaving state, and Russian culture was “Russian great-power chauvinism.” It was not for nothing that the non-Russian elite of the Bolsheviks consistently and totally destroyed everything Russian and all bearers of Russianness.

When in the revolutionary years we talked about “class hatred” fueled by Bolshevik agitators, what they really meant was hatred of everything Russian, since it was the highest social strata of Russia that were its bearers. To cast doubt on the existence of Russianness and, accordingly, Russia, it was necessary to simply exterminate the ruling elite, exterminate the nobility. Which is exactly what happened.

And the common people at that time in their spiritual and psychological development had not yet reached the level of a clear national and even more so cultural identity. The people understood very poorly where “us” and “stranger” were. That is why the sweet-voiced foreign commissars were closer to him than the Russian nobles, and the talk that the “gentlemen” were to blame for everything stimulated the popular enthusiasm of the Red Terror. The Bolsheviks skillfully used the underdevelopment of peasant consciousness in their propaganda. As a result, they were able to turn a significant part of the people into a rebellious boor, and set this boor against the Russian ruling elite. Naturally, the divided people could not resist. When the Orthodox Church and the Orthodox faith - the last strongholds of Russianness - found themselves under the repressive and terrorist blow of the new regime, the Soviet government had a real spiritual and psychological opportunity to create a “Soviet man,” and the ruling “Svidomoya” top of the Ukrainian SSR had the opportunity to create a regional variety of “Soviet man.” person" - "Ukrainian".

As the historian Nikolai Ulyanov wrote already in exile: “Even before the October revolution, the revolutionary parties had discounted Russia, and even then a new deity was opposed to it - the revolution. After the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, Russia and the Russian name became one of the forbidden words. The ban continued, as is known, until the mid-30s. The first seventeen to eighteen years were years of merciless extermination of the Russian cultural elite, destruction of historical monuments and works of art, eradication of scientific disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, Byzantine studies, removal of Russian history from university and school teaching, replaced by the history of the revolutionary movement. Never before in our country has there been such mockery of anyone bearing a Russian name. If later, before the Second World War, he was rehabilitated, it was with the undisguised purpose of Sovietization. “National in form, socialist in content” - this was the slogan, revealing a cunning plan.

Adapting the Austro-Marxist scheme to Russia with all their might, the Bolsheviks “comprehended” all national issues with the exception of Russian. The point of view of some publicists, like P. B. Struve, who saw in the “Russians” a “nation in the making,” as the Americans called themselves, was alien and incomprehensible to them. Guided by the ethnographic principle of the formation of the USSR and having created the Ukrainian and Belarusian nations, they had no choice but to create the Great Russian one. They ignored the fact that Great Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians are not yet nations and, in any case, not cultures, they only promise to become cultures in the indefinite future. Nevertheless, with a light heart, the developed, historically established Russian culture is sacrificed to them. The picture of her death is one of the most dramatic pages of our history. This is the victory of the Polyans, Drevlyans, Vyatichi and Radimichi over Russia."

The Bolsheviks did not take Russia into account at all. They even seized power in it not in order to then make the Russians happy with communism, but in order to use it as a consumable material in inciting a world revolution. In the fall of 1917, Lenin said directly: “It’s not about Russia, good gentlemen, I don’t give a damn about it, it’s just a stage through which we are passing towards the world revolution...”. The Bolsheviks needed the material and human resources of the empire for a revolutionary campaign in Europe. For the sake of achieving their messianic goals, they were ready to sacrifice both the Russian people and the country as a whole. From their point of view, the Russians were too savage, primitive and inferior to build communism, but, using them as some kind of giant lever, it was possible to turn Europe around in order to direct its enlightened and cultural peoples to the path of building a communist society.

In order to destroy Russia and seize power from its ruins, the RSDLP(b) was ready to do anything, stopping at nothing. In 1914, its leaders, with the natural ease of Judas, entered into a conspiracy with its enemy - the Kaiser's Germany. In his memoirs, General Ludendorff wrote: “By sending Lenin to Russia, our government assumed a special responsibility. From a military point of view, his passage through Germany had its justification: Russia was about to fall into the abyss.” The Bolsheviks thought exactly the same.

In Paris, in 1922, the book “The History of Bolshevism in Russia from its emergence to the seizure of power (1883-1903-1917)” was published. It was of particular interest because it was written by the former gendarmerie general Alexander Ivanovich Spiridovich, based on those documents that were obtained by the Russian special services in the process of fighting the RSDLP (b). This is how he described the situation of collaboration between the Bolsheviks and the Germans in the destruction of Russia: “Lenin was one of those who were convinced that war was inevitable and that if Russia was defeated it would lead to great internal upheavals that could be used for the purposes of revolution, for overthrow of the monarchy. The victory of Russia was understood as the strengthening of autocracy and, consequently, the failure of all revolutionary desires. Naturally, Lenin really wanted Russia’s defeat. Considering how important it is for Germany to have at its disposal everything that will in one way or another contribute to the defeat of Russia, Lenin decided to use the favorable moment in order to obtain funds for his revolutionary work, and decided to enter into an agreement with Germany regarding a joint struggle against Russia.

He went to Berlin in June of that year and made a personal offer to the German Foreign Office to work for him in order to disintegrate the Russian army and raise unrest in the rear. For his work against Russia, Lenin demanded large sums of money. The ministry rejected Lenin's first proposal, which did not prevent him from making a second proposal, which was also rejected. Then the Social Democrat Gelfant, known as Parvus, who served Germany as a political agent, came to Lenin’s aid.

Under the direct influence of Parvus, who informed the Germans about the real essence of Bolshevism, about its leaders and their moral fitness to carry out the treasonous proposal, the German government realized the full benefits of Lenin’s plan and decided to take advantage of it. In July, Lenin was summoned to Berlin, where he, together with representatives of the German government, developed a plan of action for the rear war against Russia and France. Immediately after the declaration of war, Lenin was to be paid 70 million marks, after which further sums were to be made available to him as needed. Lenin pledged to direct the party apparatus in his hands with its central organs against Russia.

