The territory of Ukraine has been inhabited by people for at least 44 thousand years. The Pontic-Caspian steppe was the scene of important historical events of the Bronze Age. There was a migration of Indo-European peoples. In the same Black Sea and Caspian steppes, people tamed a horse.
Later, Scythians and Sarmatians lived on the territory of Crimea and the Dnieper. Finally, these lands were inhabited by Slavs. They founded the medieval state of Kievan Rus, which broke up in the XII century. By the middle of the XIV century, the current Ukrainian lands were ruled by three forces: the Golden Horde, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland. Later, the territory was divided by such powers as the Crimean Khanate, the Commonwealth, the Russian Empire and Austria-Hungary.
In the 20th century, independent Ukraine appeared. The history of the country begins with attempts to create the states of the UPR and ZUNR. Then the Ukrainian SSR was formed as part of the Soviet Union. And, finally, in 1991, Ukraine declared independence, confirmed at a popular referendum and recognized by the international community.
Ancient history of Ukraine
Archaeological excavations indicate that Neanderthals lived in the Northern Black Sea already in the 43-45 millennium BC. In Crimea, objects belonging to the Cro-Magnolans were discovered. They are dated to 32 millennium BC.
At the end of the Neolithic period, Tripoli culture arose on Ukrainian lands. It reached its heyday in 4500-3000 BC.
With the advent of the Iron Age, the Dacian tribes, the ancestors of modern Romanians, passed through the steppes of the Northern Black Sea Coast. Then the 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 VI century BC.
Then the Goths and Huns came to the territory of Ukraine . This happened in the III-V centuries of our era. In the fifth century, Slavic tribes appeared here.
In the 7th century, the state of the Bulgars appeared in the Ukrainian steppes. But soon it broke up and was absorbed by the Khazars. This nomadic people from Central Asia founded a country in which vast territories were included - western Kazakhstan, the Caucasus, Crimea, Don steppes and eastern Ukraine. The history of the emergence and heyday of the Khazar Khaganate is closely connected with the process of formation of statehood of the Eastern Slavs. It is known that the title of kagan was worn by the first Kiev princes.
Kievan Rus
The history of Ukraine as a state, according to many researchers, begins in 882. It was then that Kiev was conquered by Prince Oleg from the Khazars and became a center of vast territory of the country. Glade, Drevlyane, streets, white Croats and other Slavic tribes were united in a single state. Oleg himself, according to the dominant concept in historiography, was a Varangian.
In the XI century, Kievan Rus becomes the largest state in Europe on the territory. In the western sources of that time, her lands were most often designated as Ruthenium. The name Ukraine first appears in documents of the 12th century. It means "land", "country".
In the XVI century, the first map of Ukraine appears. On it under this name are designated Kiev, Chernihiv and Pereyaslav lands.
The adoption of Christianity and the fragmentation of Russia
The first followers of Christ appeared in Crimea at least in the 4th century. Christianity became the official religion of Kievan Rus in 988 at 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 code of laws was adopted, called the "Russian Truth." It was the time of the highest political power of the Kiev state. After the death of Yaroslav, the era of the fragmentation of Rus into separate, often warring with each other, principalities came.
Vladimir Monomakh tried to revive a single centralized state, but in the XII century, Russia finally disintegrated. Kiev and the Galicia-Volyn principality became the territories in which Ukraine later arose. The history of Russia begins with the rise of the city of Suzdal, which was the political and cultural center of the northeastern Russian lands. Later, the capital of these territories was Moscow. In the north-west, the Principality of Polotsk became the center around which the Belarusian nation was formed.
In 1240, Kiev was plundered by the Mongols and for a long time lost any political influence.
Principality of Galicia-Volyn
The history of the state of Ukraine, according to some scientists, begins in the XII century. While the northern principalities fall under the power of the Golden Horde, in the west there remain two independent Russian powers with 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 Galich and granted him the title of King of All Russia. At this time, the principality waged a difficult war against the Mongols. After the death of Daniil Galitsky in 1264, he was succeeded by his son Leo, who transferred the capital to the city of Lviv. Unlike his father, who adhered to a pro-Western political vector, he went to cooperate with the Mongols, in particular, 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 sunset of the Galician-Volyn principality began. In 1323, in the battle with the Mongols, the last representatives of this branch of the Rurikovich clan were killed. After that, Volyn came under the control of the Lithuanian princes Gedeminovichi, and Galicia came under the power of the Polish crown.
