Liu Xianzhong (Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)
In recent days, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has been cloudy, and the whole world is paying close attention. The occurrence of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has both a complex international background and domestic factors, which are related to the historical and cultural characteristics of Ukraine. The course of the conflict itself is now confusing and confusing, and it is only hoped that the fighting will subside as soon as possible. This article would like to introduce some of the history and culture of Ukraine in order to deepen the understanding of the current Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
Historical Changes in Ukraine: A Country Formed by Geopolitical Synergy
Ukraine's emergence as a truly independent sovereign state on the world map followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now the area of Ukraine is 603,700 square kilometers, if Russia is also counted as a European country, then the area of Ukraine in Europe after Russia ranks second, known as the "European granary". The population of Ukraine is more than 45 million according to 2013 statistics, and in 2021, the Crimea region is 41.58 million people, of which ethnic Ukrainians account for 17.3% of the total population.
Independence Square, Kiev, Ukraine
Today's Ukrainian region has undergone an extremely complex and contradictory process of political integration due to geopolitical changes. In fact, the history of Ukraine today is the sum of some local histories that have little to do with each other, the history of the junctions and meeting points influenced by foreign ethnic influences.
Kievan Rus' is a common source of Russia and Ukraine. "Kievan Rus'" is a term coined by 19th-century scholars to refer to the 9th- and 13th-century political entity centered on Kiev. In the 12th century, the Grand Duke of Kiev died in name only, and the era of unity of state in the history of Kievan Rus came to an end, and Rus' split into many principalities. It was the collapse of Kiev and the Mongol invasion that gave birth to Ukraine and Russia, and also put Ukraine and Russia on different paths of development. Both Ukraine and Russia were born out of Kievan Rus' and their dynastic heritage came from Kiev. Today's Russia developed in northeastern Rus's center on Moscow, while the cradle of the Ukrainian nation was the Duchy of Galicia-Warren, which split off from Kiev.
After the arrival of the Mongols, the princes of Vladimir and the princes of Galicia both submitted to Mongol rule. With the decline of the Mongols and the severance of their family bloodlines in the 1640s, Galicia-Warren became the object of contention between Poland and Lithuania. In the 14th century Lithuania acquired most of the lands of Kievan Rus' and the city of Kiev came under Lithuanian rule in 1363. Poland occupied Galicia and Lviv in 1349. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania became not only a powerful successor to Kievan Rus', but also the ruler of most of the Ukrainian lands.
In 1569 the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania jointly established the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth through Lublin. Lithuania officially assigned the Kiev region, the Chernigov region, the Podoliye region and other regions to Poland. When the Ukrainian region was under Lithuanian rule, Lithuania was assimilated by Rus' and Church Slavic became the official lingua franca of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. After Ukraine became part of Poland, Rus' culture could no longer compete with Latinization influences and the Polish language.
The Cossack rebellion against Poland led by Bogdan Khmelnytsky in 1648 had an important impact on the territorial changes in Ukraine. The Treaty of Pereyaslav was signed in January 1654, and Russia's entangled relations with Ukraine began. The Russian-Polish struggle lasted another 13 years to implement the Pereyaslav Peace Treaty. In the Russian-Polish war for Ukraine, the Ukrainian Cossacks constantly changed sides, losing more sovereignty each time they changed their camps. Finally, in 1667, the Andrewsovo Armistice Agreement was signed between Russia and Poland, and only part of the former Kiev Province on the left bank of the Dnieper River and a small part of Kiev on the right bank of the Dnieper River were transferred to Moscow. All the remaining right-bank parts of the Khmelnytsky "state" remained under Polish control for nearly a hundred years.
At that time, it was not only Russia and Poland, but also Turkey that were fighting for Ukraine. In October 1672, the Polish king, unable to effectively resist the Turkish invasion, signed the Treaty of Buchacchi with the Ottoman Empire. The treaty divided Right-Bank Ukraine into three parts: Turkish possession of Podoliya (the left bank of the Bug and Transnistrian rivers); the Blaclav region (part of present-day Vinnytsia Oblast and part of Khmelnytsky Oblast) and the southern region of Kiev in Turkish vassals of the Right Bank Cossack Geitman doroshenko (П.Ддоорошенко); and the rest of Ukraine on the right bank belonged to Poland. Militarily weakened, Poland also had to pay an additional 22,000 PLN per year.
On May 6, 1686, in order to jointly fight against Turkey, Russia and Poland concluded a "Permanent Peace Treaty", not only in eastern Ukraine, but also in Kiev and its adjacent areas, which had been originally stipulated to be returned to Poland, and permanently belonged to Russia. Poland was compensated economically, and Russia ended its peaceful relations with Turkey and Crimea. On 29 January 1699, the Anti-Turkish Alliance signed the Treaty of Karlowitz with Turkey in Karlovic, Serbia, under the framework of which Poland recovered the lands lost under the Treaty of Bučac, which included Podolij and other parts of Ukraine on the right bank.