Such was the situation in which the Russian nobleman Ulyanov-Lenin, who had long been cut off from Russia, having forgotten in his internationalism what the homeland and its interests were, committed high treason. From that moment on, the RSDLP, in the person of its Bolshevik organizations and its central bodies, in the person of many individual party workers, became an instrument of the German General Staff, brought into action by Lenin and a group of his closest friends.”

Hatred of Russia, the Russian people, as well as the desire for their destruction united the “Svidomo Ukrainians” and the Bolsheviks at the beginning of the 20th century. In this sense they were twin brothers. Moreover, they were supported and directed by the same force that opposed the Russian Empire in a mortal struggle - the Kaiser's Germany. Since 1914, the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine (SOU), headed by D. Dontsov, and the RSDLP(b), headed by V. Lenin, had a common foreign source of funding - the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the General Staff. They also had in common a German curator - Israel Gelfand (Parvus), teacher and inspirer of Leon Trotsky. While still in the USA, when asked how his mentor was doing there, the future creator of the Red Army answered very succinctly: “he’s making his twelfth million.”

Now it looks extremely interesting that on December 28, 1914, one of the leaders of the SOU, M. Melenevsky, wrote a letter to V. Lenin, in which he offered the latter a strong alliance in the common cause of destroying Russia and seizing power from its ruins. “Dear Vladimir Ilyich! - with amazing tenderness he addressed the leader of the Russian proletariat. - I am very glad that I can convey my best greetings to you. In these times, when such a universal, truly Russian wind blew across the Moscow provinces, your and your group’s speeches with old revolutionary slogans and your correct understanding of the events taking place made me and my comrades believe that not everything in Russia is tainted and that there are elements and groups , with whom we, the Ukrainian Social-Democrats, and revolutionary Ukrainian democrats, we can and should contact each other and, with mutual support, continue our old great revolutionary work.

The Union for the Liberation of Ukraine, which included us, the Spilchanites and other Ukrainian Social-Democrats, as an autonomous and full-fledged group. elements, is currently a truly democratic organization, pursuing as its goal the seizure of power in Ukraine and the implementation of those reforms for which the masses of the people have been fighting all the time in our country (confiscations in favor of the landowners in other lands, complete democratization of political and other institutions, the Constituent Assembly for Ukraine). Our Union continues to act now as the core of the future Ukrainian government, drawing all living forces to itself and fighting its own Ukrainian reaction. We are confident that our aspirations will meet with your full sympathy. And if so, then we would be very glad to enter into closer relations with the Bolsheviks. We would also be extremely happy if the Russian revolutionary forces, led by your group, set themselves similar tasks, even to the point of striving and preparing to seize power in the Russian part of Russia.

There is an extraordinary national revolutionary upsurge among the Ukrainian population, especially among Galician Ukrainians and American Ukrainians. This contributed to the receipt of large donations to our Union, it also helped us organize all kinds of equipment perfectly, etc. If you and I could come to an understanding for joint action, we would be willing to provide you with all kinds of material and other assistance. If you want to immediately enter into official negotiations, then telegraph me briefly... and I will inform your committee so that it immediately delegates a special person to you for these negotiations... How are you, how are you feeling? I will be very grateful if you send all your publications to my Sofia address. Best regards to Nadezhda Konstantinovna. I shake your hand tightly. Your Basok".

After reading this message, Vladimir Ilyich began to go hysterical. He immediately, in the presence of the courier, scribbled an angry answer to his unwanted comrades in the common cause of the destruction of Russia, in which he categorically stated that he was not going to enter into any relations with the mercenaries of imperialism, sharply rejecting any cooperation with the SOU. Of course, for M. Melenevsky and D. Dontsov (former Marxist), this reaction was unexpected, since they knew very well that the Bolsheviks received money from the Germans just like them. Lenin understood well that the slightest hint of his connection with the SOU would cast a shadow on his revolutionary reputation and reveal the fact of his collaboration with Germany. Moreover, the Georgian Social Democrats, to whom the Galician “Svidomo” approached with a similar proposal for cooperation, created a public scandal, officially declaring that the SOU proposal was rejected “as a proposal from an organization that operates with the material support and patronage of the Hohenzollerns and Habsburgs and their brothers."

From the above facts, it is not difficult to understand that both the SOU and the RSDLP(b) had an anti-Russian nature, striving to destroy Russia. The only difference between them was that, unlike the semi-virtual Union for the Liberation of Ukraine, the Bolsheviks were a strong, united organization that actually fought Russia tooth and nail. And in this fight, all means were good for them.

Thus, foreign hatred of everything Russian, as well as the fundamental internationalism of the revolution, which did not allow preserving the Russian ethnic core of the empire, forced the Bolsheviks to see in everything Russian almost the main danger to themselves. That is why the Russian ethnic monolith was cut alive into three parts and declared “three fraternal peoples.” The Russian colossus was too big and powerful. This is where the Polish ideology of “two separate peoples”, a special Ukrainian language and an independent culture came in handy. So it turns out that the very idea of ​​​​creating “Ukrainians” and “Ukraine”, in other words, anti-Russian Rus', was born by the creative genius of the Poles, its working prototype was constructed by the Austrians and Germans in Eastern Galicia, but Lenin and Stalin turned it into a large-scale reality.

How the Bolsheviks created “Ukrainians”

In 1921, speaking at the 10th Party Congress, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin emphasized that “if Russian elements still predominate in the cities of Ukraine, then over time these cities will inevitably be Ukrainized.” And this was a serious statement. In April 1923, the XII Congress of the RCP(b) announced “indigenization” as the party’s course on the national issue, and in the same month at the VII conference of the CP(b)U the beginning of a policy of “Ukrainization” was announced. The Ukrainian Central Election Commission and the Council of People's Commissars immediately formalized this decision with the relevant decrees.

