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| Etymology | |
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Main article: Name of Ukraine
The traditional view on the etymology of Ukraine is that it came from the old Slavic term ukraina which meant "border region" or "frontier"[14] and thus corresponded to the Western term march. The term can be often found in Eastern Slavic chronicles from 1187 on, but for a long time it referred not solely to the border lands in present-day Ukraine.[15] The plural term ukrainy was used as well in the Grand Duchy of Moscow as in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly the lands across the border to the nomad world (Crimean Khanate) were described by this word. Frequent raids from the steppe made life in such regions a special and dangerous challenge. With the migration of the Great Abatis Belt southwards, the application of the term switched to Sloboda Ukraine and then to Central Ukraine where in the course of the time it obtained ethnic meaning for the local South Rus' (Little Russia in the ecclesiastic[16] and the imperial Russian terminology).
Some Ukrainian historians translate the term "u-kraine" as "in-land", "home-land" or "our-country".[17] The accompanying claim that it always had a strictly separate meaning to "borderland" (ukraina vs. okraina)[17] is inconsistent with numerous historical sources.[15]
Although some do not consider it to be appropriate,[18] it is common practice to refer to Ukraine as "the Ukraine" in English.[19]
Tags:Ukrainian,Russian,Ua,Grand Duchy Of Lithuania,Crimea,Slavic,Grand Duchy Of Moscow,Crimean Khanate,Great Abatis Belt,South Rus',Little Russia,Imperial Russian,Migration,Russia, | |
| Early history | |
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Human settlement in Ukraine and its vicinity dates back to 32,000 BCE, with evidence of the Gravettian culture in the Crimean Mountains.[20][21] By 4,500 BCE, the Neolithic Cucuteni-Trypillian Culture flourished in a wide area that included parts of modern Ukraine including Trypillia and the entire Dnieper-Dniester region. During the Iron Age, the land was inhabited by Cimmerians, Scythians, and Sarmatians.[22] Between 700 BC and 200 BC it was part of the Scythian Kingdom, or Scythia.
The Zbruch idol, on display in the National Museum in Kraków
Later, colonies of Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and the Byzantine Empire, such as Tyras, Olbia, and Hermonassa, were founded, beginning in the 6th century BC, on the northeastern shore of the Black Sea, and thrived well into the 6th century AD. The Goths stayed in the area but came under the sway of the Huns from the 370s AD. In the 7th century AD, the territory of eastern Ukraine was the center of Old Great Bulgaria. At the end of the century, the majority of Bulgar tribes migrated in different directions, and the Khazars took over much of the land.
Tags:Black Sea,Gravettian Culture,Crimean Mountains,Neolithic,Trypillia,Dnieper,Dniester,Iron Age,Cimmerians,Scythians,Sarmatians,Scythia,Zbruch Idol,Kraków,Ancient Greece,Ancient Rome,Byzantine Empire,Tyras,Goths,Old Great Bulgaria,Khazars, | |
| Golden Age of Kiev | |
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Main article: Kievan Rus'
Map of the Kievan Rus' in the 11th century. During the Golden Age of Kiev, the lands of Rus' covered modern western, central and northern Ukraine, Belarus, and western Russia. Modern eastern and southern Ukraine were inhabited by nomads and had a different history.
The Kievan Rus' were founded by the Rus' people, Varangians who first settled around Ladoga and Novgorod, then gradually moved southward eventually reaching Kiev about 880. The Kievan Rus' included the western part of modern Ukraine, Belarus, with larger part of it situated on the territory of modern Russia. According to the Primary Chronicle the Rus' elite initially consisted of Varangians from Scandinavia.
The Baptism of Grand Prince Vladimir, led to the adoption of Christianity in Kievan Rus'
During the 10th and 11th centuries, it became the largest and most powerful state in Europe.[5] In the following centuries, it laid the foundation for the national identity of Ukrainians and Russians.[23] Kiev, the capital of modern Ukraine, became the most important city of the Rus'.
The Varangians later became assimilated into the local Slavic population and became part of the Rus' first dynasty, the Rurik Dynasty.[23] Kievan Rus' was composed of several principalities ruled by the interrelated Rurikid Princes. The seat of Kiev, the most prestigious and influential of all principalities, became the subject of many rivalries among Rurikids as the most valuable prize in their quest for power.
The Golden Age of Kievan Rus' began with the reign of Vladimir the Great (980–1015), who turned Rus' toward Byzantine Christianity. During the reign of his son, Yaroslav the Wise (1019–1054), Kievan Rus' reached the zenith of its cultural development and military power.[23] This was followed by the state's increasing fragmentation as the relative importance of regional powers rose again. After a final resurgence under the rule of Vladimir Monomakh (1113–1125) and his son Mstislav (1125–1132), Kievan Rus' finally disintegrated into separate principalities following Mstislav's death.
In the 11th and 12th centuries, constant incursions by nomadic Turkic tribes, such as the Pechenegs and the Kipchaks, caused a massive migration of Slavic populations to the safer, heavily forested regions of the north.[24] The 13th century Mongol invasion devastated Kievan Rus'. Kiev was totally destroyed in 1240.[25] On the Ukrainian territory, the state of Kievan Rus' was succeeded by the principalities of Halych and Volodymyr-Volynskyi, which were merged into the state of Galicia-Volhynia.