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
After the Union of Lublin, the Ruthenian lands became part of the Polish kingdom. During this period, the history of Ukraine as a state is interrupted, but it was at this time that the Ukrainian nation was formed. The contradictions between the Catholic Poles and the Orthodox Rusyns gradually developed into interethnic tension.
Cossacks
The Poles were interested in protecting their eastern frontiers from the Ottoman Empire and its vassals. For these purposes, the Cossacks were best suited. They not only reflected the raids of the Crimean khans, but also participated in the wars of the Commonwealth with the Moscow kingdom.
Despite the military merits of the Cossacks, the Polish gentry refused to grant them any significant autonomy, trying instead to turn most of the Ukrainian population into serfs. This led to conflict and rebellion.
Ultimately, in 1648, a war of liberation led by Bogdan Khmelnitsky began. The history of the creation of Ukraine has entered a new phase. The Hetman state that arose as a result of the uprising was surrounded by three forces: the Ottoman Empire, the Commonwealth and Muscovy. The period of political maneuvering began.
In 1654, the Zaporozhye Cossacks entered into an agreement with the Tsar of Moscow. Poland tried to regain control of the lost territories by concluding an agreement with Hetman Ivan Vygovsky. This became the cause of the war between the Commonwealth and Muscovy. It ended with the signing of the Andrusovo Treaty, according to which the Hetmanism retreated to Moscow.
Under the rule of the Russian Empire and Austria-Hungary
The subsequent history of Ukraine, the territory of which was divided between the two states, was characterized by a rise in national identity among writers and intellectuals.
During this period, the Russian Empire finally defeated the Crimean Khanate and annexed its territory. There are also three divisions of Poland. As a result, most of its lands inhabited by Ukrainians are part of Russia. Galicia departs 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 Ruthenians were mostly peasants.
National revival
In the 19th century, the process of cultural revival of peoples under the rule of large empires - Austrian, Russian and Ottoman - began in Eastern Europe. Ukraine did not stand aside from these trends. The history of the movement for national independence begins in 1846 with the founding of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood. A member of this organization was including the poet Taras Shevchenko. Later, the Social Democratic and Revolutionary parties appeared, advocating for the autonomy of the Ukrainian lands.
Around the same time, in 1848, Golovna Ruska Rada, the first political organization of Western Ukrainians, began operations in Lviv. At that time, among the Galician intelligentsia dominated Russophile and pro-Russian sentiment.
Thus, the history of the creation of Ukraine in its modern borders begins with the emergence of nationally oriented parties in the middle of the XIX century. They formed the ideology of the future united 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. The peoples, for many centuries living under the rule of powerful empires, had a chance to determine their own future destinies themselves.
On November 20, 1917, the Ukrainian National Republic was created. And on January 25, 1918, she proclaimed her complete independence from Russia. A bit later, the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed. As a result, on November 13, 1918, the Western Ukrainian People's Republic was proclaimed. January 22, 1919 reunion of the UPR and ZUNR. However, the history of the emergence of the state of Ukraine was far from complete. The new power was at the epicenter of the civil, and then the Soviet-Polish war, and as a result lost its independence.
USSR
In 1922, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was created, which became part of the USSR. From the moment of its appearance to the collapse of the Soviet Union, it occupied the second place among the republics in terms of economic power and political influence.
The map of Ukraine during this period has changed several times. In 1939, Galicia and Volhynia 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 Shakhty and Taganrog districts were transferred to Russia, and in 1940 the Moldavian SSR withdrew to Transnistria.
After World War II, the Ukrainian SSR became one of the founding countries of the UN. According to 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 moods. On January 21, 1990, three hundred thousand Ukrainians organized a living chain from Kiev to Lviv in support of independence. Parties based on national-patriotic positions were founded. Ukraine became the successor of the Ukrainian SSR and the UPR. The government of the UPR in exile officially transferred its powers to the first president Leonid Kravchuk.
As you see, the history of Ukraine from ancient times was filled with great victories, unsurpassed defeats, noble disasters, terrible and bewitching stories.