History of the formation of the Ukrainian state. Stalin is the creator of Ukraine as a state and Ukrainians as a nation

It was understandable without translation, but in Tsarist Russia it was considered a Polish toponym to designate part of the Lesser Poland Province.

As we see, on the maps of the Russian Empire in the 19th century it is not even an administrative unit, since it is assigned to the European part of Russia, as a region of the same type Russian Novorossiya, located to the south.

Ukraine and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

It should be noted that it was not used on maps of Tsarist Russia, since it had its own - Little Russia, which designated the territory inhabited by several Rusyn nationalities. Therefore the topic is History of the formation of Ukraine- is acceptable, since it is considered as carriers of the Little Russian dialect of the Western Russian language as part of the all-Russian people.

Actually, I carried out all the reasoning just for the sake of this. to show that any ancient history of Ukraine in Russian language can only be written in line with the concept of the triune Russian people, since only then can one rely on historical categories - the Eastern Slavs, Kievan Rus, the Galician-Volyn principality, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, where the real history of today took place Ukrainian people.

Ukrainian statehood

The purpose of my article is much more modest, because history of the Ukrainian state fits within the previous century. I would like to warn readers that this introductory, therefore there are no specific details of the events, but only a brief history of the emergence of the state of Ukraine- a general excursion into, undertaken to find the causes of the present. I have no doubt that Ukraine as an independent state will remain because it is not needed for economic reasons. After all, today Russia needs people, not economically unpromising territories. I would like to keep my own.

Brief history of the Ukrainian state

Article UKRAINE Wikipedia indicates TWO dates of Ukraine's independence:

• January 9 (22), 1918 as UPR from Soviet Russia;
• August 24, 1991 as Ukraine from the USSR,

which reflects a change in state ideology. According to the current Ukrainian authorities, the first declaration of independence of Ukraine happened January 9 (22), 1918 , when it was published, according to which the Ukrainian People's Republic became “independent, independent from anyone, a free sovereign state of the Ukrainian people.”

Actually, after comparison with the date of formation of the UPR itself - November 7 (20), 1917 , arises feeling of bewilderment. However, this incident is revealed simply - since independence of Ukraine is not counted from the moment of the emergence of the UPR itself, which is guilty of was autonomy as part of the Russian Republic, and exclusively with moment of rupture relations between the UPR and Soviet Russia (aka the first RSFSR).

Therefore the official history of Ukraine as a state(and the same thing in) - this is like a nationalist version, which denies the seemingly natural option when date of independence of Ukraine was calculated from the moment of proclamation of the III Universal, in which, in fact, the creation was announced Ukrainian People's Republic(UNR) as an independent state entity while maintaining the federal connection with Russia.

However, in any case, keep a record of the history of the state Ukraine from the UPR doubtful for many reasons, since “ autonomous Ukraine"did not last long and was noted not only for the persecution of the revolutionary masses and complicity white movement, which by today’s Kyiv standards can be passed off as a fight against Bolshevism, but the UPR concluded a separate Brest-Litovsk Treaty with the German bloc, thereby betraying the Entente countries.

“In exchange for military assistance against the Soviet troops, the UPR undertook to supply Germany and Austria-Hungary by July 31, 1918, a million tons of grain, 400 million eggs, up to 50 thousand tons of cattle meat, lard, sugar, hemp, manganese ore, etc. ."

However, the call for the occupation of Ukraine, later formalized as a military convention between the UPR, Germany and Austria-Hungary, must be recognized as a special act of “patriotism” of the Central Rada. At the end of February - beginning of March, German troops quickly occupied most of Ukraine, including Kyiv, where the Central Rada returned after them, having fled from the Soviet troops to the German-Ukrainian front itself. The end of the UPR was also “glorious”, when on April 28, 1918, the Central Rada was dispersed by a German military patrol that entered the meeting hall.

So, news of the February Revolution in Petrograd reached Kyiv on March 3 (16), 1917. Power passed to provincial and district commissars appointed by the Provisional Government. If the Soviets had just begun to emerge, then the bourgeois political organizations turned out to be more active, so on the same day, March 3 (16), 1917, a meeting of representatives of political, social, cultural and professional organizations was held in Kiev, at which the creation of the Central Rada was announced. which, in accordance with the concept of the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917-1921, is called the pre-parliament.

"Already during the creation Central Rada came to light different opinions regarding the future status of Ukraine. Supporters of independence (independence), led by N. Mikhnovsky, advocated the immediate declaration of independence. The autonomists (V. Vinnychenko, D. Doroshenko and their supporters from the Partnership of Ukrainian Progressives) saw Ukraine autonomous republic in federation with Russia. Thus two centers were formed national forces With different views on the state-political organization of the future Ukraine."

The next step towards becoming an all-Ukrainian authority for the UCR was its holding of the All-Ukrainian National Congress on April 6 (19) - 8 (21), 1917, which re-elected the UCR as a representative body. In May, the UCR sends the Provisional Government formulations of the principles of national-territorial autonomy of Ukraine, and in response in July, the Provisional Government recognizes the General Secretariat of the Rada (under the leadership of V. Vinnychenko) as the highest administrative body of Ukraine, and agrees to the development by the Rada of a draft national-political statute of Ukraine. “On June 13 (26), 1917, A.F. Kerensky signed a protocol recognizing the General Secretariat of the Central Rada,” which is considered recognition national autonomy Ukraine. The proclamation of formal autonomy within the framework of a unified Russian state was reflected in the first two Universals, which explained to citizens the relationship between the Central Rada and the Provisional Government of Russia on the issue of the form of government.

However, in August 1917, the Provisional Government rejected the draft Statute of the General Secretariat developed by the UCR and replaced it with the “Temporary Instructions for the General Secretariat.” The fact is that the Provisional Government considered the proposals of the UCR to be beyond the scope of authority and decided to postpone the final response until the Constituent Assembly.

Elections to the All-Ukrainian Council were scheduled for December 1917 Constituent Assembly, before whose election all power belonged to the Central Rada and the General Secretariat, but on October 25-26 (November 7-8, new style) during an armed uprising, the Provisional Government was overthrown. " November 7 (25), 1917 The Ukrainian Central Rada (UCR) approved the III Universal, in which it proclaimed the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR), without formally severing federal ties with Russia. The power of the Central Rada extended to 9 provinces: Kyiv, Podolsk, Volyn, Chernigov, Poltava, Kharkov, Yekaterinoslav, Kherson and Tauride (northern counties, without Crimea). The fate of some regions and provinces adjacent to Russia (Kursk, Kholm, Voronezh, etc.) was supposed to be decided in the future.”

The Rada formally recognized the power of the Council of People's Commissars Russian Republic and was forced to coexist with the Ukrainian Soviets, but actively blocked the orders of the Council of People's Commissars and disarmed the Bolshevik units, which led to hostilities between Soviet Russia and the Ukrainian People's Republic. Bolshevik hopes for a peaceful “absorption” of the Ukrainian Central Rada First The All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets on December 4 (17) in Kyiv was not justified, since about 2,000 self-proclaimed deputies who supported the Central Rada showed up at the Congress from other parties.

Therefore, about 60 Bolshevik delegates from the Kyiv Congress of Soviets and some of the delegates from other left parties (Ukrainian Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and Ukrainian Social Democrats) who supported them - total number 127 people - moved to Kharkov, where there was also dual power, since a large number of Red Guards had gathered there, and the day before Russian troops arrived under the command of Antonov-Ovseenko, directed against Kaledin’s forces on the Don.

December 12 (25), 1917 The congress in Kharkov announced that it was taking full power in Ukraine and depriving the Central Rada and the General Secretariat of their powers. The Ukrainian People's Republic that existed at that time was declared illegal, canceling all decisions of the Central Rada and declaring Ukraine a republic of Soviets as parts federal Russian Soviet republic, its original official name was Ukrainian People's Republic of Soviets of Workers', Peasants', Soldiers' and Cossacks' Deputies. And on December 19, 1917 (January 1, 1918), the Council of People's Commissars of Soviet Russia (RSFSR) recognized the People's Secretariat of the UNRS as the only legitimate government of Ukraine..

“In December 1917 - January 1918, Soviet power was established in a number of industrial centers of Ukraine - Ekaterinoslav, Odessa, Nikolaev, and the Donbass. Until the end of January 1918, with the support of Russian Soviet troops and Red Guard detachments, the power of the Ukrainian Soviet government extended to the entire Left Bank, part of the right bank cities (Vinnitsa, Kamenets-Podolsky), Crimea.

At the same time, the position of the Central Rada itself in Kyiv becomes precarious, since “On March 17 - 19, 1918, the 2nd All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets was held in Yekaterinoslav, which... united all Soviet formations and forces on the territory of Ukraine into a single Ukrainian Soviet Republic", which was considered an independent Soviet republic. On the night of January 25-26 (February 7-8), the Ukrainian government and the remnants of the UPR troops left Kyiv along the Zhitomir highway, and on January 27 (February 9) Kyiv was taken by Soviet troops.

However, taking advantage of the unauthorized antics of Trotsky, who declared the position of “no peace, no war” at the negotiations in Brest-Litovsk, German troops launched an offensive along the entire front, as a result of which Austrian-German troops entered Kyiv on March 1. The Central Rada also returned along with the occupying forces. In fact, in the spring of 1918, the Ukrainian Soviet Republic ceased to exist, since most of the UPR was occupied by the Germans.

On April 29, 1918, the socialists of the Central Rada were replaced by General P. P. Skoropadsky, whose regime was called the Ukrainian State (Second Hetmanate), but by the fall Germany had lost all interest in Ukrainian events, which allowed the leaders of the dissolved Central Rada to organize an uprising against the Germans and the Ukrainian state. The attempt to restore the UPR ended with the formation of the dictatorship of the former military minister of the UPR Symon Petliura. On January 22, 1919, the Directorate of the UPR signed the “Act of Union” (Ukrainian “Act of Zluki”) with the government of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic: this day is celebrated today as the Day of Unification of Ukraine. However, already in July, the WUNR army was driven out by the Poles from the territory of Western Ukraine, and at the end of 1919, dictator Petrushevich denounced the Unification Treaty with the UPR.

With the beginning of the evacuation of German-Austrian troops at the end of 1918, thanks to the support of the armed forces of Soviet Russia, the Soviet government back again to the territory of the Ukrainian People's Republic. March 10, 1919 at the III All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets, held in Kharkov, which became the capital, Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic, was proclaimed as an independent republic; At the same time, the first Constitution of the Ukrainian SSR was adopted.

However, in April 1920, Polish troops entered the conflict on the main territory of Ukraine, and throughout 1920-1921. Central and Right Bank Ukraine were the scene of the Soviet-Polish War. The chain of conflicts ended in 1920-1921. the establishment of Soviet power and the establishment of the Ukrainian SSR on most of the territory of modern Ukraine (except for Western Ukraine, which, in accordance with the Treaty of Riga, was divided by the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Poland) and the Czechoslovak Republic, as well as the Kingdom of Romania).

December 30, 1922 Russian SFSR, Ukrainian SSR, Byelorussian SSR and the Transcaucasian SFSR signed the Treaty on the Formation of the USSR, which marked the beginning of the establishment of the USSR.

So, power Ukraine arose thanks to the events associated with the revolution of 1917, therefore it should be grateful to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who was involved in the emergence of the opportunity for the Little Russian regions to become a separate republic. Moreover, it was the Bolshevik policy of Ukrainization that gave complete freedom of action to Ukrainian nationalists and provided them with the territory of Little Russia to spread their poisonous ideas.

Formation of the territory of Ukraine

In the following diagram you can see how the territory of the administrative unit grew, the center of which was Kyiv. I was not mistaken in calling this state entity an administrative unit, since the Ukrainian SSR within the USSR had only formal independence, although the Ukrainian SSR was listed among the founding members of the UN.