The communists had to create out of practically nothing the Ukrainian “nation”, the Ukrainian “language”, the Ukrainian “state”, the Ukrainian “culture”, etc. The Ukrainization of Little Rus' was total. Everything was Ukrainized - state institutions, office work, schools, universities, the press, theaters, etc. Those who did not want to Ukrainize or who did not pass exams in the Ukrainian language were fired without the right to receive unemployment benefits. Anyone who was found to have a “negative attitude towards Ukrainization” was considered a counter-revolutionary and an enemy of Soviet power. The government apparatus was purged according to the criterion of “nationality and Svidomo”. The fight against illiteracy was carried out in Ukrainian. There were mandatory courses for everyone to study the Ukrainian language and culture. The process of Ukrainization was constantly controlled by a multitude of various commissions. The entire power of the party apparatus and the state machine fell upon the “nesvidome naselennya”, which was supposed to become a “Ukrainian nation” in the shortest possible time.

It is not for nothing that Grushevsky, having returned to Soviet Ukraine, enthusiastically wrote to one of his comrades that “here, despite all the shortcomings, I feel like I am in the Ukrainian Republic, which we began to build in 1917.” Still would! After all, for example, two such ardent fanatics of Ukrainization as Nikolai Khvylevoy and Nikolai Skrypnik, in the past held leadership positions in the Cheka and took direct part in punitive actions against the enemies of the revolution. It is not surprising that their methods of Ukrainization were essentially KGB-style. It’s good that at least no one was shot for not wanting to change their national identity, as the Austrians did in Galicia.

A logical question arises here: how did a simple Little Russian peasant react to communist Ukrainization? After all, according to the “Svidomo” ideologists, the Little Russian people have been raving about everything Ukrainian for thousands of years. Ukrainization was supposed to be almost God’s grace for them, the fulfillment of their cherished dream of becoming Ukrainian, speaking fluently in their native Ukrainian language, and enjoying Ukrainian culture. However, the reality of the 20s of the last century was different. As now, the residents of the newly-made Ukraine did not experience the joy of Ukrainization. They didn’t want to become Ukrainians. They didn’t want to speak Ukrainian. They were not interested in Ukrainian culture. Ukrainization caused them irritation at best, and sharp rejection and hostility at worst.

This is how the “Svidomo” Ukrainizer from the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of the Ukrainian SSR, People’s Commissar of Education of the Ukrainian SSR Zatonsky, described the popular mood of 1918: “The broad Ukrainian masses treated Ukraine with... contempt. Why was this so? Because then the Ukrainians [in the sense of Ukrainophiles - A.V.] were with the Germans, because Ukraine stretched from Kyiv all the way to imperialist Berlin. Not only workers, but also peasants, Ukrainian peasants did not tolerate “Ukrainians” at that time (through Rakovsky’s delegation in Kyiv we received minutes of peasant meetings, the majority of minutes had the seal of the village headman and everyone signed on them - you see what a wonderful conspiracy there was) . In these protocols, the peasants wrote to us: we all feel like Russians and hate Germans and Ukrainians and ask the RSFSR to annex us to itself.”

The Bolsheviks broke the Little Russians over the knee in the 20s, trying to use the so-called. “indigenization” to transform them from Russians into “Ukrainians”. However, the people showed stubborn, albeit passive, resistance to Ukrainization. There was outright sabotage of the decisions of the party and government. In this regard, the party leaders were simply “flattened” with anger. “A despicable, selfish type of Little Russian who... flaunts his indifferent attitude towards everything Ukrainian and is always ready to spit on him,” Shumsky angrily lamented at a meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in those years. Party leader Efremov spoke no less energetically in his diary: “This slave generation, which is accustomed only to “impersonating a Ukrainian” and not organically feeling like Ukrainians, must perish. Despite these wishes of the ardent Bolshevik-Leninist, the Little Russians did not “perish” and did not feel organically “Ukrainians,” even though this ethnonymic nickname was assigned to them during the years of Stalinism. As it turned out, the Russian spirit is not so easy to stifle. For this, mass terror and concentration camps on the Austrian model were clearly not enough.

Understanding perfectly the complexity of the task of Ukrainizing the Russian population of the former Southwestern Territory, Stalin wisely pointed out to his party comrades the mistakes they made in the process of creating “Ukrainians.” So, in April 1926, he wrote a letter to Lazar Kaganovich and other members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine, which says the following: “It is true that a number of communists in Ukraine do not understand the meaning and significance of this movement and therefore do not take measures to master it . It is true that a change needs to be made in the cadres of our party and Soviet workers, who are still imbued with the spirit of irony and skepticism on the issue of Ukrainian culture and the Ukrainian public. It is true that it is necessary to carefully select and create a cadre of people capable of mastering the new movement in Ukraine. All this is true. But Comrade Shumsky makes at least two serious mistakes.

Firstly, he confuses the Ukrainization of our party and Soviet apparatuses with the Ukrainization of the proletariat. It is possible and necessary to Ukrainize, while maintaining a certain pace, our party, state and other apparatuses serving the population. But the proletariat cannot be Ukrainized from above. It is impossible to force the Russian working masses to abandon the Russian language and Russian culture and recognize Ukrainian as their culture and their language. This contradicts the principle of free development of nationalities. This would not be national freedom, but a peculiar form of national oppression. There is no doubt that the composition of the Ukrainian proletariat will change with the industrial development of Ukraine, with the influx of Ukrainian workers into industry from the surrounding villages. There is no doubt that the composition of the Ukrainian proletariat will be Ukrainized, just as the composition of the proletariat, say, in Latvia and Hungary, which at one time had a German character, then began to become Latvianized and Magyarized. But this is a long, spontaneous, natural process. Trying to replace this spontaneous process with the forced Ukrainization of the proletariat from above means pursuing a utopian and harmful policy that can cause anti-Ukrainian chauvinism in the non-Ukrainian layers of the proletariat in Ukraine.”

