Ukraine and the Politics of
History, 988-1991
Glennys Young
History and International Studies
University of Washington
April 22, 2014
Agenda
• General remarks: History of Ukraine, not just
from vantage point of present crisis.
• Ukraine as formidable actor in European, and
world, history
• Focus on selected topics in the “politics” of
Ukrainian history, that is, how interpretations
of historical events and historical figures are
used for political purposes.
Topics: Ukraine and the Politics of
History, 988-1991
• 1) Kievan Rus’, Baptism of Rus’
• 2) Ukraine and the Russian empire: Treaty of Pereyaslav
(1654)
• 3) Ukrainian nationalism in the 19th century: why, what,
consequences
• 4) Ukraine in the Soviet Union, including Soviet nationalities
policy: “Ukrainization”
• 5) Holodomor (Ukrainian famine, 1932-33, or, in Ukrainian,
“Extermination by Hunger”)
• 6) Ukraine in the “Great Patriotic War” (World War II)
• 7) Ukraine and the Dismantling of the Soviet Union (19901991)
1) Kievan Rus’, Baptism of Rus’
• Kievan Rus’ (Founded in 882 A.D. by Prince
Oleg): Present day Ukraine, Belorussia, and
northwestern Russia
Kievan Rus’s “Golden
Age”: during reigns of
Prince Vladimir, who ruled
from 978-1015, and Prince
Yaroslav the Wise, who
ruled from 1019-1954
Kievan Rus’: Baptism of Rus’
• Kyiv, 988 A.D.: Prince Vladimir ordered the Orthodox “baptism” of
his kingdom
Painting by Klavdy Lebedev: “The
Baptism of Kievans”
Painting by Viktor Vasnetsev, “The
Baptism
• Almost 100 years after Vladimir died, the story of Vladimir’s
Of
conversion was first recorded by the Christian monk, Nestor.
Prince
Vladimir”
The Politics of Commemorating the
Anniversary of the “Baptism of Rus’”
• First example: 1988, the “millennium of
Russian Orthodoxy” in what turned out to be
the very last years of the Soviet Union.
Moscow, 1988.
The Politics of the 1025th Anniversary
of the Baptism of Rus’, 2013
• General political context: Ukraine had been
an independent state since 1991. Putin began
his second presidential term in 2012
• What role would President Putin and Patriarch
Kirill play in commemorating the anniversary?
• What would be the reaction to the above in
Kyiv, Ukraine?
Flower Clock, Kyiv: 1025 years [since]
the baptism of Kyivan Rus’
Voices from Kyiv and Ukraine, late July
2013, before Putin’s visit
• Viktor Yelensky, head of the Ukrainian
Association of Religious Freedom: “`Moscow
has managed to completely impose its own
scenario, where right at the center of events
there are President Putin and Patriarch Kirill.
And the Ukrainian President [then, Viktor
Yanukovych] and his entourage are playing
extras.”
Fears that Putin would use Kyiv visit
for 1025th anniversary of “Baptism of
Rus’” for Russian political purposes
• Oleh Medvedev, a political analyst with connections to
what was the opposition to President Viktor Yanukovych,
on apprehensions that Putin would use the visit to dissuade
Ukraine from signing an agreement of association with the
EU in November, 2013:
• “Even after Ukraine signs the agreement with the EU,
Russia’s possibilities will be far from exhausted . . . I don’t
see any chance that this weekend will be the final chance
[for Putin]-although I understand, of course, that the
Russian guests will turn a holiday glorifying the Orthodoxy
into one glorifying the Russian empire.’”
Putin and the Political Discourse of the
1025th anniversary of Orthodox
Christianity
• For Putin and some of the state media of the
Russian Federation, the celebration was of the
“Christianization of ‘Rus.’” Note the absence
of Kyiv, the capital of Kievan Rus at the time of
Vladimir’s adoption of Christianity for his
kingdom.
President of the Russian Federation,
Vladimir V. Putin, in Kyiv, Summer, 2013
2) Ukraine and the Russian empire:
Treaty of Pereyaslav (1654)
• Background: From Kievan Rus’ to Muscovite Russia and
the beginnings of the Russian Empire. Important
Milestones:
• Decline of Kievan Rus’:
• 1) Internal causes: too many lands under control of ruling
clan, development of regional interests, political
squabbling. Fracture of Kiev into multiple principalities.
