Ancient civilization

Sites of human settlements dating back a million years have been found in Transcarpathia. 30-40 thousand years ago people began to settle throughout the territory of modern Ukraine. In the Neolithic period (fourth millennium BC) the Tripillyans, Ukraine's most widely known archeological culture, built proto-towns with houses laid out in concentric circles of up to 1.5 km in diameter.
Beginning in the seventh century BC. the Black Sea littoral steppes were populated by the Scythians. They cultivated the land, bred livestock, and worked metals. The work of their goldsmiths included many master-pieces. The Scythians were supplanted by the Sarmatians.
For over a thousand years, from the seventh century BC until they were overrun by the Huns, Greek colonies occupied the Black Sea littoral. The largest were Olbia, Tyrus, Chersonesus (near Sevastopol), Panticapaeum (Kerch).

The Cossak state

The struggle between Moscow and Lithuania for the lands of Kyivan Rus' lasted several centuries. In 1569, Poland and Lithuania formed a commonwealth, the Rzeczpospolita. All the Ukrainian lands came under the jurisdiction of Poland, which dominated the commonwealth.
In the fifteenth century, in the south Byzantium was absorbed by the Ottoman Empire. The Crimean Khanate recognized the suzerainty of the Sultan. Continuous raids by the Tatars into the Ukrainian lands forced the Ukrainians to defend themselves with arms. In this continuous struggle against Crimean Khanate, the Cossacks took shape.
Rising prices for grain in Europe in the beginning of the sixteenth century led Polish and Ukrainian nobles to produce grain for export. To gain access to free labor, they began to turn the yeoman peasants into serfs. Some of the latter escaped downstream to the lower Dnipro and founded the Zaporozhzhian Sich, a fortress protected by rapids.
In 1648, the Cossacks and peasants began a war against Polish supremacy under the leadership of Bohdan Khmelnytsky. The Cossacks established a regimental structure in liberated areas with elected managerial and court bodies introduced. So the Ukrainian Cossack state was established.
Khmelnytsky was not able to overpower the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth alone. He appealed to the Tsar of Muscovy and signed an agreement in 1654. The 1654-1667 war between Muscovy and Rzeczpospolita for Ukraine ended in the Peace of Andrusovo. Ukraine was halved with the Right Bank (without Kyiv) and Galicia remaining under Poland, while the rest went to Moscow.
The Tsars limited the Hetmans' power. Serfdom returned to Ukraine. In the Great Northern War between Muscovy and Sweden, Hetman Ivan Mazepa hoped to throw off dependence on the Tsar and sided with Swedish King Charles XII, but the latter was routed in the 1709 Battle of Poltava, and Peter I further limited the Hetman's power.
In the late seventeenth century, Catherine II abolished Ukrainian autonomy and razed the Zaporozhzhian Sich. Together with Austria and Prussia in the Partitions of Poland she annexed the Right Bank Ukraine to Russia. Galicia, Bukovyna, and Transcarpathia passed to the Habsburg Empire.

The undying nation

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Ukrainian lands were occupied by two empires: Russia and Austria. There were more than ten million Ukrainian serfs in Russia who belonged to landlords or the state. They had no civil rights and carried out feudal obligations.
There was also serfdom in the Austrian Empire, but after the Revolution of 1848-1849, the Ukrainian peasants were emancipated.
As a result of the reforms in 1861, serfdom in Russia was also abolished. The Ukrainian people in both empires began to develop their language and culture.
The Russian government banned the printing of religious, educational, popular, and scholarly literature in Ukrainian. With the development of capitalism in Russia's Ukrainian provinces industry and railroads developed.
During World War I, Russia and the Dual Monarchy were enemies. Over 3.5 million Ukrainians in the Russian Army and another 250 thousand in the Austrian-Hungarian forces were forced to fight for alien interests.

Rebirth of the nation

In February 1917, the Russian revolution broke out, and in March 4, the Ukrainian Central Rada (Council) was formed in Kyiv, presided over by Mykhailo Hrushevsky, famed Ukrainian historian and leader of the national liberation movement.
In November 1917, the Central Rada established the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR). In December the Bolsheviks proclaimed a Soviet government in Kharkiv.
In January 1918, the Central Rada declared the independence of Ukraine, and signed a peace treaty with the Central Powers. German and Austrian forces occupied Ukraine. After Germany and Austria were defeated, the Red Army reentered Ukraine.
On November 13,1918, the Ukrainian National Council proclaimed the West Ukrainian National Republic in Lviv. On January 22,1919, the unification of both Ukrainian states was proclaimed in Kyiv Later both were conquered by their neighbors. The Ukrainian lands were partitioned among four states - Russia, Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia. As part of USSR, the Ukrainian territories had the status of formally sovereign republic, the Ukrainian SSR.

Within the USSR

The USSR was proclaimed on December 30,1922, and it consisted of "independent" national republics. The decade of the 1920s was the time of liberal economic and cultural policies. After 1928, this policy was halted. Stalin concentrated all political power in his own hands and began to nationalize the whole of Soviet society according to the Bolshevik political program. Resistance was met by mass terror.
The spearhead of terror took aim at Ukraine. Famine, mass deportations, and cultural genocide were the main tools of this terror.
The country's resources and capabilities were utilized to build a powerful military industrial complex and infrastructure to support it. In the Ukrainian SSR large industrial establishments in such sectors as fuel, metallurgy, machine-building, etc. were built, while dozens of institutions of higher learning were opened. The modernization of Soviet society had a clearly militaristic character.