It is easy to understand from this letter that the Ukrainization of Little Russia was very difficult. The common people resisted as best they could, and the local “Svidomo” party elite, desperate to achieve their goal, actively used violent forms of Ukrainization. Because of this, the people grumbled, and the authority of the party in their eyes fell. Stalin understood this perfectly well, warning against excesses.

The Ukrainian communists had big problems with personnel who would be able to carry out the Ukrainization of the Russian population of the former Little Russia at the proper level. In Moscow, they were even forced to recommend that local party bodies recruit former political opponents from among the “Svidomo” as “specialists” in Ukrainization (similar to how officers and officials of the Russian Empire were involved in the civil war).

This recommendation was not accidental. The Little Russian Bolsheviks, who defeated the Central Rada, the Hetmanate and the Directory in the military-political confrontation, were unable to independently transform the South-Western region of Russia into “Ukraine”, and its Russian population into “Ukrainians”.

That is why Moscow allowed former Bolshevik opponents - the socialists of the Central Rada and the Directory, whose political beliefs were almost identical to the ideology of the RSDLP (b) - to join the CP(b)U and the Soviet authorities. It is today’s Ukrainian propaganda that portrays these figures as irreconcilable enemies of Bolshevism, but in fact there were no differences between them on fundamental issues; differences arose only regarding who would hold power. Both the Central Rada and the Petliura regime represented a regional variety of Bolshevism. Only more demagogic and completely incompetent. The leaders of the CR and the Directory did not perceive the Bolsheviks as an absolute evil, but the White movement in general and the Volunteer Army in particular. The communists took similar positions. For them, Ukrainian socialist-nationalists were something like half-baked Bolsheviks who had fallen under hostile influence. That is why they mercilessly exterminated the representatives of the White movement, and sought a compromise with the leaders of the Central Rada and the Directory from the position of the winner.

Proof of this is the fact of the generous forgiveness of many leaders by the Soviet government, as well as ordinary “Svidomo” figures and supporters of the Central Revolutionary Party and the Directory, who subsequently flooded the party and state structures of the Ukrainian SSR.

Everything that the ideologists of modern political Ukraine weave regarding the supposedly irreconcilable struggle of the “Ukrainian national revolution” with the Bolsheviks is complete nonsense. Grushevsky and Vinnichenko (who personified the period of rule of the Central Rada) after the civil war safely returned to their native lands and lived out their lives under the tutelage of the Soviet government. The same applied to a number of the most prominent figures of the Directory.

In May 1921, a trial of the former leaders of the CR and the Directory took place in Kyiv. There were quite a lot of people in the dock. However, among them there was no one who would have suffered serious punishment, much less received the “capital punishment.” Some of them were even acquitted.

Of this company, only Petlyura was unlucky. But he was killed in Paris not because he fought against Soviet power, but because of the mass Jewish pogroms that swept the entire Southwestern region during his leadership of the Ukrainian army. Then the Petliurists exterminated about 25 thousand Jews. Just look at the massacre in Proskurov in March 1919, during which the “Zaporozhye Brigade” of Ataman Semesenko killed about three thousand Jews, including women and children.

The facts of the extermination of the Jewish population by the Petliurists were so obvious that the French court acquitted Samuel Schwarzbart, who took revenge on Petlyura for his people in 1926.

Thus, as mentioned above, after the Communist Party (b)U, with the support of Moscow, established Soviet power throughout the South-Western Territory (with the exception of Volyn), former figures of left-wing Ukrainian parties, the CR, began to flow into its ranks in a muddy stream and Directories.

Their first group, very numerous and active, consisted of the so-called “Ukapists” - former members of the left factions of the Ukrainian Social Democrats and Socialist Revolutionaries. They fully stood on the Bolshevik political platform, advocating only the creation of a separate Ukrainian army, economy and the total Ukrainization of the South-Western region.

The second group, which joined the Soviet and party structures of the Ukrainian SSR, consisted of former figures of the Central Rada and Directory who repented and were forgiven by the Bolsheviks.

And finally, the third group of “Svidomo”, who played an important role in the construction of the Ukrainian SSR and its total Ukrainization, were Galicians who poured in crowds from Polish Galicia and emigrated to the USSR, where, in their opinion, the construction of the Ukrainian state began. In their ranks there were about 400 officers of the Galician army, defeated by the Poles, led by G. Kossak, as well as various cultural and political figures (Lozinsky, Vitik, Rudnitsky, Tchaikovsky, Yavorsky, Krushelnytsky and many others).

Since 1925, tens of thousands of “Svidomo Galychans” moved to the central regions of Little Russia for permanent residence. They were placed in an even layer in leadership positions in Kyiv, entrusting them with brainwashing the population. The head of the People's Commissariat for Education, the fiery Bolshevik Skrypnik, was especially zealous in 1927-1933. The “Svidomo” Janissaries of Franz Joseph and the Bolsheviks also replaced Russian professors and scientists who did not want to be Ukrainized. In one of his letters, Grushevsky said that about 50 thousand people moved from Galicia, some with their wives and families, young people, men. Obviously, without the involvement of the ideological “Ukrainians” of Austria-Hungary, nurtured by Polish propaganda, the Ukrainization of Rus' would have been simply impossible.

And here’s what one of them wrote about how they were perceived in Little Russia: “My misfortune is that I am a Galician. Nobody likes Galicians here. The older Russian public treats them with hostility as a Bolshevik instrument of Ukrainization (eternal talk about the “Galician language”). Older local Ukrainians have an even worse attitude, considering Galicians “traitors” and “Bolshevik mercenaries.”

It is good form among our “Svidomo Ukrainians” to spend five minutes of hatred towards the “kat” and “famine-killer of the Ukrainian people” Joseph Stalin, but the comical situation lies in the fact that, if not for the iron will of the “father of nations”, there would be no “Ukrainians” , there would never have been “Ukraine”.