Galicia in Ukraine

When in the middle of the 19th century there was a rise in national self-awareness of the numerous nationalities inhabiting the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the main danger for the Austrians, who occupied a significant part of geographical Ukraine, was represented by separatism of the Poles, and in essence, a national liberation struggle for the independence of Poland. The Austrian authorities, in order to prevent the merger of the Polish revolutionary movement with the national rise of the Rusyns, began to incite ethnic hatred between the Rusyn population and the Poles, as the main nationalities of Galicia. Galician massacre

At the same time, the Austrians understood that in order to keep Galicia within Austria-Hungary, the national movement of the Rusyns posed no less a threat, since it invariably had the goal of reunification with Russia for the simple reason that the Rusyns considered themselves ethnic Russians, direct descendants of the inhabitants Kievan Rus. Then, at the end of the 19th century, the Austrians decided to create a new nation from the Galicians Ukrainians, in order to replace the national movement of the Rusyns with a fictitious “struggle for the freedom of the Ukrainian nation.”

Ukrainization scenario the Austrians took from the national policy of the Hungarian kings, who had previously successfully conducted an experiment to break the Orthodox Serbs And Croats by Catholicizing the latter and Latinizing their language. Actually, Serbs and Croats have one language, which, like Russian, was divided into several dialects. The Hungarians managed to pit these fraternal peoples against each other by supporting the claims of the Croatian elite to the lands occupied by Serbian settlers. The atrocities of the Croatian Ustaše Nazis, who carried out the genocide of the Serbs during the Second World War, aggravated the conflict between fraternal peoples who, like the brothers Cain and Abel, fought against each other during the collapse of Yugoslavia.

In the Russian Empire in the 19th century, some commoners considered that the name Ukrainian, as the Galicians have now begun to call themselves, can become a banner under which the struggle for the liberation of Little Russians from serfdom can be waged. Ukrainophiles thought that the inclusion of Little Russians to the Ukrainians brings the Little Russian serfs closer to acquiring the rights and freedoms supposedly available to the Austrian “Ukrainians.” At the same time, they did not take into account the truth that the Rusyns of Galicia were poorer than the last serf in Russia (). Ukrainophiles did not understand the catch of the term Ukrainian, which they perceived as a symbol of the territorial unity of all Rusyn peoples of Ukraine, whereas according to the Austrian idea, the name Ukrainian had racial meaning as a denial of any kinship with the rest of the East Slavic peoples, and especially with the Russians.

Until the revolution, the Little Russians were looked upon as urban madmen, since no one could imagine that the Little Russians could change their own identification as Russians. However, after civil war The Bolsheviks decided to rely specifically on local nationalist organizations, which was expressed in the policy of indigenization, which looked like a continuation of the fight against the empire, which they called the “prison of nations.” Massive Soviet Ukrainization, at the state level, continued from the 1920s almost until the Second World War.

When did the Ukrainian language appear, who invented it?

The Soviet government declared all Little Russians Ukrainians, and in 1928 a reform of the spelling of the Little Russian dialect took place, thanks to which the Ukrainian language acquired its “graphic independence”, based again on the developments of “”, which was led by Professor Grushevsky in Lvov. This was the norm of an artificial language, which the Austro-Hungarian authorities officially approved back in 1893 for the Galician Govirka, based on the Kulish system (“Kulishovka”, which was a system of education for illiterate Little Russians) and “Zhelehovka” (an extremely simplified spelling system), from where completely the Latinized Ukrainian alphabet was adopted.

It is interesting that perhaps the first work in the “Ukrainian” language is seriously considered to be “The Aeneid, translated into the Little Russian language by I. Kotlyarevsky,” a satirical poem on contemporary Ukrainian landowners with their riotous temper, shortcomings and chimeras, published in 1798 year. Kotlyarevsky, for the sake of emphasizing the base features of the “Ukrainian people,” forced the heroes to speak in that wild dialect of the common people, in which the word “horse” sounded like “kin”, and “cat” sounded like “whale”. However, for readers, “The Aeneid” was equipped with an extensive glossary of “Ukrainian” and invented words (more than 1000), which also contained their correct spelling according to the phonetic variant of spelling, known as “yaryzhka”, which was the first phrasebook of rural Little Russian dialects.

But the Dictionary of “ancient” Ukrainian language, which was created by the “Scientific Partnership im. Shevchenka”, formed on December 8, 1868 in Lviv under the auspices of the Austrian authorities, surpassed in volume both the works of Kotlyarevsky and the “yaryzhka” itself, since it was created by replacing all Russian words in the “Galician govirka” with generous borrowings from Polish and German, but the masterpiece was the invented words that they tried to stylize as folk.

If Kotlyarevsky used the language of the very bottom of society - the language of serfs - for satirical purposes, then the members of the partnership under the name of the great Little Russian poet - shoved into Ukrainian language everything that came to mind, as long as it was further from Russian, so that Soviet Ukrainian philologists had to change: a gasket for a stool, a navel cutter for a midwife, a lift for an elevator, a hundred percent for a percentage, a screenshot for a gearbox, although the gasket was changed to a parasol (from the French parasol), but the runny nose remained undead. Apparently, this was greatly facilitated by the ignorance of the Little Russian language by the head of the Shevchenko Society, Professor Grushevsky, who is now known as a recognized Ukrainian language constructor.

Annexation of Crimea to Ukraine

Crimea's problem is related to its geopolitical position, which makes it Russia's unsinkable aircraft carrier on the Black Sea. The meaning of Russian military base Crimean peninsula already had from the moment of joining the Russian Empire on April 19, 1783.

It so happened historically that Ukraine was perhaps the only region where the population settlement corresponded to Thünen’s model of agricultural standort, since the cities of Ukraine appeared as natural centers of economic life for the surrounding territories, and not military fortresses, as was the case in the rest of Rus'-Russia. Therefore, immediately after joining Russia, the territory of Ukraine began to turn into a strong economic complex with a center in Kyiv. Moreover, in the 19th century, the Odessa port became the main one for grain exports, which made Odessa the final station of many railways that were actively being built throughout Russia. Of course, Crimea was more important as a southern outpost, since the main base of the Black Sea Fleet was located in Sevastopol, and the formation of the peninsula as a resort area created economic ties with the nearest Novorossiysk regions.

After the formation of the Ukrainian SSR, Crimea became an administrative island, separated from the state apparatus of the RSFSR, so when the Kiev elite earned the trust of the authorities in Moscow, transfer of Crimea to Ukraine, which was justified from a management point of view, since Crimea has long been part of the Ukrainian economy.

When we consider the history of Ukraine, you involuntarily come to the conclusion that Ukraine has always been an object, which is precisely confirmed by the frivolity with which the Bolsheviks changed the borders of the Ukrainian SSR and annexed Crimea.

Return of Crimea to Russia- this is the result of a coincidence of circumstances that resolved the problem of the Russian naval base on the Black Sea, but from an economic point of view - Crimea is a “black hole”, since entering the ruble zone deprives the peninsula of the prospect of becoming a resort, otherwise it is clearly a subsidized region . dated August 24, 1991.

Thus it was the elite of Ukraine that initiated the collapse of the USSR, but we don’t know whether this referendum would have played any role if Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin had not immediately recognized it, so assessments of the historical role of Yeltsin and Kravchuk will shift towards the negative.

Education is an objective process (for example, the EU) that allowed Russia to be a world power. Lacking population density, Russia is doomed to be a raw material appendage, but due to the diversity of resources that simply could not exist on such a vast territory, a tolerable standard of living was ensured for the population.

Due to the collapse of the USSR, all republics completely lost their industrial prospects, especially those that fell away from the Russian market. The principles of Soviet industry did not allow integration into world division labor, but uncompetitive products of enterprises of the former republics former USSR could only be sold on the CIS market.

But new elite of Ukraine, like some other fragments of the USSR, decided to move to another one, which was richer. In order to make themselves more attractive to the West, many declared their adherence to anti-communist ideology, then simply anti-Russian, since it turned out that the elites of capitalist countries themselves could not exist without the Cold War. Simply, the demonization of Russia is a long-standing technique, borrowed from the Polish gentry of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which allows the West to maintain the myth of its own democracy.

The revival of nationalism in Ukraine

A feature of the Ukrainian elite was its anti-Russian attitude, which was based on the legacy of the Bolshevik national policy of Ukrainization. If under the tsar it had completely disappeared, the Bolsheviks not only recognized the racial meaning of the word Ukrainian (which had previously had a collective geographical meaning in Russia), but even declared total Ukrainization - an achievement of the “national” revival of the newly-minted Ukrainian nation. Although the successes of Ukrainization very soon “backfired”, so that Ukrainization was declared an excess even before the war, but Lenin’s mistake in the form of education separate And national Ukraine - as a fundamental root cause - could no longer be eliminated.

The motives of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who insisted on the existence of a SEPARATE and NATIONAL republic within the USSR, are understandable as a compromise with nationalist forces UPR, but the formation of THREE separate republics inhabited by one people confronted the new state entities with the task of searching and emphasizing at least some differences to justify their own existence. After all, no one has canceled the trinity of the Russian people, so the elites all the more needed to somehow explain the division of the single people by the Bolsheviks by the borders of the newly created republics.

Ukraine after the Maidan

Therefore, it is not surprising that Ukraine, having raised nationalism (and essentially anti-Soviet anti-Russian separatism) to the level of state policy, in 25 years achieved the goal that the Austro-Hungarians, Poles and Germans set when creating Ukrainian nationalism.

Basically, we are watching elite games Ukraine and Russia, which included the world elites using events in Ukraine as a reason to weaken Russia’s position in the world. Understand crisis in Ukraine It is possible only from a cynical point of view, which soberly believes that the people are not the subject of history. The subject of history is the people.

Ukrainian elite considered that in Europe she would be safer from her most dangerous competitor - the Russian elite, so she decided to drag her property, in the sense of the people from whom she feeds, to the European Union, which was announced as “the choice of the Ukrainians.”

However, post-Soviet elite of Ukraine was a small-town unprofessional without broad support, so the coup was not long in coming; the oligarchs, as the real masters of Ukraine, took direct control of Ukraine into their own hands, and the stormy history of new Ukraine written literally on the pages of the morning newspapers.

Analysis of the reasons for the confrontation between Western and Eastern elites in Ukraine before and after the declaration of independence.

Ukraine is the largest state in Europe. Although some historians claim that the country is the cradle European culture and has existed for many centuries, this is not true. The formation of Ukraine as a state actually happened 23 years ago. This is a young country that is just learning to live independently, without anyone’s support. Of course, Ukraine has its own centuries-old history, but still there is no mention of the country as a full-fledged state. This territory was once inhabited by Scythians, Sarmatians, Turkic peoples, Russians, and Cossacks. All of them influenced the development of the country in one way or another.

Ancient history

We need to start with the fact that the word “Ukraine” translated from Old Russian means “outskirts”, that is, no man’s land, borderland. These territories were also called “wild fields”. The first mentions of the Black Sea steppes date back to the 7th century BC, when the Scythians settled there. IN Old Testament they are described as an unmerciful and cruel nomadic people. In 339 BC. e. The Scythians were defeated in battle with Philip of Macedon, the beginning of their end.

For four centuries the Black Sea region was under the rule of the Sarmatians. These were related nomadic tribes who migrated from the Lower Volga region. In the 2nd century AD e. the Sarmatians were supplanted by the Turkic peoples. In the 7th century, the Slavs, who in those days were called Rusichs, began to settle on the banks of the Dnieper. That is why the lands they occupied were called Kievan Rus. Some researchers argue that the formation of Ukraine as a state occurred in 1187. This is not entirely true. At that time, only the term “Ukraine” appeared; it meant nothing more than the outskirts of Kievan Rus.

Tatar raids

At one time, the lands of modern Ukraine were subject to raids. The Russians tried to develop the rich, fertile lands of the Great Steppe, but constant robberies and murders did not allow them to complete their plans. For many centuries, the Tatars posed a great threat to the Slavs. Vast territories remained uninhabited only because they were adjacent to Crimea. The Tatars carried out raids because they needed to somehow support their own economy. They were engaged in cattle breeding, but it did not provide much profit. The Tatars robbed their Slavic neighbors, captured young and healthy people, and then exchanged slaves for finished Turkish products. Volyn, Kiev region and Galicia suffered the most from Tatar raids.