• 2) External forces: the example of the Mongols.
• Key junctures in Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus’: 1223:
Kievan alliance defeated at Kalka River. 1237-38: A sizeable
Mongol force decimated large parts of Kievan Rus’.
• 1240: Mongols overtook Kyiv, and continued west into
Poland and Hungary. 48,000/50,000 inhabitants of Kiev
died during the Mongol siege of the city.
Kievan Rus’ in the 11th Century
(Background)Ukraine and the Russian
empire: Treaty of Pereyaslav (1654)
• What happened to “Kievan Rus’” under the
Mongols (approximately 1240-1380)? The
“successor state” was the Principality of
Galicia-Volhynia
(Background)Ukraine and the Russian
empire: Treaty of Pereyaslav (1654):
Aftermath
of
Kiev’s
decline,
continued
Two major developments:
•
• Kiev did not recover, but the Republic of Novgorod did
well.
Republic of Novgorod, ca. 1400, to left
Rise of Moscow (“Moskva”
on map to the right),
as a city
(founded in 1271), and the
gathering of lands around
Muscovy.
“Ukraine,” from the mid-14th century
to 1795
• 1) In the middle of the 14th century, the present-day territories of
Ukraine were divided under the rule of three powers: the Golden
Horde, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Kingdom of Poland.
• 2) In the 15th century, these territories were under the rule of the
Crown Kingdom of Poland, the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth
(since 1569) and the Crimean Khanate.
• 3) January, 1654 (our focus below): Ukraine’s inclusion in the
Russian Empire after its rebellion against Polish, and Catholic, rule.
The territory that became part of the Russian empire was the
southeastern part of the Polish-Lithuanian Empire, east of the
Dniepr River.
• 4) 1772-1795: After the partitions of Poland (by Russia, Prussia, and
Austria), conquest of Crimean Khanate, Ukraine was left divided
between the Russian and Habsburg empires.
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1648
Ukraine and the Russian Empire: Council of
Pereyaslav (1654)
What happened at Pereyaslav in January, 1654?
What was the “Council of Pereyaslav”? What
was its significance for Ukraine, and for its
relationship to the Russian Empire? These are
questions that are debated in Ukraine and
Russia to this day.
Ukraine and the Russian empire:
Treaty of Pereyaslav (1654)
•
From Encyclopedia Brittanica : “Pereyaslav Agreement, Pereyaslav also spelled
PerejasŁaw, (Jan. 18 [Jan. 8, Old Style], 1654), act undertaken by the rada (council)
of the Cossack army in Ukraine to submit Ukraine to Russian rule, and the
acceptance of this act by emissaries of the Russian tsar Alexis; the agreement
precipitated a war between Poland and Russia (1654–67).”
•
Only after the Cossacks had suffered a disastrous military defeat (December 1653),
however, did the rada receive the Muscovite delegation at Pereyaslav and formally
submit to “the tsar’s hand.” Two months later (March 1654), the details of the
union were negotiated in Moscow. The Cossacks were granted a large degree of
autonomy, and they, as well as other social groups in Ukraine, retained all the
rights and privileges they had enjoyed under Polish rule. But the unification of
Ukraine with Russia was unacceptable to Poland; a Russo-Polish war (Thirteen
Years’ War) broke out and ended with the division of Ukraine between Poland and
Russia.”
How much of the above is accurate? It depends on whom one asks!
Ukraine and the Russian empire: Treaty of Pereyaslav
(1654): Who was Bohdan Khmelnytsky?
• How much consensus exists on the following,
again from the Encyclopedia Brittanica?
• “The hetman of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, had been
leading a revolt against Polish rule in Ukraine since 1648. In 1651, in the
face of a growing threat from Poland and forsaken by his Tatar allies,
Khmelnytsky asked the tsar to incorporate Ukraine as an autonomous duchy
under Russian protection. The Russians were reluctant to enter into such an
agreement, and it was not until October 1653 that a Russian zemsky sobor
(“assembly of the land”) approved the request and Alexis sent a delegation,
headed by V.V. Buturlin, to the Cossacks.”