By the way, if we talk about the traditional pantheon of enemies of Ukraine, compiled by the “Svidomo”, then it is necessary to note that if their hatred of the “Muscovites” can somehow be justified, then their hatred of the “Jews” is difficult to explain. Perhaps this is just outright ingratitude, or perhaps just stupid ignorance. The fact is that Jews made a colossal contribution to the creation of “Ukrainians”, “Ukraine”, “Ukrainian” language and literature. This is a topic for scientific research and at least deserves a separate monograph. If the “Svidomo” had even a drop of gratitude, then they would erect a giant sculpture of Joseph Stalin on the Independence Square, and they would build a monument to Lazar Kaganovich on European Square.

The fact is that the most intense and radical period of Soviet Ukrainization in the 20s of the last century took place under the direct leadership of Kaganovich. At that time there was no more ardent Ukrainizer of Russians than him. He was truly an outstanding personality. A man of sharp mind and unbending will. Compared to how he carried out Ukrainization, everything that his followers did after the proclamation of Ukrainian independence in 1991 looks like slobbering and fooling around. “Svidomo” should not wrap portraits of Taras Grigorievich in towels and hang them like an icon on the wall, but photographs of Lazar Moiseevich. Historical justice simply screams obscenities about this.

However, even such titans as Stalin and Kaganovich could not break the national and cultural backbone of the Little Russians. After raging for ten years, the process of Ukrainization quietly died out, encountering passive resistance of the people.

The curtailment of Ukrainization, apparently, was associated not only with the stubborn resistance of the inhabitants of Rus', but also with a change in the strategic plans of the communist elite. It seems that by the early 1930s Stalin had to abandon Lenin’s favorite idea of ​​world revolution. The fact is that the leader of the Russian proletariat, already deceased by that time, “stirred up” this whole game of “national self-determination” for all the “oppressed peoples” of Russia only in order to then gradually annex new states that had passed through the proletarian revolution. By the 1930s, Stalin, as a talented realist politician, realized that with the world revolution, in principle, nothing “shines” and that in the face of predatory imperialists it is necessary to turn the Soviet Union into a reliable communist fortress. This was the stage of blind defense. Stalin needed a strong, monolithic state with effective, tightly centralized power. The “Ukrainian nation” had already been created, and in general, there was no longer any need for further deepening of Ukrainization, which had irritated the people quite a bit. In addition, he was pretty fed up with the persistent “bourgeois-nationalist” deviationism of some leaders of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine, whom he later slightly “thinned out” for “excesses.” As a result, Ukrainization stalled. The people breathed a sigh of relief. But “Ukraine”, “Ukrainians”, “Ukrainian language” remained. Only in 1991 did former party members and Komsomol members solemnly revive Stalin’s Ukrainization with shavar-dumpling elements in its national-democratic, extremely caricatured version.

Did our country have a real opportunity to take a different path back then in 1991? Hardly. There were simply no ideological prerequisites for this. When the party and administrative nomenklatura suddenly turned out to be “independent” from senior comrades from Moscow, it was necessary to lay an appropriate ideological foundation under this “independence.” In addition to the Polish-Austrian-German separatist ideas, polished to a shine in the 20s by the Soviet government, in the 30s-40s by the “warrior thinkers” of the OUN-UPA(b) and in the 60s-70s by Ukrainophile dissidents, other ideas it just wasn't there. Neither the officials nor the people were ready for the independence that suddenly fell upon them. Nobody knew what to do with her. “Great ideas” of “Ukrainian independence” were invented on the go, while chewing food... What did all this result in... we are now witnesses to many years of work, many generations of “miners”... and, as always, it could not have happened without the USA, this country of the devil.We will soon find out how this whole Ukrainian mess will end...

“Ukrainian statehood” – what is it? And accordingly, the struggle for the restoration of “Ukrainian statehood” is what and the struggle for what? Of course, besides the fact that this is a tragedy, because it sheds streams of blood and plunges people into poverty, on the one hand, and besides the fact that this is vaudeville - because it cannot but cause ridicule as those who understood what was happening - before, and so is almost the entire world, including the patrons of this drama, today.

A conglomerate of political groups, which seized power in Kyiv with the support of a coalition of Western states, speaks of its sovereignty, statehood and the right to the inviolability of its borders and the integrity of its territory.

At the same time, these groups claim the inviolability of their territory within the borders of the Ukrainian SSR, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic - within the borders of 1985-91, that is, de facto, continuity with the Ukrainian SSR. However, they themselves proclaim their continuity not with it, but with the “Ukrainian state”, proclaimed by Bandera after the invasion of the USSR by the army of the Third Reich, in the territory occupied by the forces of the Third Reich, and under the auspices of the Third Reich.

However, the proclaimed self-education was liquidated a few days after its emergence. That is, the current Kiev leadership officially claims continuity with an entity that has never existed either legally or in fact - and has had no definite and minimally established territory.

That is, there is a certain postmodern clownery: “We are the successors of what did not exist, but we claim the inheritance of what was.”

Another object of historical sympathies of the current Kyiv government is the “Ukrainian People’s Republic,” which appeared and disappeared in the 1918-1920s in the intervals between the establishment of control over the region by Germany, the High Command of the South of Russia (Denikin), and the Ukrainian Soviet Republic.

The UPR declared independence on January 22, 1918 and was able to briefly confirm it, as a result of the support of Germany and the conclusion of a separate agreement with it on February 9, 1918 (even before the signing of the Brest Peace Treaty, which led to humiliating conditions for Soviet Russia), but already on April 28 that same year, its authorities were dispersed by a German patrol, and power was transferred to the Hetmanate and the “Ukrainian State”. After the fall of the hetman, the UPR was again proclaimed, in January 1919 it declared war on Soviet Russia - and by February 1919 it was defeated. In the summer of 19, taking advantage of Denikin’s offensive, Petliura’s troops managed to enter Kyiv, but a day later they were thrown out of there by the regiments of the All-Russian Kyrgyz Republic, which refused to conduct any negotiations with the UPR and the Directory at all. Petlyura fled to Poland. He practically recognized vassal dependence on it and concluded an agreement on a joint struggle with Soviet Russia on the terms of transferring the territory of Western Ukraine to the new sovereign. Thus, after the end of the war, the UPR ceased to exist.