World War II

The German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, marked the beginning of World War II. The Soviet Union annexed the Western Ukrainian and Belarus lands from Poland as well as Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, which were traditionally Ukrainian lands. In 1941, the territory of Soviet Ukraine grew to 560,000 square kilometers. The Sovietization of the western regions was combined with destruction of the local elite: repression engulfed up to 10% of the annexed population.
On June 22,1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union and Stalin was forced to join the anti-Hitler coalition. the Ukrainian earth was scorched twice: first, during swift breakthrough of German troops in June and, second. on their retreat to the West in 1943-1944. Some seven to eight million people perished. Ukraine's material losses accounted for 40% of total Soviet damages.

The postwar period

The postwar world order was determined by the countries that took part in the anti-Hitler coalition. The new borders of Ukrainian SSR were legalized. After Stalin's death in March 1953 the political climate in the USSR thawed. Mass terror ended, and victims of Stalin's repression began to return home.
The second half of the 1950s marked the development of such modern industries as rocketry, electronics, chemical engineering, and shipbuilding along with research institutions of world importance. Residential construction, the building of cultural objects, and pension policy were improved. Anti-totalitarian ideas began to spread in society.
The planned economy was less efficient than a market one. The world energy crisis of the 1970s delayed the political and economic collapse of the USSR, but the delay was not for long. Manmade catastrophes like the Chornobyl disaster in addition to the military and political confrontation with the West resulted in economic collapse with especially adverse implications for Ukraine.

Collapse of the Empire

To save the existing system, in the mid-1980s, the Kremlin proclaimed the policy of perestroika (restructuring). Constitutional reform released the Soviet authorities from the direct dictates of the Communist Party. In spring of 1989, for the first time since 1918, comparatively free elections were held in the USSR. A year later, there were elections to the Verkhovna Rada and local councils. Parliament was joined by representatives of national and democratic forces. But such limited democratization could not save the totalitarian regime.

Declaration of independence

On August 24, 1991, the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR declared the complete independence of Ukraine. On December 1 of that year, the declaration was ratified by a referendum. At the same time the first presidential elections were held with the voters choosing Leonid Kravchuk.
On Decembers, 1991, President Leonid Kravchuk of Ukraine, President Boris Ycltsyn of the Russian Federation, and Chairman Stanislav Shushkevych of the Belarus Supreme Council signed the historic document bringing the Soviet Union to an end.
Ukraine gained quick recognition by the most countries. Numerous government institutions began to appear in the new state. Reforms began in the economy and legislative sphere, while a financial and monetary system was established. Ukraine, now an independent state, began to develop diplomatic, economic, and trade relations with all countries of the world.
Nine years is a very short period in a nation's history, but in spite of all difficulties Ukraine achieved great progress in the democratization of society as well as renewing the social mentality of its population. During this time it has firmly established itself as a full-fledged member of the international community.
The democratic system passed its first serious trial in June 1994, when as a result of free elections, Leonid Kuchma became president of Ukraine. On June 28,1996, Verkhovna Rada approved the new Constitution of Ukraine. The power of democratic institutions was demonstrated by parliamentary elections in March 1998, and presidential elections in October-November 1999. Leonid Kuchma was elected for a second term.
Reforms in Ukraine continue, encompassing all spheres of human activity. Ukraine's long economic crisis is over, and in the first half of the year 2000 the country showed indications of economic growth.

Kyiv

Kyiv is one of the oldest cities of Europe founded 1500 years ago by Kyi, the legendary Prince of the Polyanians. For many centuries it has been considered the mother of the cities of Rus'. From the tenth to twelfth centuries its population was around 150,000. The city had dozens of monasteries, churches; crafts were well developed. Prince Yaroslav the Wise had a major library in the city. After the Tatar-Mongol invasion (1242) the city was almost destroyed. Only in the seventeenth century Kyiv began to revive, its crafts and trade developed once again, and the city began to regain its fame as a religious, cultural, and educational center of the eastern Slavic lands. In 1632 the first East Slavic institution of higher learning, the Kyiv-Mohyla Collegium (later Academy), and in 1834 St. Volodymyr (now Taras Shevchenko) University were established.
In the Soviet period, the city continued to play a major role, and in 1934 it became the capital of the Ukrainian SSR as part of the USSR. Kyiv ranked third after Moscow and Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in the unofficial hierarchy of Soviet cities.
Today Kyiv, the capital of independent Ukraine, is a modern European city. It is the seat of the central bodies of the government. It hosts 62 embassies and 15 general consulates along with branches and offices of many international organizations and companies.
The population of Kyiv is over 2.6 million people. Located on the picturesque banks of the Dnipro River and covering an area of 800 sq. km, it is Ukraine's largest cultural, scientific, educational, and industrial center. It boasts many prominent theatres, museums, art galleries, historic monuments, and unique architecture. Kyiv has been home to many political, religious personalities, scientists, writers, and artists. Its past and present are an integral part of the history of Ukraine.