Settlement of fertile lands

Grain growers and landowners were well aware of the benefits that could be derived from fertile, free territories. Despite the fact that there was a threat of attack by the Tatars, rich people appropriated the steppes and built settlements, thus luring peasants to themselves. Landowners had their own army, thanks to which they maintained order and discipline in the territories they controlled. They provided the peasants with land for use, and in return they demanded payment of quitrents. The grain trade brought untold wealth to Polish magnates. The most famous were the Koretskys, Pototskys, Vishnevetskys, and Konetspolskys. While the Slavs worked as laborers in the fields, the Poles lived in luxurious palaces, swimming in wealth.

Cossack period

The freedom-loving Cossacks, who began to populate the free steppes at the end of the 15th century, sometimes thought about creating a state. Ukraine could be a haven for robbers and vagabonds, because they were the ones who originally inhabited this territory. People who wanted to be free came to the deserted outskirts, so the bulk of the Cossacks were farm laborers escaping from the master's slavery. Also, townspeople and defrocked priests came here in search of a better life. Among the Cossacks there were people of noble origin; they were mainly looking for adventure and, of course, wealth.

The gangs consisted of Russians, Poles, Belarusians and even Tatars, they accepted absolutely everyone. Initially, these were the most ordinary bandits of robbers who robbed the Tatars and Turks and lived on the stolen goods. Over time, they began to build sichs - fortified camps, in which a military garrison was always on duty. They returned there from campaigns.

Some historians believe that 1552 is the year of the formation of Ukraine as a state. In fact, at this time a famous one arose that Ukrainians are so proud of. But it was not the prototype of the modern state. In 1552, the Cossack bands were united, and their fort was built on the island of Malaya Khortytsia. Vishnevetsky did all this.

Although initially the Cossacks were ordinary robbers who robbed the Turks for their own benefit, over time they began to protect the settlements of the Slavs from Tatar raids and freed their fellow countrymen from captivity. To Turkey, these freedom-loving brethren seemed like heavenly punishment. The Cossacks on their seagulls (long, narrow boats) silently sailed to the shores of the enemy country and suddenly attacked the strongest fortifications.

The state of Ukraine wanted to create one of the most famous hetmans - Bogdan Khmelnytsky. This chieftain led a grueling struggle with the Polish army, dreaming of independence and freedom for all his fellow countrymen. Khmelnitsky understood that he alone could not cope with the Western enemy, so he found a patron in the person of the Moscow Tsar. Of course, after this the bloodshed in Ukraine ended, but it never became independent.

Fall of Tsarism

The emergence of Ukraine as a state would have been possible immediately after the overthrow of the Romanov dynasty. Unfortunately, local politicians did not have enough strength, intelligence, and most importantly, solidarity to complete their plans and make their country independent. Kyiv learned about the fall of tsarism on March 13, 1917. In just a few days, Ukrainian politicians created the Central Rada, but ideological limitations and inexperience in such matters prevented them from retaining power in their hands.

According to some sources, the formation of Ukraine as a state took place on November 22, 1917. It was on this day that the Central Rada promulgated the Third Universal, proclaiming itself the supreme authority. True, at that time she had not yet decided to sever all ties with Russia, so Ukraine temporarily became an autonomous republic. Perhaps such caution among politicians was unnecessary. Two months later, the Central Rada decided to form a state. Ukraine was declared an independent country completely independent from Russia.

Interaction with the Austrians and Germans

The period when Ukraine emerged as a state was not easy. For this reason, the Central Rada was forced to ask for support and protection from European countries. On February 18, 1918, the Brest-Litovsk Treaty was signed, according to which Ukraine was supposed to carry out massive supplies of food to Europe, and in return received recognition of independence and military support.

The Austrians and Germans sent troops into the territory of the state in a short period of time. Unfortunately, Ukraine could not fulfill its part of the terms of the agreement, so at the end of April 1918 the Central Rada was dissolved. On April 29, Pavel Skoropadsky began governing the country. The formation of Ukraine as a state was given to the people with great difficulty. The trouble is that the country did not have good rulers who could defend the independence of the controlled territories. Skoropadsky did not last even a year in power. Already on December 14, 1918, he fled in disgrace along with the allied German forces. Ukraine was thrown to the wolves; European countries never recognized its independence and did not provide support.

The Bolsheviks came to power

The beginning of the 20s of the twentieth century brought a lot of grief to Ukrainian homes. The Bolsheviks created a system of tough economic measures in order to somehow stop the collapse of the economy and save the newly formed state. Ukraine suffered the most from the so-called “war communism”, because its territories were a source of agricultural products. Accompanied by armed detachments, officials walked through the villages and forcibly took grain from the peasants. It got to the point that freshly baked bread was taken from houses. Naturally, such an atmosphere did not contribute to an increase in agricultural production; the peasants simply refused to work.

Adding to all the misfortunes was drought. The famine of 1921-1922 claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians. The government understood perfectly well that it was no longer advisable to use the whip method. Therefore, the law on NEP (new economic policy). Thanks to him, by 1927 the area of ​​cultivated land increased by 10%. This period marks the real formation of the state. Ukraine is slowly forgetting about the horrors of civil war, famine, and dispossession. Prosperity returns to the homes of Ukrainians, so they begin to treat the Bolsheviks more leniently.

Voluntary-forced entry into the USSR

At the end of 1922, Moscow began to think about uniting Russia, Belarus and the Transcaucasian republics to create more stable ties. Some seven decades remained until the time when Ukraine was formed as a state. On December 30, 1922, representatives of all Soviet republics approved the unification plan, thus the USSR was created.

Theoretically, any of the republics had the right to leave the union, but for this it had to obtain the consent of the Communist Party. In practice, gaining independence was very difficult. The party was centralized and controlled from Moscow. Ukraine ranked second among all republics in terms of area. The city of Kharkov was chosen as the capital. Answering the question about when Ukraine was formed as a state, we should note the 20s of the twentieth century, because it was then that the country acquired territorial and administrative borders.

Renewal and development of the country

Breathed life into Ukraine. During this time, 400 new enterprises appeared, and the country accounted for about 20% of all capital investments. In 1932, the Dnepropetrovsk hydroelectric power station was built, which at that time became the largest in Europe. Thanks to the labor of the workers, the Kharkov Tractor Plant, the Zaporozhye Metallurgical Plant, and many Donbass factories appeared. Behind a short time was produced great amount economic transformations. In order to improve discipline and increase efficiency, competitions were introduced to complete the plan ahead of schedule. The government singled out the best workers and awarded them the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.

Ukraine during World War II

In the period 1941-1945. Millions of people died in the country. Most Ukrainians fought on the side of the Soviet Union, but this does not apply to Western Ukraine. In this territory, different sentiments prevailed. According to the OUN militants, the SS Galicia divisions, Ukraine was supposed to become independent from Moscow. The history of the formation of the state could have been completely different if the Nazis had nevertheless won. It’s hard to believe that the Germans would give Ukraine independence, but with promises they managed to win over about 220,000 Ukrainians to their side. Even after the end of the war, these armed groups continued to exist.

Life after Stalin

The death of the Soviet leader brought with it new life for millions of people living in the USSR. The new ruler was Nikita Khrushchev, who was closely connected with Ukraine and, of course, patronized it. During his reign, it reached a new level of development. It was thanks to Khrushchev that Ukraine received the Crimean peninsula. How the state arose is another matter, but it formed its administrative-territorial boundaries precisely in the Soviet Union.

Then Leonid Brezhnev, also a native of Ukraine, came to power. After short reign Andropov and Chernenko, Mikhail Gorbachev took the helm. It was he who decided to radically change the stagnant economy and the Soviet system as a whole. Gorbachev had to overcome the conservatism of society and the party. Mikhail Sergeevich always called for openness and tried to be closer to the people. People began to feel freer, but still, even under Gorbachev, the communists completely controlled the army, police, agriculture, industry, the KGB, and monitored the media.

Gaining independence

The date of formation of Ukraine as a state is known to everyone - it is August 24, 1991. But what preceded this significant event? On March 17, 1991, a survey was held, thanks to which it became clear: Ukrainians are not at all against sovereignty, the main thing is that it does not subsequently worsen their living conditions. The communists tried in every possible way to keep power in their hands, but it inevitably eluded them.

On August 19, 1991, the reactionaries isolated Mikhail Gorbachev in Crimea, and in Moscow they themselves tried to seize the initiative by declaring a state of emergency and forming the State Emergency Committee. But the communists did not succeed. On August 24, 1991, when Ukraine emerged as a state, the Verkhovna Rada declared the country's independence. And after 5 days the activities of the Communist Party were banned by parliament. On December 1 of the same year, Ukrainians supported the Act of Independence in a referendum and elected their first president, Leonid Kravchuk.

Over the course of many years, the formation of Ukraine as a state took place. The map of the country changed frequently. Many territories were annexed in the Soviet Union, this applies to Western Ukraine, part of the Odessa region and Crimea. The main task of Ukrainians is to preserve modern administrative-territorial borders. True, this is difficult to achieve. Thus, the third president of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, gave part A to Romania in 2009. In 2014, Ukraine also lost its pearl - the Crimean peninsula, which passed to Russia. Whether the country will be able to keep its territories intact and remain independent, only time will tell.

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 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 across the steppes Northern Black Sea region passed the Dacian tribes - the ancestors of modern Romanians. Then nomadic peoples (Cimmerians, Scythians and Sarmatians) settled the lands of Ukraine. The history of these tribes is known not only thanks to 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 it happened in III-V 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 huge territories- Caucasus, Crimea, 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 the 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 raids 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 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 the peoples under the rule of large empires- Austrian, Russian and Ottoman. 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 mid-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. Among peoples who lived for many centuries under the rule powerful empires, there was 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. 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.

One of the first options for the future anthem of Ukraine. 19th century.

The leader of the Polish rebels, General Ludwik Mieroslawski

The Poles acquired great, almost absolute influence in the education system of the South-Western region. Czartoryski’s protégé, Thaddeus Chatsky, the founder of the Kremenets Lyceum, also made his mark in the field of public education. As Andrey Storozhenko writes in the essay “Ukrainian Movement”, “in the first quarter of the 19th century, a special “Ukrainian” school of Polish scientists and poets appeared, which gave extremely talented representatives: K. Svidzinsky, S. Goshchineky, M. Grobovsky, E. Gulikovsky, B Zalessky and many others. others continued to develop the principles laid by gr. Y. Pototsky and F. Chatsky, and prepared the ideological foundation on which the building of modern Ukraine was created. “Ukrainian ideology has grown into Polish soil with all its roots.”

The Kremenets (later Volyn) Lyceum, which became a real breeding ground for the Polonophile intelligentsia, was closed in 1831 after the defeat of the Polish uprising, and was later transferred to Kyiv and transformed into the University named after St. Vladimir. Another strong center of Polish influence was Kharkov University. Its first trustee was Severin Pototsky, who completely selected the teaching staff. From its walls emerged Pyotr Gulak-Artemovsky, one of the founders of Ukrainian literature, historians Dmitry Bogaley and Nikolai Kostomarov.

The latter most clearly represents a portrait of a typical Ukrainian of that time. Nikolai Ivanovich’s parents were Russian, he himself was born Russian, but is a Ukrainian writer and historian. He learned the “Ukrainian language” already in adulthood and began to write poems and plays in it, however, very mediocre ones. The ardent Russophobe Kostomarov adapted the teaching of his Polish predecessors about the separateness of the Ukrainian people for internal, so to speak, use, putting forward the thesis about two branches of the East Slavic people - Little Russians and Great Russians. Simultaneously with Kostomarov, a whole direction of Polish socio-historical thought was active, which generally denied the Slavic origin of the Russian people, supposedly of Finno-Turkic origin.

Before Kostomarov, it had never occurred to anyone to divide the united Russian people into separate branches, although Lomonosov wrote about the dialectical features of various dialects, identifying three colloquial dialects in the Russian language - northern, Moscow and Little Russian. At the same time, Mikhail Vasilyevich emphasized that the differences between Russian dialects, despite the vastness of the people’s settlement area, are much smaller than between German dialects. But, despite the very large differences between the Upper Rhine and East Prussian dialects, the Germans today use a single literary language, and a single Russian language space in the 20th century. was cut into three parts.