That is, one can talk about its “state existence” only in short periods from February to April 1918 (under the patronage of Germany), from November 1918 to February 1919 - while the Ukrainian Soviet Republic eliminated the consequences of the German occupation, a short period in the summer of 19, in gaps between the power of the Soviet Republic and the power of the All-Russian Union of Yugoslavia - and not for long in the summer of 1919 under the patronage of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. That is, it has always, in one way or another, been a product of either the invasion of foreign armies, or various kinds of confrontations within Russia.

But in general, that’s not the point. It is unlikely that anyone can be attracted to the role of historical successors of this or that local ataman during times of great historical transformations.

Ukrainian statehood, if it ever existed, was only during the times of the Old Russian state and Kievan Rus. But then it hardly occurred to anyone to call this statehood “Ukrainian”.

This ancient “Kiev statehood” fell in the battle on the Irpen River, after which the Principality of Kiev had completely lost its sovereignty, and the Olgerdovichs, who were installed as reigning princes of Lithuania and the kings of Poland and were their vassals, were established on its throne. And in 1471, the Principality of Kiev itself disappeared.

That is, the Kiev statehood fell, unable to defend itself, during the era of the Horde invasion. The Kiev region and the Dnieper region returned to Russia only at the end of the 17th century, and restored their own statehood only in 1918.

And here two competing tendencies and new traditions are born.

One is the tradition of Soviet Ukraine within the USSR, a single union state, as its system-forming part (representatives of the Ukrainian SSR led the Union for 28 of the 70 years of its history from 1954 to 1982, representatives of the RSFSR - for only 16 years - from 1922 to 1929 and from 1983 to 1991.

The second is the tradition of the nationalist Ukrainian People's Republic, which formally appealed to “independence”, but in reality has always been a kind of vassalage of either Germany, as in 1918, or Poland, as in 1918-19, and again Germany in 1941. An attempt to gain “independence” "After secession from the USSR, it ultimately ended in the same way: first, a craving for vassalage of the European Union from mid-1995 to February 2014, and after February 2014, a real vassalage in relation to the United States.

The prehistory or history of “Ukrainian statehood” can be considered those times when it existed in a single state with the rest of the Russian lands, before the Horde invasion, after liberation from Polish domination from the 17th century to 1917, after the October Revolution and the Civil War.

Always, when “Ukrainian statehood” tried to assert its exclusivity and oppose itself to the unification of Russian, Russian, Soviet territories, it fell into decay, lost sovereignty and acquired vassal and colonial status.

In this regard, “Ukrainian Independence” is generally a historical simulacrum, which in reality was only a kind of instrument in the struggle of Russia’s competitors against historical Russia.

And if it became a reality, it was only through the forces of an external aggressor, who speculated on the complexes of resentment of the people, who actually once became the basis for the creation of the greatest power, but due to the historical drama, spent several hundred years of its history in isolation from this great power, and found itself part of it. , as it might seem, not its core, but its “Ukraine”.

“Independent Ukraine” was born only when someone had the opportunity and strength to strike Russia as such. She was never truly “independent” and always rested on other people’s bayonets. It arose as a product of someone else's policy, when Russia, in one or another of its historical guises, weakened, and always collapsed as soon as Russia began to strengthen again.

Once upon a time, in general, Ukraine was called only “Russian lands under the rule of Poland,” and exactly the same in the twentieth century, what appropriated the name “independence” was only a form of occupation of Russian and Soviet lands by one or another aggressor who invaded the territory of historical Russia .

“Independence” is not at all a choice of fate made by free Ukrainians; “Independence” is just a form of aggression against Russia.

Moreover, it is especially important to remember that, having used “independence” against Russia, its sovereigns immediately refuse to support it as soon as there is reason to believe that making peace with Russia turns out to be more profitable than waging war with it to the end.

And one of the reminders of this is the fate of Petliura’s “Ukrainian People’s Republic”: in May 1920, Petliura entered into an alliance with Poland and began a joint war with the Ukrainian SSR and Russia.

One can argue whether Soviet Russia or lordly Poland won this war, but one thing is indisputable: when they made peace, they divided among themselves all the territories claimed by the allied Poland and the “independent” UPR.

Someone may disagree, but the fate of the current “Independence” will be approximately the same, when the EU and the USA get tired and prefer to make peace with the Russian Federation.

Exactly like this. Unless the citizens of the current “Independence” have enough intelligence and will to get rid of the current Kyiv clownery, take power into their own hands and create a single union state with the Russian Federation.

That is, either Ukraine will rebel against its Western overlords and unite on an equal footing with the Russian Federation, or these “Western sovereigns” themselves will make peace with the Russian Federation, giving it the Ukraine they themselves devastated as a prize.

The word “Ukraine”, as the name of a territory, has been known for a long time. It first appeared in the Kyiv Chronicle in 1187 according to the Ipatiev list. Narrating the death of the Pereyaslavl prince Vladimir Glebovich during the campaign against the Polovtsians, the chronicler noted that “all the Pereyaslavl people cried for him,” “Ukraine moaned a lot about him.”

Several more chronicles, in particular the Galician-Volyn chronicle, testify to the rapid and widespread spread of this name in the 12th-13th centuries. Later - in the XIV-XV centuries - the word “Ukraine” began to be used to designate lands in the upper reaches of the Seim, Trubezh, Sula, Pelo (now Psel) rivers, i.e., the territories of the ancient Siverschyna and Pereyaslavchyna. Then this name spread to the Lower Dnieper region, Bratslav region, Podolia, Polesie, Pokuttya, Ljubljana region and Transcarpathia.

Since the 14th century, the term “Ukraine” has been used to mean “a country inhabited by Ukrainians.” Later, this word existed along with the name “Little Russia,” which appeared after the Ukrainian lands became part of the Moscow state. As for the origin of the name “Ukraine” itself, there are many versions. Disputes about this have been going on for a long time.