• The controversy concerns how Khmelnytsky should be seen: as, according
to Soviet rhetoric in 1954, a heroic figure who helped forge the
‘`unbreakable union’” between Russia and Ukraine? As, in the views of
some Ukrainians over the centuries, a traitor to Ukraine? A pawn of
Russia’s machinations?
Khmelnytsky at the Pereyaslav Council
or Rada: What did he do? What did it
mean?
• Did he swear an oath of allegiance to the Russian tsar,
Alexei Mikhailovich (Alexis I)? Yes.
• What did the oath help to accomplish? A military alliance
with Russia or the establishment of Russia’s protectorate
over Ukraine? A merger of “states”?
• Some Ukrainians would insist that Khmelnytsky’s actions
must be placed in context: With Russia technically bound
to support Poland (treaty of 1647) against the Cossacks
(allied with Tartars, temporarily), K. wanted to avoid Russia
joining Poland in suppressing the rebellion.
• Thus, his overtures towards Moscow were a matter of
military and tactical expediency.
The Pereyaslavska Rada Treaty:
Interpretation and Controversy
• Consider the clause concerning the Cossacks’
becoming a protectorate of Russian tsars:
“`Show us grace and take us [Zaporozhian Cossacks]
under your protection.’”
Some Ukrainians insist that this was not an oath of
“unification,” but rather a contract between the
Zaporozhian Cossacks, who were mercenaries, and
the Russian tsar.
In other words, it should be seen as a statement of
military obligation, not as the “unification of Russia
and Ukraine.”
Further Complications: Ratification of
the Treaty
• The claim that the document that the Russians
presented to Ukraine was not the same as the
one both sides agreed to in Pereyaslav.
• The new document limited Ukrainian autonomy.
Example: the Cossack hetman could conduct
foreign policy only with Moscow’s approval.
• Russian troops were to be placed in the Ukrainian
cities of Kyiv, Chernihiv, Pereysaslav, and Nizhyn
1654: Some Incontrovertible Consequences
• Poland was dismayed by the union, of whatever
sort it was, between Ukraine and Russia.
• The Russo-Polish war of 1654-1667 resulted in
the division of Ukraine between Poland and
Russia.
Russo-Polish War: Map
Ukraine after end of Russo-Polish war in
1667: territorial division between Poland
and Russian Empire
The Politics—for Ukraine, and the
USSR--of commemorating 1654
1654 in Soviet times:
1) 1954: 300th anniversary: Nikita Khrushchev’s
gift of Crimea to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist
Republic.
Soviet Poster for 300th anniversary,
1954: “Eternally Together”
Crimea
Crimean Peninsula,
century
mid-15th
Crimean Khanate in
1600
The Politics—for Ukraine, and the
USSR--of commemorating 1654,
cont’d.
• 2) 1979: 325th anniversary. Soviet monument
to Council of Pereyaslav in Kyiv, Ukraine
3) Ukrainian nationalism in the 19th century: why,
what, consequences
1. The Russian Empire: basic characteristics, and change
over time. Overland military empire, trade not of
supreme importance, integration of annexed territories
by coopting local elites into the Russian bureaucracy,
language and culture as integrating factors.
2. Most national movements in the Russian empire started
in the mid-19th century. An important case: Ukraine. The
origins and development of Ukrainian cultural
nationalism. From cultural to political nationalism in
Ukraine. (By the early 20th century, as a result of political
agitation, Ukrainian peasants came to believe that their
economic struggles were the result of Russia’s semicolonial exploitation of Ukraine.)
How did cultural nationalism develop
in Ukraine?
• Ukrainian nationalists took advantage of
Ukrainian movements in Galicia, a neighbor of
Ukraine and part of the Hapsburg Empire.
Taking advantage of
greater rights of selfgovernment in Galicia,
Ukrainians promoted
the Ukrainian language
in schools and public
life. They published
native-language
newspapers and
books. Promoted the
study of Ukrainian
history.
Galicia
Ukrainian Culture in Ukraine, Despite
Russification
• Despite the fact that they were illegal,
Ukrainian language publications began to
appear in Ukraine itself.