At the end of the 18th century, due to the deep internal political and economic crisis and the emergence of new external strong neighbors, Poland, once a major Central European power, disappeared from the European political map. The disappearance of Poland affected the fate of Western Ukraine. In 1772, the first partition of Poland by Theopsians and TheOslovakia, most of Galicia in Ukraine, including Lviv and parts of Podolier and Warren, were incorporated into Austria. In 1792 the Russian-Prussian partition of Poland, Russia acquired the regions of Ukraine and Belarus east of the Drua-Pinsk-Zbruzzi line, as well as parts of Lithuania, namely, Minsk, Wielno, Kiev, Bratsrav, Podolje, the eastern part of Warren, and part of the Litovsk-Brest Voivodeship. During the third partition of Poland in 1795, Russia acquired the western part of Warren.
Ukraine on a satellite map
The Andrewsovo Armistice of 1667 and the Russian-Polish Permanent Peace Treaty of 1686 legally determined the ownership of eastern Ukraine, the city of Kiev and its adjacent areas, and the Zaporozhye region to Russia. The three partitions of Poland divided Ukraine on the right into two countries, most of which belonged to Russia and a small part to Austria.
However, the Areas of Ukraine that were contested at the time did not include Sloboda Ukraine, the New Russia region, and later Crimea. Neither the Treaty of Pereyaslav nor the subsequent Treaty of Russia and Ukraine covered these areas. Slobo Ukraine has been under direct Russian rule since the 17th century. The history of New Russia was the result of the expansion of the Russian Empire. Crimea was not assigned to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic until 1954.
Russia's defeat in World War I and the October Revolution provided Ukraine with the opportunity to establish its own state on the ruins of the Empire. However, due to the breaking of the traditional regional balance of power, the Ukrainian region became a contest between various forces, including Ukraine's own activities for independence, as well as the white army, the Red Army, Poland, and Germany in the region. The countries concerned consider ukraine in terms of their respective interests. The end result of the struggle and compromise between the parties was that before the First World War the Ukrainian region belonged to the Russian Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and after the First World War, it belonged to four countries: Soviet Russia gained most of Ukraine, Poland acquired Galicia and parts of Warren, which had previously belonged to Russia, Czechoslovakia acquired Carpathian Rus' and Romania acquired Besarabia and Bukovina.
It was only between 1939 and 1945 that the Soviet Union combined 450,000 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory with less than 150,000 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory scattered in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania by various means. For the first time in centuries, Ukrainians were united within a state organization. Ukraine has been a member of the United Nations since its birth and became independent in 1991.
The contours of different histories weave: from "Little Russia" to Donbass
Several regions of Ukraine today have different historical and cultural characteristics, which many Ukrainian politicians recognize.
As early as December 2004, Yanukovych pointed out that Ukraine seemed to have "three cultural-economic regions: the cultural and economic region of Europe, the cultural and economic region of Eurasia, and the cultural and economic region of the inland sea". These three regions refer to western Ukraine, eastern Ukraine, and the southern part of the country (the northern coastal region of Crimea and the Black Sea). Kuchma also said in his book Ukraine is not Russia: "Ukraine is like a well-defined and egalitarian historical region." Each region has its own face, and you can't entangle them together. For the indifferent and the enemy, it is a quilt pieced together with a cloth head; for those who love Ukraine, it is a pattern full of deep meaning and beauty. "This all illustrates the complexity of Ukrainian history and culture.
Four regions of Ukraine, picture from the International Institute of Sociology of Kiev. Reprinted from Wang Fang, "Marketing Strategies for Political Communication: A Case Study of the 2019 Ukrainian Presidential Election."
Central Ukraine: the foundation of the Ukrainian nation-state
Ukraine, or "Little Russia", centered on Kiev, was the region where Khmelnytsky established the Cossack state and was the core region of Ukraine. The right bank of the Dnieper is represented by the states of Zhytomyr, Vinnytsya, Kiev and Kilovograd, and on the left bank of the Dnieper is represented by the states of Chernigov and Poltava. The historical center of Ancient Rus' Kiev, Chernigov, and Pereyaslav are all here. Ukraine as a region, nation and country was gradually formed in the range of the Right Bank and the Left Bank. Here is in fact the foundation of the Ukrainian nation-state.
