Brief history of the different lands in today’s Ukraine

Since over thousand years, the territory of today’s Ukraine was constituted of various changing states, principalities and kingdoms with changing rulers and dynasties. It was always a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious land, always in-between the West and the East with lots of migration and frequent deep changes. It was always a buffer-zone under the rules of changing masters, without own identity.

In the East, since the middle ages, there was the growing and expanding Rus, with Kiev as Russia’s political and religious center and many other Russian principalities, most were ruled by descendants of the Rurikid dynasty. In the West, the Rurikides established the once powerful Russian Kingdom of Galicia-Wolhynia. The Mongol invasion in the 13th century stopped the development of old Russia which could only proper again after the 14th and 15th century with Moscow as the new power center. In the South, Russia conquered the lands to the Black Sea and Crimea in the 17th and 18th centuries, beating Tatars and Ottomans. At the same time, Russia expanded into the East, into Siberia and further, becoming the largest and one of the most powerful of all European Empires.

An interesting element of today’s Ukrainian territory was the medieval Kingdom of Galicia-Wolhynia.

This Kingdom of Galicia-Wolhynia once stretched over a large territory which contained mainly modern West-Ukraine, parts of Poland and even parts of Hungary and Bohemia.

The earliest known inhabitants were Goths and Vandals, Germanic tribes which moved into Western-Europe and North-Africa after the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 4th and 5th centuries. The move was pushed as well by the Huns which were raiding their lands and even attacked France in the 4th century.

Those Germanic tribes from the lands of modern Ukraine were replaced by West Slavic tribes. The Slavs, of Asian origin, moved, under pressure from nomadic hordes, into the former lands of Germanic tribes, as well into the Balkans.

The area of Galicia-Wolhynia has seen many wars during the 5th to the 9th centuries, when Slavs battled the Hungarians, the Poles etc.

In 981, Wladimir the Great of Kiev, the powerful Russian ruler of the Kievan Rus, took over Galicia and Wolhynia which became two principalities of the Kievan Rus. Some fights with Poland continued during the 11th century, but in the 12th century the Russian Rurikid Principality of Galicia-Wolhynia was settled as one of the Rus principalities under the Russian GrandPrinces of Kiev.

The Russian rulers of Galicia-Wolhynia continued to fight against Poles and Hungarians throughout the 12th and 13th century and were also threatened by the Mongol hordes. The Mongols destroyed Kiev in 1240 as well as other Russian principalities, all which became tributaries to the Mongol Khans. Also the principality of Galicia-Wolhynia paid tribute to the Khans but was never severly invaded by the Mongols.

In 1245, the Russian ruler Daniil of Galicia-Wolhynia was crowned King by the Pope of Rome, by delegation, in recompense of his fight against the Mongols which were feared by all Europe. His Russian Kingdom never took over the Roman Catholic rites, remaining Byzantine-Orthodox. Daniil was the only Rurikid, a Russian Prince of the Rus to be crowned by a Pope.

The Kingdom of Galicia-Wolhynia florished during the 13th century, always battling the Poles, Hungarians and Mongols, but declined in the 13th century when the Rurikid dynasty of Galicia-Wolhynia had no heir and no other Russian ruler intervened, so this Russian Kingdom was finally taken over by the Poles in 1349 and was integrated into the Polish Kingdom and later into the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania.

This old Russian Kingdom of Galicia-Wolhynia, situated in today’s West-Ukraine, was under Polish-Lithuanian rule from 1349 till 1772. These territories were called by the Polish word for “the Borderland”: “the Ukraine”.

Another interesting element is the city of Kiev and its history.

Kiev was probably founded in the 5th century by Slavic tribes moving from the East into the area under the pressure of nomadic hordes. The area was inhabited since several thousand years before. They were submitted by the turc nomadic ruler of the Kazhars and paid tribute.

Kiev was taken over by the Varangians ca 880, Scandinavian Vikings called the Rus, traders and raiders, strong and powerful warriors. Kiev became a Russian city under their Rurikid dynasty.

Kiev would become the medieval capital of the Kievian Rus from 880 to 1240, when the Mongols destroyed the city.

Kiev was from the 9th to the 13th century the florishing center of Russia, the main and leading principality, with the GrandPrinces dominating other Russian principalities that were almost all ruled by descendants of the Rurikid dynasty. Kiev was engaged in conflicts with these other Russian principalities, such as Novgorod, Moscow.

Kiev also became the center of Russian Orthodox Christianity after Saint Olga of Kiev, a Varangian noblewoman, widow of the Rurikid GrandPrince and regent for their son, was baptized in Constantinople in the year 955.

After many conflicts with other Russian principalities, Kiev was then destroyed by the Mongols in 1240. In the following centuries, Kiev would never recover again, the center of the Russian power and the capital of the Russian Empire would become Moscow. Kiev would remain a provincial town without significance, sometimes under Mongol or Polish-Lithuanian rule, finally a Russian town in the Russian Empire. The city of Kiev was taken by Russia finally in 1673, while the Kiev Palatinate remained Polish till 1772 (partition of Poland).