• The Kiev section of the Russian Geographical
Society studied Ukrainian folk, culture,
language, and history.
• That section was established in 1873
Right: Kyiv/Kiev, nineteenth
century.
Ukrainian poet and painter, Taras
Shevchenko (1814-1861)
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My Testament
When I die, bury me
On a grave mound
Amid the wide-wide steppe
In my beloved Ukraine,
In a place from where the wide-tilled fields
And the Dnipro and its steep banks
Can be seen and
Its roaring rapids heard.
When it carries off
The enemy’s blood from Ukraine
To the deep blue sea… I’ll leave
The tilled fields and mountains—
I’ll leave everything behind and ascend
To pray to God
Himself… but till then
I don’t know God.
Bury me and arise, break your chains
And sprinkle your freedom
With the enemy’s evil blood.
And don’t forget to remember me
In the great family,
In a family new and free,
With a kind and quiet word.
December 25, 1845
Pereiaslav
Taras Shevchenko. “Iak umru, to pokhovaite”
Taras Shevchenko’s “My Testament”
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4) Ukraine in the Soviet Union,
including Soviet nationalities policy:
“Ukrainization”
Nationalities policy after the formation of the USSR: The Soviet policy of “Nationbuilding”: ethnic consolidation, not national sovereignty.
What was a “nation,” according to the Soviet political elite? Stalin’s 1913 definition
was used until the end of the Soviet period. Nations fulfilled four criteria in that all
members shared economic conditions, common language, the same territory, and
a similar frame of mind (culture and national character).
1923 Communist Party resolution: The Soviet state would support forms of
nationhood that didn’t conflict with a unitary state.
This entailed a commitment to four important national forms: national economies,
territories, national elites, and national cultures.
The consolidation of national languages and elites (for example, Ukrainian in the
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and preference to Ukrainians in the state and
party apparatus there) was an example of the Soviet policy of “indigenization.”
In the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, the policy was called “Ukrainization.”
Its short term goal: defuse nationalism. Long term: not the differentiation of
nations, but their merger.
Poster: “Long Live the Brotherly Union
and Great Friendship of the Peoples of
the USSR!”
More on “Ukrainization”
• Ukrainians: 21.3 % of Soviet population in 1926
• Ukraine: crucial strategic importance because of location
along the Soviet/Polish border.
• A crucial agricultural and industrial region
• Aside from Ukrainians, there were Russians, Jews, Poles
living in Ukraine.
• Ukrainization in practice in the early Soviet period meant
forming national territories (for example, national districts
and national councils or soviets) for each. Though designed
to diffuse ethnic conflict, in practice, the process
sometimes catalyzed its emergence.
• Would Russians, who were in the minority in Ukraine, be
recognized as such, even though Russians were a former
“great power nationality”? Ultimately, the answer was yes.
5) Holodomor (“Extermination by
Hunger”), Kharkiv (Khar’kov), 1932 or
1933
Holodomor, continued.
Corpse, Kharkiv/Khar’khov, Ukraine
Holodomor Memorial, Kyiv,
Ukraine
Holodomor, Putin, and the Crisis in
Ukraine
• "For Ukrainians, E.U. membership means more
than economic opportunities and mobility. It is
about distancing themselves from Putin, who is
said to revere Stalin, the very dictator who tried
to erase Ukraine and managed to partition it, at
least politically.” Andrea Chalupa, who studied at
the Harvard Ukrainian Institute, wrote for Time.
Read more:
http://www.businessinsider.com/ukrainianfamine-2014-3#ixzz2zebhikgl
A Ukrainian (or a Ukrainian Descendant’s) View of Putin,
Contemporary Russian Politics, and Holodomor
• Christina Arbenz in “The Crisis In Ukraine Has Much Deeper And
Darker Roots Than Many Realize,” The Business Insider, March 7,
2014
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/ukrainian-famine-20143#ixzz2zed5J4P3
“But many people forget the history of oppression against Ukraine
goes much further back than Putin's recent invasion. During Soviet
rule in the 1930s, when my grandparents lived there, Stalin lead a
genocide of Ukrainians.