In the Russian Empire, the Ukrainian intelligentsia existed completely separately from masses, stewing in its own juice. And what kind of connection could Kostomarov, a Russian by origin, or the equally Russian founder of Ukrainian historical “science” Mikhail Grushevsky, who did not really learn to speak Ukrainian, and wrote Ukromov so poorly, that some of his phrases could have had with the non-existent Ukrainian people? It’s completely impossible to understand without half a liter of vodka? Even the founder of the Ukrainian literary language, Taras Shevchenko, thought in Russian, and in Russian he wrote intimate diary entries throughout his life, where he did not have to pretend to be Ukrainian. Ukrainian “George Sand” Marco Vovchok was also born Russian Maria Vilinskaya, and became interested in Ukrainians after marrying the Ukrainophile Afanasy Markovich.

However, regional Little Russian literature of the second half of the 19th century. It has a very distant relationship with the Ukrainian language, because the Ukrainian language and the Ukrainian alphabet did not yet exist, and enthusiasts of the peasant dialect of Little Russia used mainly the Russian alphabet, experimenting with phonetic spelling systems. Many of their Russian colleagues could not stand Austrian Ukrainophiles, and attempts to export the Polonized Ukrainian language from Galicia were met with hostility. Official language Many experts propose to call today's Ukraine new Ukrainian. Taras Shevchenko should already be translated into it, because over the course of a century and a half, not only Ukrainian grammar, but also the lexical basis of the language has greatly mutated. It is difficult for Russians to comprehend such a rapid modification of the Ukrainian language, because for us not only Pushkin’s language, but even Lomonosov’s speech does not seem archaic at all.

Alexander Karevin in his wonderful book “Non-Russian Rus' (how the Rshna Mova was born)” describes the beginning of the Ukrainian movement as follows: “The 19th century passed in Ukraine under the sign of the struggle between two cultures - Russian and Polish. The cherished dream of Polish patriots was the restoration of an independent Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. They saw the New Poland as nothing other than “from sea to sea,” with the inclusion of the Right Bank (and if possible, that Left Bank) Ukraine and Belarus. But it was impossible to do this without the assistance of the local population. And the leaders of the Polish movement paid attention to the Little Russians.
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We were born to kill Russia (history of Ukraine) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Po%C5%BCegnanie_Europy.JPG" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ commons/b/b9/Po%C5%BCegnanie_Europy.JPG"> Farewell to Europe! Painting by a Polish artist

Today, when everyone is fasting Soviet republics the ruling class of the bourgeoisie is strenuously trying to rewrite the history of its peoples, when everything is being done so that the working people of the former Soviet republics forget about their heroic past - about how they fought for their freedom and independence, it is extremely important to know what actually happened, since knowledge of the past can help to understand the present, and understanding the present will point the way to the future.

But, unfortunately, finding out the truth has now become not so easy - the truth has become dangerous for the current masters. The libraries have been pretty cleaned out, and those who by profession are supposed to be the guardians of knowledge - teachers, lecturers, scientists - do not care about the truth and prefer to serve the ruling class, fulfilling all its whims, disfiguring the consciousness of their fellow citizens with lies.

The dangers of lies can be seen in Ukraine, where the bourgeois class launched a civil war over the redistribution of property. It is not oligarchs who die in this war, but ordinary children - the children of workers, office workers, peasants, and the working intelligentsia.

Why are they shooting at each other? Because they are fooled by their bourgeoisie, which, without total deception, would never force them to die for the sake of its interests. The lie helped turn the working people of Ukraine, Russia, and Donbass into puppets, pitting them against each other, and now the oligarchs, who brazenly and cynically use the working people for their own purposes, are rubbing their hands in contentment.

How can you protect yourself from this? With knowledge, only knowledge can protect us from the influence of lies and show us the path to freedom, since it is the invaluable experience of many generations of those who lived before us.

Below is a brief summary of the true history of the Ukrainian people, the history of their struggle for their own state - a free and independent Ukraine, and this story is not at all the same as what is told today in Ukrainian schools, universities, and the media.

History of the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian state

The history of the Ukrainian people is the history of the centuries-old struggle of the masses against social and national oppression, for reunification in a single Ukrainian state.

This struggle was not easy. The people of Ukraine had to bear a lot of grief on their shoulders until they were able to become free. And this struggle would not have been successful if the Ukrainian people had not been helped by their blood brothers - the Belarusian and especially the Russian people.

Historical paths and destinies have long been intertwined fraternal peoples: Ukrainian and Russian - “peoples so close in language, place of residence, character, and history” (Lenin). That is why the Ukrainian and Russian peoples have strived throughout history for unification and helped each other in the fight against foreign invaders. And the Ukrainian people, divided for many centuries and forced to live under foreign oppression, sought not only national reunification, but also unification with the fraternal, half-blooded Russian people. These two peoples - Ukrainian and Russian (as well as Belarusian) were united general history, common generic root.

In the 9th century AD, a large state of the Eastern Slavs, the Kiev State, was formed on the territory of the European part of the former USSR.

The history of the Kievan state - Kievan Rus - was the common, initial history of three fraternal, half-blooded peoples: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian. In the second half of the 12th century, Kievan Rus split into a number of separate feudal principalities; the largest of them were Kiev, Galicia-Volynskoe, Vladimir-Suzdal, Chernigov, Smolensk. But even after the collapse of Kievan Rus, a close connection remained between the populations of these principalities in the 12th-13th centuries.

In Fig. - territory of Kievan Rus

The bulk of the population of Kievan Rus and the principalities of the 12th-13th centuries were Eastern Slavs (Polyans, Drevlyans, Northerners, Ilmen Slavs, Krivichi, Radimichi, Ulichi, Tivertsy, Polotsk, Vyatichi and others). They occupied a gigantic territory - from the Baltic to the Black Sea, including the lands of present-day Galicia, Northern Bukovina, and Bessarabia.

The ancient chronicle of our peoples (which began to be created in the 11th century) always considers the history of Kievan Rus as the history of one state of several East Slavic tribes, a state that the chroniclers called “Russian Land”.

The famous pilgrim Daniel (beginning of the 12th century) in Jerusalem puts up a lamp “from all the Russian land.” The author of the famous “Tale of Igor’s Campaign” (created around 1187) calls Prince Svyatoslav of Kyiv, Prince Vsevolod of Vladimir-Suzdal, Roman Mstislavovich of Volyn, Mstislav of Lutsk (or Peresopnytsia), Mstislav of Lutsk (or Peresopnytsia), and Yaroslav Osmomysl of Galicia, and Rurik of Przemysl, as Russian princes. , and Smolensk David.

In the “Tale of the Destruction of the Russian Land” (written around the middle of the 13th century), the borders of this “Russian land” are indicated to the north - to the Arctic Ocean and to the west - to the lands of the Hungarians, Poles, Czechs, Lithuanians, and Germans.

In the southwest, they included the Dniester region and the mouth of the Danube (present-day Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina), as there is authoritative evidence in such a source as the slip “City to all Russians, far and near” (in the latest edition compiled around the middle of the 15th century) . In this note, among the Russian cities on the Danube and the Dniester region, cities such as Belgorod (Ackerman), Khotyn, Gorodok on Cheremosh and others are indicated. It is not for nothing that in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” we read that the Galician prince Yaroslav Osmomysl “closed the gates of the Danube, sword of burdens through the clouds, rowing judgments to the Danube.” The author of “The Lay” says that “the maidens sing on the Danube, their voices curl across the sea to Kyiv,” that is, that there is a close, constant connection between Kiev and the Danube.

The population of the Kyiv state had a single language, as well as a single religion - first pagan and then Christian.

The unity of the people of Kievan Rus and the principalities of the XII-XIII centuries was also manifested in legal relations. Throughout the territory of Kievan Rus and the later principalities, the legislation of the “Russian Truth” was in force (began to be created in the first half of the 11th century).

The culture of Kievan Rus and the later principalities was also united, which was especially reflected in the chronicles. The main edition of The Tale of Bygone Years, the pride of our common chronicle, was compiled in Kyiv in beginning of XII centuries. But the chronicler, as established by the research of A. Shakhmatov and M. Priselkov, used the Novgorod chronicle code and the Chernigov chronicle. The same “Tale” was used as the basis for the Galician-Volyn chronicle. One of the sources of the Galician-Volyn chronicle (XIII century) was the Rostov-Suzdal chronicle.

Foreign contemporaries (Liutprand, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Thietmar, George Kedrin, Ibn al-Asir and others) spoke of the lands of Kievan Rus and the later principalities as a single whole.

The unity of the people of the lands of the Kyiv state and the principalities of the 12th-13th centuries was clearly manifested in the common struggle against foreign invaders.

In 1018, the Novgorodians helped the Kyivians expel the Polish invaders who invaded Kiev. In the battle of Kiev in 1036, where the power of the Pechenegs was crushed, in the troops; Novgorodians also lived under Yaroslav the Wise.

In the first half of the 13th century, the lands of the Galician-Volyn principality had to repel aggression from the knights of the German Teutonic Order, Poland and Hungary, and in this struggle we often see the mutual assistance of the two peoples to each other. In particular, the North Russian squads, who arrived led by Prince Mstislav the Udal from Novgorod, provided great assistance to the Galicians.

Since the 14th century, the lands of Ukraine (by the 14th century the Ukrainian nationality had already been largely formed) became the object of aggression from foreign invaders.

In Fig. The Old Russian state in 1237 on the eve of the Mongol invasion

The heavy Tatar-Mongol yoke hindered the development of our common country. The Lithuanian state, created in the east of Europe, began to subjugate the Belarusian and then Ukrainian lands. By the middle of the 14th century, most of the Ukrainian lands were under Lithuanian rule. The Polish lords after the Union of Krevo in 1385 (this union united Poland and Lithuania under the rule of the Polish king) rushed to Galicia and captured it in 1387. The Ukrainian population had to experience not only severe social oppression, but also national-religious oppression. In the captured Ukrainian cities, the Polish government implanted a wealthy Polish and German philistinism and transferred city self-government into their hands; at the same time, the Ukrainian petty bourgeoisie were subject to all sorts of restrictions in trades, trade, and crafts; Ukrainians were almost not allowed to participate in city government.

By the end of the 15th century, the Lithuanian government eliminated appanage principalities Ukrainian lands, destroyed the remnants of Ukrainian statehood. In an effort to denationalize and Catholicize the Ukrainian people and Belarusians (whose lands were also seized by Lithuania), trying to sever their ties with the fraternal Russian people, the Polish and Lithuanian governments introduced in 1596 church union, which subordinated the Ukrainian and Belarusian churches to the Pope.

In the 14th century, Moldova captured Northern Bukovina, and during the 14th - 15th centuries, the lands of Bessarabia, and later part of these lands fell under Turkish rule; the majority remained under the rule of the Moldavian rulers, who were in vassal dependence on Turkey.

By that time, the Ukrainian population of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina had increased. Tatars and Moldavian ruler Stephen attacked Podolia and Galicia in 1498. Stefan captured about 100 thousand Ukrainians in these parts and settled them on the lands of his state, “so that to this day,” says the 17th-century Moldavian chronicler Ureke, “the Russian language has spread in Moldova.”

The Ukrainian people did not submit to foreign invaders who tried to denationalize them, but fought steadfastly and stubbornly, in a wide variety of ways and means.

By the end of the 15th century, the Cossacks arose in the steppes of Ukraine, which later spread to other areas of the Dnieper region. In the second half of the 16th century, the Cossacks created their own center beyond the thresholds of the Dnieper - the Zaporozhye Sich, which became the center for organizing almost all uprisings against foreign invaders. In the structure of the Zaporozhye Sich, the embryonic forms of a new Ukrainian statehood are already visible. It is no coincidence that K. Marx speaks about the emergence of the Cossacks this way: on the Dnieper islands “a Christian Cossack Republic».

The Cossack movement spread throughout Ukraine. It is not for nothing that in the first list of Cossacks that has reached us (1581) we see residents various areas Ukraine, the cities of Kyiv, Cherkassy, ​​Lyubech, Dubno, Rivne, Galich, Vinnitsa, Ostra, residents from near Lviv, etc.

In the middle of the 15th century, organizations of Ukrainian petty bourgeois - brotherhoods - began to emerge to fight against the invaders and their accomplices. The first brotherhood arose in Lvov. And then the brotherhoods, spreading to other lands of Ukraine, covered not only the townspeople, but also more wide circles population. And this movement reflected the unity of the Ukrainian people.