During the Polish-Lithianian rule from the recession of the Mongols in the 14th century till 1673, the city’s inhabitants had to submit to Polish laws and religion, to Catholicism. The Russian Orthodox rite in Kiev, like all over Russian lands occupied by Poland-Lithuania, came under pressure and in order to continue to exist, the Orthodox Church in Kiev had to accept the supremacy of the Roman Pope. Many nobles converted to Catholicism, the ruling classes spoke Polish but the Orthodox Church and East Slavonic, the Old Russian language still survived with local Russians.

In 1382 the Moscovits won the battle of Kulikovo against the Mongol hordes, but it took till 1480 to fully get rid off the Mongols. Moscow became the center of all Russians, the capital of the Russian Empire. Kiev, as a formerly occupied Polish town was rebuilt after 1673 by the Tsars in a Russian fashion considering Kiev being the cradle of the Russian Rus, the origin of Russia. In 1697 Tsar Peter I. completely rebuilt the Sophia-Cathedral in Russian Baroque style – the Cathedral was almost completely destroyed by the Mongols and some Tatar raids in the previous centuries while its rests were put by the Poles under the authority of the Greek-Catholic Church.

Since the Mongol sack and destruction of Kiev in 1240 till the reconquest by Russia in 1673 from the Poles, Kiev had nothing “Ukrainian”. It was also not part of the Polish borderland which was called by the Polish word “Ukraine” for borderland. It was a provincial town under Polish-Lithuanian rule with huge Russian history until it was retaken by the Russian Empire and rebuilt by the Tsars. Only by historic accident, Kiev, a city which was rebuilt by the Tsars, growing into a Russian industrial center of the 19th century and hugely developed by the Soviets, is today the capital of the new Ukrainian state.

The partition of Poland-Lithuania in 1772 clearly marked the division of today’s territory of Ukraine, between the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the West (mainly Galicia-Wolhynia) and the Russian Empire to the North, East and South. The administrative language of the West was German and of the East it was Russian.

After a review of large parts of the modern Ukrainian state, a historic review of Galicia-Wolhynia, of the City of Kiev, and understanding that modern Ukraine’s Eastern territories were ancient Russian heartland, it would be interesting to understand if the Cossacks may have contributed to Ukrainian nationalism and identity. With both territories being multi-ethnic, they comprised different local languages, such as Ruthenian, Hungarian and Polish in the West.

Cossacks are a phenomena emerging in the Southern part of Russia and those southern parts which were ruled by the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania.

The origins of the first Cossacks are disputed. Traditionally the emergence of Cossacks dates to the 14th to 15th centuries. Towards the end of the 15th century, the Cossacks under the Polish-Lithuanian rule formed the Zaporozhian Sich centered on the fortified Dnipro islands, in today’s southern Ukraine. Initially a vassal of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the increasing social and religious pressure from the Commonwealth sparked a series of uprisings, and the proclamation of an independent Cossack Hetmanate culminating in a rebellion under Bogdan Khmelnytsky in the mid-17th century and a treaty with the Russian Empire.

The Cossacks of Zaporozhia were not the only ones. The equally famous Don Cossacks were very much the same but always attached to the Russia Empire. Cossacks and the lands they inhabited formed a buffer zone against Ottoman and Tatar raids and this quality and they brilliance in fighting were highly appreciated by the Tsars.  Modern Ukrainian historians and propagandists try to make a relation between Ukrainian nationalism and the Cossack phenomena, but seemingly this new history writing forgets about the different types of Cossaks, Zaporozhian and Don Cossacks (and some more).  Cossacks were always proud to serve the Russian Tsars, be it against the Ottomans, during the conquest of Crimea or in Siberia against some remaining Khanats. In particular, Crimea was never anything connected to Ukraine but the peninsula was taken by Russia from the Muslim Tatars and the Ottomans. Cossacks are therefore, deeply integrated in Russian history and there is no relevant historic link to anything modern “Ukrainian”.

Cossacks settled in the territories of South Russia, as well in Zaporozhia, the Donbass, Luhansk, which are old Russian territories since the Tsarist times, after the end of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Modern Ukrainian historians try to draw a relationship between modern Ukraine and Cossacks based on the Cossacks’ lifestyle as free men refusing submission. Other Ukrainian historian consider the language spoken by Cossacks as the link to Ukrainian nationalism: Ruthenian. Nevertheless it may be reminded that the Cossacks were a place for many refugees from those territories under Polish-Lithuanian control where Ruthenian was the current language of the simple people.

Under all the above considerations, it is really difficult to determine any prior existence of an Ukrainian nation, either before the Kievian Rus, under the Mongols, during the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or in relation to the Cossacks. As well, the Ukrainian language is an element distinct from a nation as it developed under and with influence mainly of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and only under its rule and in its territory, a language imposed from outside with some local elements. It may be possible to say that the historic Ukrainian nationalism may have found a beginning in conflicts with the Polish-Lithuanian masters, an uprising of peasants against landowners, which found continuation in those territories which were held later by the Russian Empire. But this is a long way away from the definition of a nation.