Tags:Ukrainians,Belarus,Kievan Rus',Kiev,Europe,Russians,Rus' People,Varangians,Ladoga,Novgorod,Primary Chronicle,Scandinavia,Rurik Dynasty,Principalities,Rurikid,Princes,Vladimir The Great,Turned Rus' Toward Byzantine Christianity,Yaroslav The Wise, | |
| Foreign domination | |
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See also: Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Crown of the Polish Kingdom, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and Russian Empire
In the centuries following the Mongol invasion, much of Ukraine was controlled by Lithuania (from the 14th century on) and since the Union of Lublin (1569) by Poland, as seen at this outline of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as of 1619.
"Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire." Painted by Ilya Repin from 1880 to 1891.
In the mid-14th century, Casimir III of Poland gained control of Galicia-Volhynia, while the heartland of Rus', including Kiev, became the territory of the Gediminas, of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, after the Battle on the Irpen' River. Following the 1386 Union of Krevo, a dynastic union between Poland and Lithuania, much of what became northern Ukraine was ruled by the increasingly Slavicised local Lithuanian nobles as part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
By 1569, the Union of Lublin formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and a significant part of Ukrainian territory was moved from Lithuanian rule to the Polish Crown, thus becoming Polish territory. Under the cultural and political pressure of Polonisation, many upper-class people of Polish Ruthenia (another term for the land of Rus) converted to Catholicism and became indistinguishable from the Polish nobility.[26] Thus, the commoners, deprived of their native protectors among Rus nobility, turned for protection to the Cossacks, who remained fiercely Orthodox. The Cossacks tended to turn to violence against those they perceived as enemies, particularly the Polish state and its representatives.[27]
In the mid-17th century, a Cossack military quasi-state, the Zaporozhian Host, was established by the Dnieper Cossacks and the Ruthenian peasants fleeing Polish serfdom.[28] Poland had little real control of this land, yet they found the Cossacks to be a useful fighting force against the Turks and Tatars,[29] and at times the two allied in military campaigns.[30] However, the continued enserfment of peasantry by the Polish nobility, emphasized by the Commonwealth's fierce exploitation of the workforce, and most importantly, the suppression of the Orthodox Church pushed the allegiances of Cossacks away from Poland.[29]
The Khanate of Crimea was one of the strongest powers in Eastern Europe until the end of the 17th century.
The Cossacks aspired to have representation in Polish Sejm, recognition of Orthodox traditions and the gradual expansion of the Cossack Registry. These were all vehemently rejected by the Polish nobility, who had power in the Sejm. The Cossacks eventually turned for protection to Orthodox Russia, a decision which would later lead towards the downfall of the Polish–Lithuanian state,[28] and the preservation of the Orthodox Church and in Ukraine.[31]
Bohdan Khmelnytsky, "Hetman of Ukraine"; establish an independent Ukraine after the uprising in 1648 against Poland.
In 1648, Bohdan Khmelnytsky led the largest of the Cossack uprisings against the Commonwealth and the Polish king John II Casimir, starting a chain of events that led to Russia taking over Ukraine.[32] Left-bank Ukraine was eventually integrated into Muscovite Russia as the Cossack Hetmanate, following the 1654 Treaty of Pereyaslav and the ensuing Russo-Polish War. After the partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century by Prussia, Habsburg Austria, and Russia, Western Ukrainian Galicia was taken over by Austria, while the rest of Ukraine was progressively incorporated into the Russian Empire.
The Crimean Khanate was one of the strongest powers in Eastern Europe until the 18th century; at one point it even succeeded, under the Crimean khan Devlet I Giray, to devastate Moscow. The Russian population of the borderlands suffered annual Tatar invasions and tens of thousands of soldiers were required to protect the southern boundaries. From the beginning of the 16th century until the end of 17th century the Crimean Tatar raider bands made almost annual forays into agricultural Slavic lands searching for captives to sell as slaves.[33] According to Orest Subtelny, "...from 1450 to 1586, eighty-six Tatar raids were recorded, and from 1600 to 1647, seventy."[34] In 1688, Tatars captured a record number of 60,000 Ukrainians.[35] This was a heavy burden for the state, and slowed its social and economic development. Since Crimean Tatars did not permit settlement of Russians to southern regions where the soil is better and the season is long enough, Muscovy had to depend on poorer regions and labour intensive agriculture. Poland-Lithuania, Moldavia and Wallachia were also subjected to extensive slave raiding. The Crimean Khanate was conquered by the Russian Empire in 1778, bringing an end to what remained of Mongol and Tatar rule in Europe.
Tags:Crimean Tatar,Poland,Russian Empire, | |
| The Ruin | |
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In 1657–1686 came "The Ruin," a devastating 30-year war amongst Russia, Poland, Turks and Cossacks for control of Ukraine, which occurred at about the same time as the Deluge of Poland. For three years, Khmelnytsky's armies controlled present-day western and central Ukraine, but, deserted by his Tatar allies, he suffered a crushing defeat at Berestechko, and turned to the Russian Czar for help.
The Battle of Poltava in 1709, as depicted by Tags: | |
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