The Polish government was forced to reckon with the fact of this unity, with the fact that Galicia is a Ukrainian land, and not a Polish one. In 1435, it was forced to give the voivodeship organized in Galicia the name “Russian voivodeship.”

That Galicia is not Poland, but “Rus”, was also recognized by the scientific circles of the then Europe. Thus, on the map of Cardinal Nicholas Cusanus (compiled around 1460, engraved in 1491), the western Ukrainian lands with the cities of Sambir, Lviv, Belz, Galich and others are located in the territory called Russia (“Russia”). In the same way, on the map of Poland and Hungary by S. Münster (published in Basel in 1540), the territory of Galicia is called Russia (“Russia”). The same lands with the cities of Przemysl, Lvov, Galich and others are called “Russia” on the maps of the Italian cosmographer J. Gastaldi (1562, 1568).

Despite the fact that the Ukrainian people and the Russian people were separated by state borders, the ties between them were not interrupted, but grew, taking on the most diverse forms.

Ukrainians helped the Russians in the fight against foreign invaders and helped defend the borders of the Russian state. By the beginning of the 16th century, part of the lands of Ukraine - Severshchina with the cities of Chernigov, Novgorod-Seversky and others - was freed from the rule of Lithuania and became part of the Moscow state, which was a progressive fact for these lands.

The Polish government was not satisfied with the capture of Galicia, but also captured Podolia in the first third of the 15th century. But this was not enough for the Polish gentry: they sought to subjugate the rest of the lands of Ukraine. In 1569, a Sejm was convened in Lublin, at which the question was raised that the Bratslav region, Volyn, Kiev region with Left Bank Ukraine from under the rule of Lithuania should come directly under the rule of Poland. Only representatives of the Ukrainian feudal lords were present at this Sejm. The Polish government tried to legally justify the seizure by citing the fact that these lands supposedly once belonged to Poland, which, of course, never happened. Reaching the point of absurdity in justifying their “historical rights,” the Polish lords argued their claims to the Kiev region by the fact that in 1018 and 1069 Kyiv was “taken and plundered” by the Polish kings. The Polish lords, of course, wisely kept silent about the fact that both times the rebel people quickly expelled the invaders.

By force, threats and other unclean ways, the Polish government achieved that the above-mentioned Ukrainian lands were subordinated to Poland by decision of the Lublin Sejm. This so-called Union of Lublin delayed for a long time the reunification of the Ukrainian people and their unification with the Russian people. Only a part of the Ukrainian feudal lords agreed to the union. The owner of the Ukrainian land - the people themselves - did not give consent to this union and responded to it with a struggle that lasted for a number of centuries.

"Union of Lublin"

After the Union of Lublin, a period of intense national liberation struggle began in the history of Ukraine against the Polish-gentry invaders, who brought severe social and national-religious oppression to the Ukrainians.

The oppressors sought to Polish and Catholicize the Ukrainian people. They subjected him to the most severe social oppression. In a number of lands in Ukraine, corvée labor reached 5 and even 6 days a week, not counting other types of in-kind and monetary duties. Ukrainian philistinism was limited in trade, trade, and participation in city government. To limit the growth of the Cossacks, a so-called register (list) was introduced, where only a small number of Cossacks were included; the rest of the Cossacks were forced to return to the rule of the lords. The Polish government, in the fight against the Ukrainian people, sought to use class contradictions between wealthy Cossacks, on the one hand, and the Cossack poor, on the other.

The Ukrainian people responded to the Polish-gentry oppression with a decisive, fierce resistance. The masses of the people sought not only to throw off the yoke of foreign invaders, but also to reunite in a single Ukrainian state, unite with the Russian people, and annex Ukraine to Russia. These moments, closely intertwined with each other, give us a complete picture of the national liberation struggle of the Ukrainian people.

The liberation movement after the Union of Lublin and before the beginning of the second half XVII centuries can be divided into two periods: the first - until the end of the 30s of the 17th century - and the second - the period of the great national liberation war of 1648-1654, which ended with the annexation of Ukraine to Russia.

The brotherhoods created by Ukrainians, the number of which increased more and more, opened schools and printing houses, fought against Polish-Catholic aggression and propaganda, and strengthened the Ukrainian people and culture. At first, the center of the ideological struggle was the Western Ukrainian lands, especially the cities of Lviv and Ostrog. In the second decade of the 17th century, Kiev became such a center, where a number of active figures from Western Ukraine, in particular from Galicia (Elisha Pletenetsky, Job Boretsky, Zechariah Kolystensky and others) moved. Ukrainian brotherhoods acted in contact with Belarusian brotherhoods, helping each other.

Another form of struggle of the Ukrainian people was the uprising against the Polish-gentry invaders; of these, the largest were the uprisings of 1591-1593 led by K. Kosinsky, 1594-1596 led by G. Loboda, M. Shauloya, S. Nalivaiko, the uprising of 1630 led by T. Fedorovich, 1635 led by I. Sulima, 1637-1638, led by Pavlyuk, Y. Ostryanin, D. Gunya.

The struggle of the Ukrainian people against the Polish gentry invaders in most cases bore a religious overtones as a struggle for their own Orthodox faith, against Catholicism, union, and against the faith of others. This religious coloring of the national liberation struggle is quite understandable, since “the appearance of political protest under a religious cover is a phenomenon characteristic of all peoples at a certain stage of their development.” The Polish government managed through armed force (Poland at that time was militarily the strongest of the European states) to suppress these uprisings, flooding the Ukrainian lands with streams of blood. However, it was not possible to break the Ukrainian people and Polish the Ukrainians: they still considered themselves the Ukrainian people in all their lands. It is characteristic that Hetman P. Sagaidachny, shortly before his death (April 1622), bequeathed significant sums of money for the activities of the brotherhoods of two largest centers Ukraine: Kyiv and Lvov.

And foreign contemporaries considered the Western Ukrainian lands and the whole of Ukraine to be Ukraine, and not Poland.

In 1573, the French prince Henry of Valois was elected king of Poland. For him, Blaise de Viginère composed a detailed note about Poland; in this note, Kiev region, Podolia, Galicia, Volyn are called Russian lands, that is, Ukrainian. Thus, about Galicia (Chervona Rus) Vizhiner writes: “Southern Russia, which forms part of all Russia, which will be discussed in detail in a separate chapter, extends along the Sarmatian mountains, which the locals call the Tatras and which protect it from the south to the Dniester River at borders of Wallachia." The main cities of Galicia in this note are named Przemysl and Lviv.

On the map compiled in 1634 by order of the Polish king Vladislav IV by military engineer I. Pleitner, the western Ukrainian lands with the cities of Lvov, Galich, Kolomyia and others are called “Russia”.

The ties between the Ukrainian people and the Russian people grew and strengthened. Many Ukrainians, fleeing persecution from the invaders, moved to the Moscow state, often entered military service there, and helped defend Russian borders from the Turks and Tatars. According to the testimony of the Englishman D. Fletcher, who was in Russia (1588), of the 4,300 people of the mercenary infantry of the Moscow State, 4 thousand were Ukrainians; The Frenchman J. Margeret, who was in the service in Russia at the beginning of the 17th century, also gives approximately the same figure. Zaporozhye Hetman K. Kosinsky acted in contact with Russian troops against attacks by the Turks and Tatars.

K. Kosinsky

After the suppression of the uprisings, many Ukrainians moved within the Russian state and settled in Sloboda Ukraine.

The founder of book printing in Russia, Ivan Fedorov, printed the first printed book in Ukraine in Lvov in 1574.

Especially close relations were between the Don and Ukrainian Cossacks, who concluded a defensive alliance in the 30s of the 17th century. Many Cossacks lived for a long time, sometimes for a number of years, on the Don; in turn, the Don people also lived for a long time in the Zaporozhye Sich. The Don and Zaporozhye Cossacks together made a number of campaigns against the Turks and Tatars, such as the campaigns of 1616, 1621, 1623, 1625. There were also Don Cossacks in the ranks of the Ukrainian rebels.

The question of Ukraine's annexation with Russia is also on the agenda. Already Hetman K. Kosinsky in 1593, during the uprising, negotiated about this with the Russian government. In 1625, this problem was again the subject of negotiations between Bishop I. Boriskovich (envoy of the Kyiv Metropolitan I. Boretsky) with the Russian government in Moscow. During the uprisings of 1630 and 1637, the question of Ukraine's annexation to Russia was still on the order of the day.

The struggle of the Russian people in 1612 against the Polish-gentry invaders who sought to seize Russia ended, as we know, in the defeat and expulsion of the Poles. The defeat of the Polish interventionists in 1612 weakened Poland and thereby contributed to the strengthening of the national liberation struggle of the Ukrainian people and their unification with the Russian people.

Before moving on to the national liberation war of 1648-1654, let's say a few words about the so-called historical rights of Poland to Ukrainian lands.

A number of Polish nationalist historians, in particular M. Grabowski, K. Shainokha, T. Lyubomirsky, A. Yablonovsky and others, argued at one time that after the devastation of Ukraine by the Tatars (in the 13th century), colonists came there from Poland and, mixing with the remnants of the local population, laid the foundation for a new tribe, closer to the Poles than to the Russians. In the 15th century, the Poles allegedly finished settling Galicia, Podolia and part of Volyn, and later the lands captured by the Union of Lublin in 1569. This is supposedly the basis of Poland’s rights to Ukrainian lands. (We still periodically hear similar “arguments” from reactionary circles of the Polish bourgeoisie, looking for “historical” reasons for annexing Ukrainian lands.)

This unhistorical theory, which has no basis in facts, was most fully criticized by Prof. M. Vladimirsky-Budanov. Using the works of his predecessors and numerous archival primary sources, he came to clear, convincing conclusions that overturned the false theory of Polish nationalist historians. Vladimirsky-Budanov, with facts in hand, showed that the Ukrainian people themselves, without the help of Poland, settled their lands devastated by the Tatars. When the Polish gentry moved to seize foreign, Ukrainian lands, the people responded to this, on the one hand, with further movement into the uninhabited steppes and resettlement within the Moscow state, on the other hand, with bloody uprisings that led to the events of 1648-1654.

Hetman Bohdan Khmelnitsky

In 1648, a national liberation war of the Ukrainian people broke out against the Polish-gentry invaders. Reflecting the historical aspirations of the Ukrainian people, its leader, Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, from the very first days of the war raised the question of overthrowing the Polish yoke, reuniting Ukrainian lands in a single Ukrainian state and the annexation of Ukraine to Russia.

The uprising that broke out in the Dnieper region spread to Volyn, Galicia, and reached the Carpathian Mountains. Uprisings began in Belarus; there were uprisings against the gentry in Poland itself, and Khmelnitsky helped the Belarusian and Polish rebels. The fact is that Bogdan Khmelnitsky was not an enemy of the Polish people. He was an enemy, and an irreconcilable enemy, only of that Polish gentry, who, with their reckless policies, led Poland to destruction. As for the Polish people, Bogdan Khmelnitsky helped them in the fight against the gentry who oppressed them. So, in the fall of 1648, the hetman helped the Polish peasant rebels. The conspiracy of the urban poor in Warsaw against the nobility was organized then, on the instructions of Khmelnitsky. In 1651, Kostka-Napierski, the leader of the Polish peasant rebels near Krakow, acted in contact with Chmielnicki.

The unity of the Ukrainian people in this war was also manifested in the fact that from the lands of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina the rebels went to the aid of their brothers in the Dnieper region and Galicia. Polish troops suffered a series of heavy defeats near Zhovti Vody, Korsun, Pilyavtsy, Zborov, Vinnitsa, Batog, and Monastyrische from the Ukrainians.

Bogdan Khmelnytsky, by the will of the Ukrainian people, already on June 8, 1648, began negotiations with the Russian government on the annexation of Ukraine to Russia and did not stop them throughout the war. Envoys of the Russian government to Ukraine, such as G. Unkovsky (1649), A. Sukhanov (1650), G. Bogdanov (1651), A. Matveev, I. Fomin (1653), carefully collecting information about the mood of the Ukrainians , was convinced that the whole people wanted this accession.