Some historians believe that it comes from the word edge - “end”, which means “outskirts”, “border or boundary land”. This version is one of the oldest. Its existence dates back to Polish historiography of the 17th century. It is supported by Russian historians, who proceed from the fact of the annexation of Ukrainian lands to the Russian Empire, relative to which they were actually peripheral, i.e., outlying.

But, as we have already seen, the word “Ukraine” appeared long before the unification of Ukrainians with Russia and meant the name of a certain independent territory. Numerous evidence regarding the use of the term "Ukraine" as a geographical name of the state can be found in official documents of the 17th century. For example, Hetman Petro Konashevich-Sagaidachny, in a letter to the Polish king on February 15, 1622, wrote about “Ukraine, our own, eternal, fatherland.”

And the Zaporozhye Cossacks signed a letter dated January 3, 1654; “With all the army and Ukraine, our homeland.” The chronicle of Samiyl Velichko also contains more specific names: “Ukraine of both sides of the Dnieper”, “Cossack Ukraine”, etc. Another hypothesis should be considered equally unfounded, according to which the word “Ukraine” supposedly comes from the verb “ukrayati”, i.e. e. “cut off”, and means “a piece of land cut off from the whole.” This version did not find support among specialists, since it was artificial in nature and did not correspond to the course of historical events. Even fewer adherents find the version according to which the word “Ukraine” comes from the name of the Slavic tribe “ukrov”. Allegedly, according to some sources, this tribe in the 6th century inhabited the areas around the current German city of Lubeck.

The predominant part of historians adheres to the idea that the concept of “Ukraine” comes from the Proto-Slavic language from the combination of the word “country” with the prepositions “u” or “in”. It is in the meaning of “country”, “native land” that this name was used not only in historical documents, but also in folk thoughts and songs, in the works of Ukrainian poets and writers. “Quiet world, dear land, my Ukraine” - this is how T. G. Shevchenko addressed his native country. Today, this name, dear to the heart of every Ukrainian, which came from time immemorial, has been returned to the independent state of Ukraine.

The territory of Ukraine has been inhabited by people for at least 44 thousand years. The Pontic-Caspian steppe was the scene of important historical events of the Bronze Age. The migration of Indo-European peoples took place here. In these same Black Sea and Caspian steppes, people tamed the horse.

Later, Scythians and Sarmatians lived on the territory of Crimea and the Dnieper region. Finally, these lands were inhabited by the Slavs. They founded the medieval state of Kievan Rus, which collapsed in the 12th century. By the middle, the current Ukrainian lands were under the rule of three forces: the Golden Horde and the Kingdom of Poland. Later, the territory was divided by such powers as the Crimean Khanate, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Russian Empire and Austria-Hungary.

In the 20th century, independent Ukraine emerged. The history of the country begins with attempts to create the states of the UPR and WUNR. Then the Ukrainian SSR was formed as part of the Soviet Union. And finally, in 1991, the independence of Ukraine was proclaimed, confirmed in a popular referendum and recognized by the international community.

Ancient history of Ukraine

Archaeological excavations indicate that Neanderthals lived in the Northern Black Sea region already in the 43-45th millennium BC. Objects belonging to the Cro-Magnols were discovered in Crimea. They date back to the 32nd millennium BC.

At the end of the Neolithic, the Trypillian culture arose on Ukrainian lands. It reached its peak in 4500-3000 BC.

With the advent of the Iron Age, tribes of Dacians, the ancestors of modern Romanians, passed through the steppes of the Northern Black Sea region. Then nomadic peoples (Cimmerians, Scythians and Sarmatians) settled the lands of Ukraine. The history of these tribes is known not only through archaeological sites, but also from written sources. Herodotus mentions the Scythians in his writings. The Greeks founded their colonies in Crimea in the 6th century BC.

Then the Goths came to the territory of Ukraine and took place in the 3rd-5th centuries AD. In the fifth century, Slavic tribes appeared here.

In the 7th century, the Bulgar state emerged in the Ukrainian steppes. But it soon fell apart and was absorbed by the Khazars. This nomadic people from Central Asia founded a country that included vast territories - the Caucasus, Crimea, the Don steppes and eastern Ukraine. The history of its emergence and prosperity is closely connected with the process of formation of statehood of the Eastern Slavs. It is known that the first Kyiv princes bore the title of Kagan.

Kievan Rus

The history of Ukraine as a state, according to many researchers, begins in 882. It was then that Kyiv was conquered by Prince Oleg from the Khazars and became the center of a vast country. The Polyans, Drevlyans, Ulichi, White Croats and other Slavic tribes were united into a single state. Oleg himself, according to the dominant concept in historiography, was a Varangian.

In the 11th century, Kievan Rus became the largest state in Europe by territory. In Western sources of that time, its lands were most often designated as Ruthenia. The name Ukraine first appears in documents of the 12th century. It means "edge", "country".

In the 16th century, the first map of Ukraine appeared. On it, under this name, the Kyiv, Chernigov and Pereyaslavl lands are indicated.

The adoption of Christianity and the fragmentation of Rus'

The first followers of Christ appeared in Crimea at least in the 4th century. Christianity became the official religion of Kievan Rus in 988 on the initiative of Vladimir the Great. The first baptized ruler of the state was his grandmother, Princess Olga.

During the reign of Yaroslav the Wise, a set of laws was adopted, called “Russian Truth”. This was the time of the highest political power of the Kyiv state. After the death of Yaroslav, the era of the fragmentation of Rus' into separate principalities, often at war with each other, began.

Vladimir Monomakh tried to revive a single centralized state, but in the 12th century Rus' finally collapsed. Kyiv and the Galicia-Volyn principality became the territories in which Ukraine later emerged. The history of the emergence of Russia begins with the rise of the city of Suzdal, which was the political and cultural center of the northeastern Russian lands. Later, Moscow became the capital of these territories. In the north-west, the Principality of Polotsk became the center around which the Belarusian nation was formed.