• “The Ukrainians have a lingering memory of a previous union with
the Russians that nearly broke the back of their nation,” Walter
Zaryckyj, executive director for the Center for U.S.-Ukrainian
Relations (CUSUR) told the National Review.
Moreover: The Russian Federation does not recognize Holodomor as
such. Viktor Yanukovych, the on-the-run, ousted Ukrainian President, is
said to not recognize Holodomor as such.
6)Ukraine in the “Great Patriotic War”
(World War II)
• “Operation Barbarossa”
and Ukraine
Kiev was occupied by the
Nazi Wehrmacht for two
years.
Soviet Poster, 1942: “Death to the Fascist Vipers”
(Quote: “Let us baptize your freedom with enemy blood!”—
Ukrainian poet, Taras Shevchenko, 1814-1861)
Stepan Bandera and the Organization
of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN),
founded
in 1929
“In 2010, President Viktor Yushchenko, who came
to power after the 2004 Orange Revolution,
awarded Bandera the posthumous title of Hero of
Ukraine for “defending national ideas and battling
for an independent Ukrainian state.” That was one
of the final and most controversial acts of
Yushchenko’s presidency. His successor, Viktor
Yanukovych, revoked that honor the following
year, months after coming to power. But the
revolutionary leaders who overthrew Yanukovych
last month have signaled that they will return to a
policy of reverence for Bandera’s legacy.”
Stepan Bandera commemorative
postage stamp, Ukraine. He was
assassinated in 1959 in
Munich, West Germany, by the KGB.
The above: from a recent article In
Time: Simon Shuster, “Putin Says
Ukraine’s Revolutionaries Are AntiSemites. Is He Right?,” 6 March 2014
More on the OUN and the
“Great Patriotic War”
• What was the OUN? A conspiratorial and authoritarian organization that used
violence (for example, assassinations) in pursuit integral nationalism and a
“greater Ukraine.”
From 1929-39, its conspiratorial activities were targeted against the Polish
occupation of Western Ukraine.
By 1941, it is said to have had 20,000 members.
1940-1941 saw the OUN split into a more radical faction (OUN-B, which supported
Bandera), and a less radical one (OUN-N, which supported Andriy Melnyk).
During World War II, the OUN commanded the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA),
partisans who fought beginning in 1942 against both Nazi and Soviet occupiers.
During World War II, Bandera collaborated with Hitler’s forces against the Soviets
on Soviet territory, then fought against the Nazis when they occupied Ukraine.
After release from a Nazi camp, he again collaborated with them, sabotaging the
Soviet Army as they marched towards Berlin.
The OUN was resurgent during the very late Soviet period.
7) Ukraine and the Dismantling of the
Soviet Union (1990-1991)
April, 1986: Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which, among other factors,
catalyzed formation of official opposition groups, including those
seeking Ukrainian sovereignty and independence.
July, 1990: Ukraine declared sovereignty
Fall, 1990: Polarization of Ukrainian politics between conservatives
who sought to roll back encroachments on Communist institutions and
maintain Ukraine’s status within the USSR, and those (centered around
Rukh) who sought Ukrainian sovereignty and independence. Student
movement staged, in early October, successful mass actions against
conservative forces.
24 August 1991: Ukraine declared independence, and the parliament
outlawed the Communist Party of Ukraine.
1 December 1991: Referendum, showing strong support for Ukrainian
independence.
An Insider’s Voice: Salomea Pavlychko (1958-1999).
Pavlychko, an academic, was the daughter of the
esteemed Ukrainian poet and former opposition
member of parliament, Dmytro Pavlychko (1929---)
• On her experiences in 1990:
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“We have moved forward at an unbelievable rate, and
much of what seemed unimaginable even a year ago has
come true: the blue and yellow flags fluttering over our cities,
democratic councils in Western Ukraine, the declaration of
sovereignty . . . At the same time . . . [w]e have all understood
how far we still have to go to attain democracy, freedom of
expression, freedom in general. And well-being? Now there’s
something quite unimaginable!”
• From: Salomea Pavlychko, Letters from Kiev (New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 1992), excerpts reprinted in Glennys Young,
The Communist Experience in the Twentieth Century: A Global
History through Sources (New York: Oxford University Press,
2011), quote on p. 355.