Ukraine » History

The Ukrainian people belong to the southern branch of the Eastern Slavs. The name 'Ukraina', which originated in the twelfth century, denotes borderland: the area lacks natural frontiers and has a troubled history. Ukrainians trace the ancestry of their state to the principality of Kievan Rus, established on the River Dnieper and its tributaries in the ninth century and the point of entry for Orthodox Christianity in the tenth. Kievan Rus became the centre of a great civilisation but fell in 1240 to the Mongols.

Kiev is one of the most ancient and important cities of the region, the center of the Rus' civilization, survivor of numerous wars, purges, and genocides. Many historical and architectural landmarks are preserved or reconstructed in the city, which is thought to have existed as early as the fifth century. With the exact time of city foundation being hard to determine, May 1982 was chosen to celebrate the city's 1,500th anniversary. During the eighth and ninth centuries Kiev was an outpost of the Khazar empire. Starting from some point during the late ninth or early tenth century, Kiev was ruled by the Varangian nobility and became the nucleus of the Rus' polity, which became known as Kievan Rus' during the Golden Age of Kiev.

Longer Historical Perspective

After the Second World War, the borders of then-Soviet Ukraine were extended to the West, uniting most Ukrainians under one political state with much of the non-Ukrainian population of the attached territories having been deported. After the war Ukraine became a member of the United Nations Organization.

In 1954, Crimea was transferred from the RSFSR to Ukraine. This decision of Nikita Khrushchev, intended to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Treaty of Pereyaslav, seen in Soviet historiography as the 'union of two fraternal peoples', led to tensions between Russia and Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Independence was achieved in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Ukraine was a founding member of the Commonwealth of Independent States.