Already at the beginning of 1649, Khmelnytsky told Unkovsky that he demanded that Poland renounce Ukrainian lands and return all lands that were within the borders of Kievan Rus and the principalities of the 12th-13th centuries. During negotiations in February of the same year with Polish representatives, Bogdan Khmelnytsky indicated that his goal was to liberate all Ukrainian lands from Polish rule and reunite them into one state. The hetman spoke about his Ukrainian state, which also includes the Western Ukrainian lands with the cities of Lvov and Galich.

On January 8 (old style), 1654, at the Rada in the city of Pereyaslav (now Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky), the annexation of Ukraine to Russia was proclaimed - an event that played an extremely important role in further history Ukrainian and Russian peoples. The war of 1648-1654 led to the reunification of only the bulk of the Ukrainian lands (Dnieper region). But the close ties that from now on welded the Russian and Ukrainian peoples together served as a guarantee that further cooperation of these peoples would help reunite all Ukrainian lands in a single Ukrainian state.

It is characteristic that the French engineer G. Boplan, an authoritative expert on Eastern Europe who lived in that era (he spent about 20 years in Ukraine), defined Ukraine as a single country from Hungary to Russia. On the Boplan map, Galicia as “Rus' Rubra” was part of Ukraine.

After Ukraine annexed Russia in 1654, Poland, and later Turkey and its vassal Crimea, attacked Ukraine more than once. The Ukrainians, with the help of the Russian people, repelled the attempts of the aggressors and at the same time sought to liberate from them those of their lands that still remained under foreign yoke.

Already at the end of 1654, the Nizhyn archpriest M. Filimonovich, reflecting the aspirations of the Ukrainian and Belarusian peoples, said in his speech to Tsar Alexei that now the matter is about the liberation of “Lvov land, Podolsk, Pokuttsky, Podgorsk, Polessky, Belarusian and their broad principalities, glorious cities." In the fall of 1655, Bogdan Khmelnitsky declared to S. Lyubovitsky and S. Grondsky, sent by the Polish king with a proposal to end the war and subjugate Ukraine to Poland, that there could be no talk of any subordination either now or in the future. Peace can only be concluded if Poland renounces all claims to Western Ukrainian lands with the cities of Vladimir, Lviv, and Przemysl.

Until the very last days of my life great son Ukraine Bogdan Khmelnytsky fought for the reunification of Ukrainian lands in single state, sought to include “all of Chervona Rus along the Vistula” in its composition.

After the death of Khmelnitsky (1657), for a number of years, separate groups of Cossack elders tried to subjugate Ukraine to Poland, Turkey, and Crimea. However, the attempts of these groups of elders (groups of I. Vygovsky, P. Doroshenko, P. Sukhovey, M. Khanenko) ultimately suffered failures due to resistance from the masses. If the aggressors (Poland, Turkey) managed to seize one or another part of the lands of Ukraine, then the Ukrainian people stubbornly fought against the foreign yoke and strived for the reunification of all their lands in a single Ukrainian state that was part of Russia.

In 1660, Poland managed to capture the Right Bank. However, already in 1663, an uprising broke out there in Pavoloch, with the goal of reuniting the Right Bank with the Left Bank as part of Russia. In March next year Again, an uprising broke out on the Right Bank, and, as P. Teter, a supporter of Poland, informed the King of Poland, “almost all of Ukraine decided to die for the name of the Tsar of Moscow,” that is, for the annexation of Ukraine to Russia.

Both peoples - Ukrainian and Russian - fought shoulder to shoulder not only against foreign invaders (only with the help of Russia did the Ukrainians manage to repel the aggression of Poland, Turkey and Crimea), but also against common exploiters - tsarism, landowners. Many Ukrainians fought in the troops of Stepan Razin (uprising of 1670-1671); The uprising spread to Sloboda Ukraine, where the rebels captured a number of cities, such as Sumy, Chuguev, Kharkov and others.

Hetman I. Samoilovich

In 1686, the tsarist government, contrary to the will of the Ukrainian people, made peace with Poland, leaving the Right Bank (without Kyiv) and Galicia under its rule. The Ukrainian people protested against this world, which was tearing apart the living body of Ukraine. It is not for nothing that Hetman I. Samoilovich in 1685, that is, during peace negotiations, through his envoy to Moscow V. Kochubey, insisted on the need to reconquer Ukrainian lands from Poland, and not only the Right Bank, but “and all of Chervona Rus” with the cities of Galich, Lvov, Przemysl and others. The peace of 1686 did not put an end to the struggle of the Ukrainian people for reunification into one whole and for unification with the Russian people.

The lands of the Central Kiev region, devastated by disastrous wars, were repopulated at the end of the 17th century by Ukrainian settlers from Galicia, Podolia, Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and the Left Bank. The national hero Semyon Paley played an extremely important role in this settlement. He also negotiated with the Russian government about the reunification of these lands with the Left Bank and their inclusion in Russia.

The armed struggle against the Polish-gentry invaders who rushed to these lands did not stop; A particularly large uprising broke out in 1702-1703, and the main leader of the rebels, Samus, from the very beginning declared his goal to reunite the Right Bank with the Left Bank and announced that he was ready to submit to the Russian government. This uprising, starting in the Kiev and Bratslav regions, spread to Volyn, Podolia, and Galicia. Ukrainians moved from Northern Bukovina, Bessarabia, and the Left Bank to help the rebels. Although Poland managed to suppress the uprising, Paley defended the areas of Fastov and Bila Tserkva, which, like a number of neighboring localities on the Right Bank, remained virtually part of Russia.

Hetman Mazepa

During Northern War Russia and Sweden in 1708, Hetman of Left Bank Ukraine Mazepa betrayed Russia and Ukraine and entered into an alliance with the Swedish king Charles XII, seeking, with his assistance, to subjugate all Ukrainian lands to Poland. Charles XII, at the head of the army, then the strongest in Europe, moved to Ukraine. The Ukrainian people did not follow the traitor Mazepa and remained faithful to the alliance with the Russian people. Guerrilla warfare flared up in Ukraine, bleeding and sapping the strength of the Swedes. The heroic defense of Poltava, defended by Russian troops and local residents, further undermined the strength of the Swedish army. On June 27, 1709, near Poltava, the Swedes were defeated by the Russian army (it also included Ukrainian units) led by Peter I. The defeat of the army of Charles XII had an exclusive impact on the history of Ukraine important, putting an end to Poland's attempts to seize Left Bank Ukraine.

An unsuccessful war with Turkey forced Peter I in 1711 to agree that the Middle Dnieper region would again fall under Polish rule.

But on the Right Bank and in Galicia there was a tireless struggle against Polish domination; uprisings broke out one after another, of which the largest was the “Koliivshchyna” of 1768. These uprisings, in particular the Koliivshchyna, spread to Galicia. And each time the rebels raised the question of the reunification of Ukrainian lands and their inclusion in Russia. In Poland at that time, both peasants and townspeople suffered extremely heavy oppression from the gentry. Therefore, in the ranks of the Ukrainian rebels (in the 18th century they were usually called Haidamaks) there were many Polish poor and farm laborers. We have authoritative evidence of this from Russian border officials, as well as from a contemporary Pole, Kitovich. Moreover, the appeal (“Project of the Cotton Confederation”) of 1767 has also been preserved, calling on Polish peasants to fight together with the Ukrainian peasants oppressed by the gentry against the lords.

At the end of the 18th century, Poland was brought to ruin by its ruling classes: its lands were divided between its neighbors. And of those Ukrainian lands that were under the yoke of lordly Poland, the Right Bank of Ukraine became part of Russia, and Galicia was captured by Austria (1772). In 1775, Austria also occupied Northern Bukovina, previously subject to the Turks. Note that, according to Austrian government statistics, at that time 2/3 of the population of Bukovina were Ukrainians, as established by General Erzberger, the ruler of Bukovina since 1778.

Throughout the late 17th and 18th centuries, the Ukrainian people were unable to reunite into a single Ukrainian state, and a significant part of their land remained under the yoke of Poland and Turkey. However, even in that dark time, the Ukrainian people did not lose consciousness of their unity. Thus, the chronicler S. Velichko in his work (started in 1720) says that Ukraine includes the Right Bank, Volyn and Galicia. The author of the description of the Chernigov governorship, A. Shafonsky (1786), also writes about this. Galicia also appears as “Rus” on the maps of Delide in 1703 and Schenck in 1705.

The territory of Austria-Hungary before 1914.

In the first half of the 19th century, that part of the Ukrainian people that was under the rule of Austria-Hungary had to endure heavy oppression from the German government of Austria. The dominant German and Hungarian circles of Austria-Hungary sought, with the help of the Polish gentry, to denationalize, Germanize, Polonize, and Magyarize the Ukrainians. However, this did not break the spirit of the Ukrainian people. The national revival in Ukraine developed more and more, ties between the Russian and Ukrainian peoples grew and strengthened. The Ukrainian people, preserving the idea of ​​their unity, sought reunification.

K. Marx and F. Engels pointed out that Galician Ukrainians gravitate “to other Little Russian regions that have united with Russia.” Marx and Engels noted that “the Austrian Slavs are membra disjecta (disunited members) who strive for reunification either with each other or with the main bodies of their nationalities.”

V. Bronevsky, an officer of the Russian fleet, who traveled from Trieste to St. Petersburg in 1810, writes: “When entering Galicia, everything made me happy; the similarity of the inhabitants with our Little Russians is striking: their scrolls and hats are exactly the same as those we wear in Ukraine, and they speak so clearly that I, not being a Little Russian, could understand everything without difficulty; and nature itself seemed to me more beautiful and more abundant than I saw it yesterday.” Bronevsky points out that in Galicia “the language of the common people is still completely similar to Little Russian.”

The common struggle both against foreign invaders and against tsarism further united Ukrainians with the Russian people. During Napoleon's invasion in 1812, in Left Bank Ukraine alone, 15 Cossack regiments were formed to fight against Napoleon's hordes, in addition, masses of Ukrainians fought in the ranks of all-Russian military formations.

Taras Shevchenko

The fraternal friendship of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples, as a focus, was reflected in the common activities and connections that existed between Taras Shevchenko and Russian revolutionary democrats, in particular N. Chernyshevsky and N. Dobrolyubov. A great friend of the Ukrainians, Chernyshevsky in his works opposed the Germanization of Ukrainians in Galicia, against the artificial division of the Ukrainian people.

Shevchenko was also connected in his activities with leading Polish figures of that time, for example with Zalessky.

In the second half of the 19th century, the struggle of the Ukrainian people against social and national oppression took on an even wider scope. In those areas of Ukraine that were part of Russia, the working class was closely connected with the Russian proletariat, whose struggle always found its echo in Ukraine. In 1895, when V.I. Lenin created the “Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class” in St. Petersburg, similar struggle unions arose in Ukraine - in Kiev, Nikolaev, Yekaterinoslav (now Dnepropetrovsk). The Kiev and Ekaterinoslav “Unions” took part in the First Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. At the II Party Congress in 1903, delegates from the Ukrainian committees were present: Kharkov, Kiev, Odessa, Nikolaev, Ekaterinoslav.

The first social democratic circles

The events of the bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1905-1907 had a wide impact and development in Ukraine. This was the case in the January days of 1905, and in the October days, and during the December armed uprising in Moscow, when armed uprisings took place in a number of cities in Ukraine - Kharkov, Lugansk, Gorlovka.

Galician Ukrainians found themselves in exceptionally difficult conditions under the rule of Austria-Hungary. In Eastern Galicia (where the overwhelming majority of the population were Ukrainians) large latifundia of Polish landowners predominated; wage agricultural workers was very low. High mortality and low equivalent consumption distinguished Galicia from all European countries.

Ukrainian culture was suppressed. Lviv University was dominated by the Germans until 1870, and later by the Poles. There was one secondary Ukrainian school per 820 thousand population, and one secondary Polish school per 30 thousand population; per thousand Poles lower school 97 children attended, and only 57 per thousand Ukrainians.

Ivan Franko

And in these lands, the Ukrainian people stubbornly fought for their freedom, for their own national culture. From his midst at that time such outstanding figures as Ivan Franko, Osip Fedkovich, Olga Kobylyanskaya emerged. In 1870, a workers' strike broke out in Lvov.