In 1240, Kyiv was sacked by the Mongols and lost any political influence for a long time.

Galicia-Volyn Principality

The history of the emergence of the state of Ukraine, according to some scientists, begins in the 12th century. While the northern principalities fall under the rule of the Golden Horde, two independent Russian powers remain in the west with their capitals in the cities of Galich and Lodomir (now Vladimir-Volynsky). After their unification, the Galician-Volyn principality was formed. At the peak of its power it included Wallachia and Bessarabia and had access to the Black Sea.

In 1245, Pope Innocent IV crowned Prince Daniil of Galicia and granted him the title of King of All Rus'. At this time, the principality waged a difficult war against the Mongols. After the death of Daniil of Galicia in 1264, he was succeeded by his son Lev, who moved the capital to the city of Lviv. Unlike his father, who adhered to a pro-Western political vector, he cooperated with the Mongols, in particular, he entered into an alliance with the Nogai Khan. Together with his Tatar allies, Leo invaded Poland. In 1280, he defeated the Hungarians and captured part of Transcarpathia.

After the death of Leo, the decline of the Galicia-Volyn principality began. In 1323, the last representatives of this branch of the Rurik family died in a battle with the Mongols. After this, Volhynia came under the control of the Lithuanian princes Gedeminovich, and Galicia came under the rule of the Polish crown.

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

After the Union of Lublin, the Ruthenian lands became part of the Kingdom of Poland. During this period, the history of Ukraine as a state was interrupted, but it was during this time that the Ukrainian nation was formed. Contradictions between Catholic Poles and Orthodox Rusyns gradually resulted in interethnic tension.

Cossacks

The Poles were interested in protecting their eastern borders from the Ottoman Empire and its vassals. The Cossacks were best suited for these purposes. They not only repelled the raids of the Crimean khans, but also participated in the wars of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with the Muscovite kingdom.

Despite the military merits of the Cossacks, she refused to grant them any significant autonomy, trying instead to turn the majority of the Ukrainian population into serfs. This led to conflicts and uprisings.

Ultimately, a liberation war began in 1648 under the leadership of Bohdan Khmelnytsky. The history of the creation of Ukraine has entered a new phase. The state of the Hetmanate that emerged as a result of the uprising was surrounded by three forces: the Ottoman Empire, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Muscovy. A period of political maneuvering began.

In 1654, the Zaporozhye Cossacks entered into an agreement with the Moscow Tsar. Poland tried to regain control over the lost territories by concluding an agreement with Hetman Ivan Vygovsky. This became the cause of the war between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Muscovy. It ended with the signing of the Andrusovo Treaty, according to which the Hetmanate went to Moscow.

Under the rule of the Russian Empire and Austria-Hungary

The further history of Ukraine, whose territory was divided between two states, was characterized by a rise among writers and intellectuals.

During this period, the Russian Empire finally defeated the Crimean Khanate and annexed its territories. There are also three partitions of Poland. As a result, most of its lands inhabited by Ukrainians are part of Russia. Galicia goes to the Austrian Emperor.

Many Russian writers, artists and statesmen of the 18th-19th centuries had Ukrainian roots. Among the most famous are Nikolai Gogol and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Unlike Russia, in Galicia almost the entire elite consisted of Austrians and Poles, and the Rusyns were mainly peasants.

National revival

In the 19th century, the process of cultural revival of peoples who were under the rule of large empires - Austrian, Russian and Ottoman - began in Eastern Europe. Ukraine has not remained aloof from these trends. The history of the movement for national independence begins in 1846 with the founding of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood. The poet Taras Shevchenko was also a participant in this organization. Later, social democratic and revolutionary parties appeared that advocated the autonomy of Ukrainian lands.

Around the same time, in 1848, the Golovna Ruska Rada, the first political organization of Western Ukrainians, began its activities in Lviv. At that time, Russophile and pro-Russian sentiments dominated among the Galician intelligentsia.

Thus, the history of the creation of Ukraine within its modern borders begins with the emergence of nationally oriented parties in the middle of the 19th century. It was they who formed the ideology of the future unified state.

World War I and the collapse of empires

The armed conflict that began in 1914 led to the fall of the largest monarchies in Europe. Peoples who lived for many centuries under the rule of powerful empires now have a chance to determine their own future destinies.

On November 20, 1917, the Ukrainian People's Republic was created. And on January 25, 1918, it declared its complete independence from Russia. A little later, the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed. As a result, on November 13, 1918, the Western Ukrainian People's Republic was proclaimed. On January 22, 1919, the reunification of the UPR and WUNR took place. However, the history of the emergence of the state of Ukraine was far from over. The new power found itself in the midst of a civil and then Soviet-Polish war, and as a result lost its independence.

Ukrainian SSR

In 1922, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was created, which became part of the USSR. From its inception until the collapse of the Soviet Union, it ranked second among the republics in terms of economic power and political influence.

The map of Ukraine changed several times during this period. In 1939, Galicia and Volyn were returned. In 1940 - some areas that previously belonged to Romania, and in 1945 - Transcarpathia. Finally, in 1954, Crimea was annexed to Ukraine. On the other hand, in 1924 the Shakhtinsky and Taganrog districts were transferred to Russia, and in 1940 Transnistria was transferred.

After World War II, the Ukrainian SSR became one of the founding countries of the UN. According to the results of the 1989 census, the population of the republic was almost 52 million people.

Independence

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine became an independent state. This was preceded by a rise in patriotic sentiment. On January 21, 1990, three hundred thousand Ukrainians organized a human chain from Kyiv to Lvov in support of independence. Parties were founded that took national-patriotic positions. Ukraine became the legal successor of the Ukrainian SSR and the UPR. The UPR government in exile officially transferred its powers to the first president Leonid Kravchuk.

As you can see, the history of Ukraine since ancient times has been filled with great victories, unsurpassed defeats, noble disasters, terrible and fascinating stories.