In 1901, several hundred Ukrainian students left Lviv University in protest against its forced polonization and refusal to expand the rights of the Ukrainian language. Progressive circles of Polish university youth also reacted sympathetically to this step. The peasant uprising of 1902 involved about 100 thousand people. An attempt by Ukrainian reactionaries to come to an agreement with Polish landowners (the so-called Antonovich-Badeni agreement) at the end of the 19th century failed due to resistance from the popular masses.

Despite the fact that part of the Ukrainian people was outside Russia, a sense of unity grew increasingly stronger in the minds of the masses. This was figuratively expressed in the early 60s of the 19th century by the Ukrainian public figure P. Kulish: “Our brother will sing across the Danube or near Poltava, and in Lviv and the Beskydy the voice resounds. Galician Rus' groans under the Carpathians, and over the Dnieper people’s hearts ache.”

The most prominent progressive Western Ukrainian figures, like Ivan Franko, saw their half-brother in the Russian people. Franco told his opponents: “We are all Russophiles, hear, I repeat once again that we are all Russophiles. We love the Great Russian people, we wish them all the best... And we know and love Russian writers, great in the spiritual kingdom...”

After the February bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1917, wide avenues opened up for the Ukrainian people to realize their cherished aspirations: to reunite in a single Ukrainian state. The bulk of the Ukrainian people followed the Bolshevik Party, which always stood for the self-determination of peoples up to the point of secession, i.e. the full right of peoples to arrange their own lives as they wish.

The bourgeois Provisional Government and the Ukrainian Central Rada (the body of the Ukrainian landowners and bourgeoisie) formed shortly after the revolution, despite the pseudo-democratic phraseology, created obstacles liberation struggle Ukrainian working people. Only the Bolsheviks, as before, remained in truly popular positions in general, on the Ukrainian issue in particular. Even before the First World War, V.I. Lenin proclaimed his famous position: “With the united action of the Great Russian and Ukrainian proletarians, a free Ukraine possible, without such unity there can be no talk of it.” At the same time, Lenin proclaimed the right of the Ukrainian people to create their own state.

Great October socialist revolution, the formation of the Soviet government was extremely important for the struggle of the Ukrainian people for their reunification. Now, under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, the Ukrainian people could eliminate social and national oppression and reunite in their single state. Already at the end of December (25th new style) 1917, the Soviet government of Ukraine was organized in Kharkov, leading the struggle of the Ukrainian people against the Central Rada and against the bourgeois counter-revolution, seeking to tear Ukrainian workers away from their class brothers.

During the years of the civil war, the Ukrainian people had to expend a lot of effort, a lot of blood had to be shed in order to achieve their liberation and preserve their Soviet statehood. Without the help of the Russian people, without the leadership of the proven Bolshevik Party, the Ukrainian people would not have been able to resist.

At the beginning of 1918, the Central Rada, expelled by the rebellious people, sold their homeland to the German invaders and called their hordes to Ukraine. But, burning with anger, the people of Ukraine rose up in a patriotic war against foreign invaders and by the end of the year, with the help of the Russian people, Russian workers and peasants and other peoples of young Soviet Russia under the leadership of the Bolsheviks, they expelled the invaders and their accomplices from their country.

It is characteristic that the Ukrainians, who were in the Austrian troops at that time, not only refused to fight against the Ukrainian people, but even joined the Ukrainian partisans, as Austrian official circles testified to this. (But now the Ukrainian oligarchy has fooled the heads of its workers so much that they do not consider it shameful to shoot at each other. And for what? For the sake of the fullness of the pockets of Poroshenko and Kolomoisky? The comfortable life of Tymoshenko, Yatsenyuk, etc.?)

At the end of the war of 1914-1918, the Supreme Council Allied Powers(England, the United States of America, France and others) decided that Poland should include only ethnographically Polish areas. Accordingly, the Supreme Council of the Allied Powers then established the so-called “Curzon Line,” which provided for the entry of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, populated overwhelmingly by Ukrainians and Belarusians, into the Soviet Union.

Subsequently, throughout 1919, other foreign invaders who tried to seize Ukraine with the help of the traitor Petliura also failed. In 1920, Petliura entered into an agreement with the White Poles, agreeing that a significant territory of Ukraine (including Galicia, part of Volyn) with a population of up to 11 million people would come under Polish rule, and for this the Poles would undertake to help Petliura seize power in Ukraine. This treacherous adventure also failed. The Red Army defeated and expelled the White Poles from the territory Soviet Ukraine. Only Trotsky’s treacherous activity then prevented the liberation of Western Ukrainian lands from Polish rule, since his proposed adventure of a “march on Warsaw” in 1920 led to the retreat of the Red Army, during which it had to leave a significant part of the Ukrainian and Belarusian territories. As a result, the RSFSR was forced to sign the Treaty of Riga, which extended the Polish-Soviet border far east of the Curzon Line, capturing the western parts of Ukraine and Belarus.

"Curzon line"

After the collapse of Austria, boyar Romania, which had captured Bessarabia even earlier, at the beginning of 1918, also captured the lands of Northern Bukovina.

At the end of the civil war, broad prospects opened up for the Ukrainian people, who formed their own state - the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, an integral, integral part of the USSR. comprehensive development. Under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, Soviet Ukraine became a powerful industrial country, a region of developed agriculture, and a region of exceptional growth of national culture.

At the same time, in the lands of Ukraine occupied by Poland and Romania there was a completely opposite picture. The industry of Western Ukraine decreased by 40%, sugar consumption - by 93%, salt - by 72%, coal - by 50%. More than 50% of peasant farms did not have horses and only 47% had cows. Ukrainian culture fell into decline, suffering persecution from the occupiers. Of the 3,662 Ukrainian schools by the end of Polish rule, 135 remained, of 61 Ukrainian gymnasiums - 5, and at Lvov University a percentage rate was introduced for Ukrainians. The number of illiterate people in Western Ukraine reached 60%.

In Bessarabia, 80% of all land was cultivated with antediluvian tools, and 63 thousand hectares were not cultivated at all, gardening decreased by 5 times, tobacco growing fell by almost 80%. In Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, forced Romanianization was carried out. The population of Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia was exhausted under the yoke of usury and exorbitant taxes. The working day in Western Ukraine, Northern Bukovina, Bessarabia sometimes reached 16 hours!

Ukrainians of the occupied lands never recognized the power of the occupiers, and nothing could suppress the freedom-loving aspirations of the people: not the cruel Polish “pacification” of the West. Ukraine in 1930, nor the bloody suppression by the Romanians of the Khotyn and Tatar-Bunar uprisings of 1919 and 1924. The Ukrainian people of the occupied lands always turned their gaze to the east, to Soviet Ukraine, to the Soviet Union, from where they expected help and support.

In turn, the peoples of the Soviet Union never forgot about their oppressed brothers. The Soviet Union never recognized the capture of Bessarabia by the Romanians.

In 1939-1940 she turned cherished dream Ukrainian people, the long-awaited reunification took place. In the war with Nazi Germany, Poland suffered a number of defeats, since the leaders of the Polish government (in particular Colonel Beck) in previous years only helped Hitler in his vile anti-Soviet game, and failed to organize the defense of Poland. In mid-September 1939, the Polish government fled, leaving the country to its fate. Hitler's troops had already begun to penetrate Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. The Soviet government could not remain a passive spectator under such conditions. On September 17, the Red Army entered Western Ukraine and Western Belarus and within a few days liberated its half-brothers - Belarusians and Ukrainians - from the rule of foreigners.

On October 22, 1939, elections to the People's Assembly took place in Western Ukraine. All citizens of Western Ukraine who have reached the age of 18, regardless of their race, nationality, religion, education, social origin, property status and past activities, had the right to choose and be elected to this Assembly. Elections took place on the basis of universal, equal and direct suffrage by secret ballot. It was a truly nationwide, free plebiscite. The population of Western Ukraine itself had to decide its fate. The results of the plebiscite showed the will of Western Ukraine. Out of 4,776,275 voters, 4,433,997 people participated in the elections, that is, 92.83% of voters. 90.93% of all votes (4,032,154) were cast for the candidates nominated to this Assembly by peasant committees, temporary administrations, meetings of the labor guards, workers, and intelligentsia.

On October 26-28, the People's Assembly took place in the ancient Ukrainian city of Lviv. It unanimously proclaimed the establishment of Soviet power throughout Western Ukraine and decided to ask the Supreme Council USSR“to accept Western Ukraine into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, to include Western Ukraine into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in order to reunite the Ukrainian people in a single state, to put an end to the centuries-old disunity of the Ukrainian people.”

On November 1 of the same year, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR at its 5th session decided to satisfy this request and “include Western Ukraine into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics with its reunification with the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.”

On November 14, in the capital of Ukraine Kyiv, at the III, extraordinary session of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, a law on the inclusion of Western Ukraine into the Ukrainian SSR was unanimously adopted.

In 1940, the lands of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina were liberated from the yoke of the Romanian invaders. On August 2, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR at its VII session granted the petition of representatives of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina for the inclusion of Northern Bukovina and the Khotyn, Akkerman and Izmail districts of Bessarabia populated by Ukrainians into the Ukrainian SSR.

Ukrainian SSR in 1940

These acts of 1939-1940 completed the reunification of the Ukrainian people in their single state- Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The working people of Ukraine did not want to live in isolation from their fellow workers and peasants and became part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

But the Ukrainian people did not have to rejoice in their freedom for long. On June 22, 1941, Hitler threw his predatory hordes into the Soviet Union, seeking to destroy the world's first socialist country and enslave the entire great and free Soviet people. Hitler's plans also included the seizure of Soviet Ukraine, which he wanted to annex to Germany as a colony. Rich natural resources, food and skilled labor, which the Nazis turned into slaves in the occupied territories, Ukraine was a tasty morsel for the Nazi invaders.

The Republic is one of the first to receive the enemy’s insidious blow. The destructive military rampart did not pass a single populated area on the territory of the republic, sweeping through it twice - during the advance of the fascists and during their retreat.

Hitler hoped that the USSR would not survive for long, that a struggle would begin between the peoples of the Soviet Union; he believed that the peoples of the USSR lived together only because the communists forced them to do so. The West expected the Soviet Union to collapse at the first blow. However, the Ukrainian people, like other peoples of our country, remained faithful to each other and to their Soviet motherland. Voluntary Union of Peoples clearly showed the difference between multinational capitalist states, where there is always strife between the peoples inhabiting them (since the national bourgeoisie is constantly competing with each other for the right to exploit the working people living in one or another territory of the country), and a multinational socialist state, where the peoples have nothing to divide among themselves and where they truly free and truly independent.

All the peoples of the USSR rose as one against the fascist hordes. They had to pay a terrible price for their freedom - 20 million dead. For Ukraine, this cost was about 8 million human lives. In fact, every sixth resident of Ukraine died during the war.

Millions of sons and daughters of Ukraine fought the enemy in the ranks Soviet army And Navy. The Republic gave over 7 million soldiers to the front. Every second of them died, and half of those who survived returned home disabled.

There were 150 thousand fighters in 650 fighter battalions. IN civil uprising about 1.3 million people joined. Over 2 million Ukrainian citizens took part in the construction of defense fortifications.

About 500 thousand people worked near Kiev alone. August 29, 1941 at the Kiev Drama Theater named after. Frank, a citywide youth rally took place. During the meeting, it became known that the enemy had broken through the defenses and was approaching the city. Those present in the hall made a unanimous decision - everyone should take up arms, and the rally would be extended after the danger had been eliminated. When the youth again gathered in the theater late in the evening, many chairs remained empty - more than 200 young men and women did not return from the battlefield.

During the occupation of Ukraine 1941-1944. the Nazis killed over 5 million people (3.8 million civilians and about 1.5 million prisoners of war); 2.4 million people were taken to work in Germany.

The entire powerful industrial base of the republic was liquidated: either taken deep into the USSR, or destroyed so that it would not fall to the enemy. In difficult conditions from July to October 1941, over 500 large enterprises were evacuated from Ukraine, which then continued their work in different parts of the Soviet Union.

The liberation of Ukraine lasted almost two years. Ten fronts fought fiercely for it, the forces of the Black Sea Fleet, which made up almost half of the personnel and military equipment of the entire active army of the USSR.

I. Kozhedub

The contribution of the Ukrainian people to the victory over fascism is invaluable. About 2.5 million Ukrainians were awarded orders and medals, over 2 thousand were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, one of them was I.M. Kozhedub was awarded this high title three times. Of the 115 twice Heroes of the Soviet Union, 32 are Ukrainians or natives of Ukraine. Of the four Heroes of the Soviet Union and at the same time full gentlemen There are two Orders of Glory - Ukrainians.

But the newly reunited Ukrainian people had to go through a lot. The policy of Hitler's fascists was aimed at destroying any national identity of the peoples of the USSR, the goal was to degrade people, turning them into dumb and stupid animals for hard work. Everything that could serve as any basis for the desire for national independence and the liberation movement was suppressed. In Ukraine, this was manifested, for example, in limiting the general education of Ukrainians to four grades of school and reducing the higher levels of education to highly specialized practical professions. Any amateur manifestations of the cultural initiative of the Ukrainian population, including those of a purely educational and cultural nature, were suppressed in every possible way. Publishing houses closed scientific institutions, libraries and museums, the most valuable of them were exported to Germany. The press and theaters, although they operated, were limited; their level was extremely primitive. (About how it is now in all post-Soviet republics.)

There could be no talk of any social guarantees for the local population. Even vitally important services, such as sanitary and medical services, were allowed to residents of Nazi-occupied territories on a very minimal basis. According to the fascist authorities, the lot of the Soviet peoples is hunger, all kinds of restrictions, not a trace human rights. Add here the inhumane treatment of Ukrainian and Soviet prisoners of war taken to Germany, as well as mass executions of the local population for actual or imaginary support of any resistance or protest.

The fascist occupiers created over 230 concentration camps and ghettos on the territory of Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war, women, children, old people, and disabled people became their prisoners. More than two hundred and fifty Ukrainian villages were burned to the ground by the occupiers.

This is the kind of government they supported Ukrainian nationalists from a whole bunch of bourgeois-nationalist organizations and military units such as OUN, UPA, Nachtigall, Roland (battalion), SS division “Galicia”, etc., which in today's fascist Ukraine are passed off as national heroes who allegedly fought for the independence of Ukraine. These “heroes” actively participated in the executions and shootings of Ukrainian civilians, served in the fascist police, and were part of punitive battalions that destroyed partisans who fought against foreign invaders.

Who joined these anti-people nationalist organizations? Patriots of Ukraine? No matter how it is! Most of these organizations were created by the Nazis even before the war on the territory of capitalist countries ( for the most part Poland) from representatives of the working people of the bourgeoisie and kulaks who fled from the power. In words, the nationalists advocated the independence of Ukraine, but for some reason independence under the rule of the working people, i.e. independence of Soviet Ukraine, which was part of the USSR according to voluntary agreement (as now, for example, European countries are part of the European Union), they were not at all happy with it. They wanted to have a bourgeois Ukraine, with the dominance of the bourgeois class and an uncomplaining working population that could be mercilessly exploited, they longed for independence from the people- that’s what all these Banderas and Stetskos, Kaczynskis, etc. were striving for. That’s why they found a common language with fascism, which is of the same capitalist-exploitative root. The fact that for some time there were some tensions between the Nazis and the Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists does not in any way indicate that they defended the interests of the Ukrainian people. This shows that the competitive struggle within the bourgeois class never stops: Hitler’s fascists and Ukrainian nationalists just divided among themselves who to rob and exploit the Ukrainian working people. (The Russian, Ukrainian, and European-American monopolies that started the war in Donbass are now doing the same thing).

“According to the Fuhrer’s concept, there can be no talk of an independent Ukraine in the coming decades,” said Alfred Rosenberg, Hitler’s minister for the occupied territories of the East.

Both the Ukrainian land and the people groaned under the forged boot of the fascist beast. Ukraine could not tolerate such outrage. The anger of the people was terrible. Both young and old were filled with hatred, joined the partisans, and created underground cells. The flames of partisan warfare engulfed the whole of Ukraine.

In Ukraine, under the leadership of the Central Committee of the party, the Ukrainian headquarters of the partisan movement was created. Everywhere, underground Bolshevik organizations were at the head of partisan detachments.

During the partisan war in Ukraine, remarkable commanders and organizers of the partisan movement emerged, such as S. Kovpak, A. Fedorov, S. Rudnev, P. Vershigora and others. For courage and heroism they were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and S. Kovpak and A. Fedorov became twice Heroes of the Soviet Union.

Under the leadership of the Secretary of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) A.F. Fedorov, the underground organizations of the Chernihiv region launched successful military activities.

There are still legends about Kovpak in Ukraine. And his name alone made the Germans tremble.

S. A. Kovpak

Before the war, S. A. Kovpak was the chairman of the local Council in the small Ukrainian town of Putivl. After the occupation of Putivl by the Germans, Kovpak and Rudnev organized a partisan detachment, the fame of whose exploits spread widely throughout Ukraine. In 1942 Kovpak together with others partisan commanders at the proposal of the Central Committee organizes a deep partisan raid on right bank Ukraine with the aim of rousing the people to fight the Germans and strike at enemy communications. Kovpak’s detachments launched a large war of extermination in the Carpathian Ukraine. They destroyed several oil refineries, more than 50 thousand tons of oil. To fight the partisan detachments of Kovpak, the Germans sent troops from Galicia and Hungary. However partisan detachments broke through the encirclement and returned to Ukraine.

The Carpathian raid of the Kovpakovites had not only great military, but also moral and political significance. He showed that the Nazis were powerless to conquer the Ukrainian people, and had a great influence on the rise of partisan warfare in Western Ukraine.

The partisan struggle in Ukraine has assumed a truly national character. Relying on the support of the entire people, the partisans of Ukraine during the Patriotic War disabled over 450 thousand enemy soldiers and officers, derailed several thousand military trains with manpower and equipment, blew up and burned 2,200 railway and highway bridges, and destroyed hundreds of ammunition depots and equipment, recaptured from the Germans and distributed to the Soviet population a large number of trains with grain and livestock (the Germans took away even the most necessary things from Soviet citizens, forcing them to starve, and took it all to Germany).

On October 28, 1944, the last Nazi formations were expelled from the territory of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Ukraine was liberated.

But this was still part of the victory, because after the fascist invasion there was such devastation that for several more years it was necessary to restore everything, from residential buildings and schools, to power plants, factories, mines, etc.; it was necessary to clear the fields and forests of mines, to revive agriculture in the republic, for which it had been famous since ancient times, so that beautiful Ukraine would bloom again and shine with happiness and freedom.

After the German occupation:

The first session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the second convocation approved the law on a five-year plan for the restoration and development of the national economy for 1946-1950.

The German occupiers caused enormous damage to the USSR. Therefore, the Supreme Council demanded as a first task the restoration of the affected areas, the restoration of the pre-war level of industry and agriculture, and then surpassing this level on a significant scale. And this task was successfully completed - by 1950, industry and agriculture were completely restored, and became even more powerful than before the war.

For example, the five-year plan provided that the production of the entire industry of the USSR in 1950 should increase by 48% compared to the pre-war 1940. This level of production was not only achieved, but also significantly exceeded: in 1950, Soviet industry produced by 73% more production than in 1940. Newly built and put into operation over 6 thousand industrial enterprises, not counting small state and cooperative enterprises!

The industry of the areas affected by the war, and primarily of Ukraine, was not only restored, but also modernized! Now Ukrainian enterprises were equipped with new, modern technology.

The metallurgical industry in Ukraine has been completely restored and on a new technical basis. It began to produce more metal than before the war. The entire coal industry of Donbass, completely destroyed during the war, was also completely restored and also began to produce more coal than before the war. By 1950, the new Donbass had become the largest and most mechanized coal basin in the country. The oil industry of Western Ukraine, destroyed during the war, has been completely restored and technically re-equipped.

The same is true in agriculture. As a result of the measures taken by the Soviet government and the dedicated work of collective farmers in 1950, the gross harvest of grain crops, cotton, sugar beets, etc. exceeded the level of the pre-war 1940. Collective and state farm productive livestock farming, which suffered greatly during the war, was completely restored. By 1950, collective and state farms in Ukraine had achieved a significant increase in the number of breeding livestock.

As for the standard of living of the Soviet population, including citizens of Soviet Ukraine, the monetary reform, the abolition of cards for food and industrial goods on December 14, 1947, as well as three annual price reductions sharply increased the well-being of the population of the Soviet republics. The real wages of workers and employees and the incomes of collective farmers increased significantly, by 1950 exceeding the pre-war level by 27-30%.

The Soviet government had special control over the issue of housing, which was badly damaged in enemy-occupied territories. In the post-war years, over 100 million square meters were restored and built in cities. m of living space, more than 2 million residential buildings have been commissioned in rural areas. Thousands of new schools, libraries, children's institutions, a large number of new hospitals, sanatoriums, holiday homes, clubs, theaters and cinemas were built.

Thanks to the care of the Soviet government, selfless work for the benefit of their homeland of Ukrainians and the help of the people of all Soviet republics, Ukraine has truly become more beautiful than before.

For three and a half decades, the Ukrainian people did not know grief, living freely and happily in friendship with other Soviet peoples. But the bourgeois counter-revolution, better known as Gorbachev's Perestroika, put an end to his prosperity. The bourgeoisie, which grew up in the country thanks to Gorbachev's reforms, wrested political power from the hands of the working class of the USSR. In all Soviet republics, the division of public property began. The newly-minted capitalists grappled with each other in a competitive struggle for the right to undividedly exploit the working class of different republics and tore the united Soviet state apart. Ukraine, like Russia, became bourgeois countries, formally sovereign and independent, but in reality - primitive colonies of the major imperialist powers of the world - the USA, England, West Germany, etc. What the Soviet peoples fought against during the Great Patriotic War happened through for just over half a century, the free Soviet peoples found themselves enslaved by world capital, in the name and on behalf of which the local national bourgeoisie rules the territory of their “independent” countries.

Does world capital and the national Ukrainian bourgeoisie need the prosperity of the Ukrainian people? No way! They only want profit. And the interests of profit do not coincide with the interests of the working people, because for the bourgeoisie they themselves are the only source of profit. The capitalist’s profit is generated only from the exploitation of the working class and the working masses - the economic laws of capitalism have not changed since they were discovered in the mid-19th century by K. Marx. And therefore the result that we now see in Ukraine is the deindustrialization of the country, the degradation of agriculture, the destruction of social guarantees, the sharp impoverishment of the working population, progressive unemployment, the decline of culture, science, education, the growth of crime, drug addiction, prostitution, constant increases in the state apparatus, total corruption, militarization of the country and its involvement in a war for a new redivision of the world - was natural and inevitable for the capitalist system. He the same as in all former Soviet republics.

The Ukrainian people found themselves once again divided not only with their blood brother, the Russian people, but even among themselves! The greed of the oligarchs, who were at each other's throats, led to the fact that one part of Ukraine began to fight with the other.

Ukrainian Donbass today

But is this imperialist war currently going on in the Donbass necessary for the working people of Ukraine, Donbass, and Russia?

No! It is needed only by capitalists, oligarchs, and the bourgeois class. For in this war the bourgeoisie earns huge profits, which workers, office workers and rural workers and their loved ones have to pay for with their lives and their health.

The Ukrainian people can, as before, get rid of all the troubles that have befallen them only by uniting and acting together with the Russian people. (And the peoples of all other former Soviet republics!).

Only an irreconcilable class struggle against the entire bourgeois class, which turned the once mighty industrial Ukraine into a shameful raw materials colony of world imperialism - a class struggle against the bourgeoisie, both its own national and any foreign for working class power and all the working masses can once again give him freedom, true statehood and national independence.

Prepared by V. Kozhevnikov, 01/26/2016

References:

1. N. Petrovsky “Reunification of the Ukrainian people in a single Ukrainian Soviet state”, “Bolshevik”, 1944, No. 2, pp. 42-55.

2. http://svatovo.ws/s/war_Ukraine.html

3. A. Pankratova, History of the USSR, 1952

4. “Bolshevik”, 1950, No. 4