Little Russia is also the most important region in Ukraine because major events in Ukrainian history have occurred in this region. It was here, for example, that the War of National Liberation of 1648-1653 against Polish rule was waged, and the Treaty of Annexation between Pereiaslav and Ukrainian-Russian was signed here. After the Armistice of Andrewsovo of 1667 and the Permanent Peace Of 1686, as well as the three partitions of Poland, Little Russia became an integral part of Russia. There have been struggles between Cossack leaders for the leadership of Getman, between Left and Right Bank Geitmans, between Cossacks and Turks, Tatars and Poles on the one hand, and between Cossacks and Russian armies on the other. During the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War, the central Rada, the State of Ukraine, the People's Republic of Ukraine and other state organs and state organizations established by М. Gruszewski, В. Winnitchenko, С. Petriula and their supporters from the beginning of 1917 to 1918 also took place in this region. That is why Kuchma called the central Ukrainian region the "traditional Ukrainian matrix", believing that central Ukraine was the center of preserving the unique Ukrainian system, both as an integral part of Lithuania and later as an integral part of Poland.
Sloboda Ukraine: the historical region of Russia
Sloboda Ukraine was also an important part of Ukraine, and it included the following regions on the map of present-day Ukraine: Kharkiv Oblast, Samui Oblast, part of Donetsk Oblast (to the Bakhmutka River) and part of Luhansk Oblast (to the Aydar River).
Sloboda
Sloboda Ukraine is actually the historical region of Russia: this is the border region of Russia, not the border area of Poland. In addition to the above-mentioned Ukrainian oblasts, most of the belgorod oblast of present-day Russia and the southern part of the neighboring Kursk Oblast and the southwestern region of Voronezh Oblast historically belonged to this region. At the beginning of the 17th century, the border between Russia and the Republic of Poland was much further west than those between the cities of Iyzym, Kharkiv, Samui or Relsk. The entire basin of the Donets River is in Russia, and the upper reaches of the Vorskla, Pushhor and Sura rivers also belong to the Russian state. Russian peasants and Ukrainians from the Polish Republic fled to this undeveloped border region as early as the 16th century. Russians with public office also settled here. Subsequently, farmers and Cossacks came here from the Republic of Poland. This region was developed as a border region of Russia. As early as the mid-17th century, the Ostrogorzysk Regiment, the Akhtorka Regiment, the Sumy Regiment and the Kharkov Regiment were built here, and later the Iyzym Regiment was established. These legions formed the Belgorod Line, defending Russia and even Poland from the south from the forces of the Crimean Khanate. During the period of provincial reform in Tsarist Russia, the Ukrainian Province of Sloboda was established in 1764 in the Ukrainian region of Slopodda. In the middle of the 19th century, when new administrative divisions were introduced, Kharkiv Province became a separate region. But all these regions are developed according to the logic of the southern Russian region. Kharkiv was developed as a Russian city. The University was established in Kharkiv in 1805 and was the fourth university in Russia. By the beginning of the 20th century Kharkiv had become the industrial and commercial center of the region, with a large railway hub. During the Russian Revolution of 1917, the first Soviet government of Ukraine was established in Kharkiv. Since then, the regimes of cities and states have changed hands several times. It was only by the end of 1919 that Soviet power was firmly established in Kharkov, in Sloboda Ukraine, and then in all of Ukraine. Because of this, it was the capital of Ukraine until 1934. Kharkiv is the center of Russian culture in Ukraine. It is the "most Russian" of all the cities in Ukraine, the city closest to the Russian border (30 km from the Russian border).
New Russia: a place where immigrants gather
The New Russia region is also an important region of Ukraine. The history of New Russia was the result of the expansion of Tsarist Russia. It mainly refers to the area on the northern shore of the Black Sea incorporated into Russia. Most of these areas were actually uninhabited steppes — "wildernesses" before they were incorporated into Russia. Troops of the Crimean Khanate and the armies of the Sultan of Turkey passed through here to carry out regular attacks on Rus' and Eastern European countries. After several wars, russia was incorporated into Russia as a result of the peace treaties with Turkey in 1739, 1774, 1791 and 1812. It at that time included Kherson Province, Yekaterinosrav (now Dnipropetrovsk), Tavrida Province (including parts of the Crimean Peninsula and the northern shore of the Black Sea), Besarabia Province, and the Kuban region. After the incorporation of these regions into Russia, the New Russian authorities began to emigrate to New Russia, mainly from ethnic Ukrainians and Russians, Greeks, Jews and Germans. In the former wasteland, the Russian government assigned it not only to high-ranking officials or Russian nobles in its own court, but also to people of "various identities". This is the only part of Russia where Jewish landowners can appear. In the provinces of Kherson and Yekaterinosraf alone, there were about 40 Jewish landowner communities on the eve of the 1880s.
The Crimean Peninsula also belongs to New Russia, but it is different from other places in New Russia. The rest of New Russia became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union after the October Revolution. On October 18, 1921, the Crimean Peninsula, in accordance with the resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, established the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, with Simferopol as its capital, which belongs to the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. These were the few autonomous bodies in the Soviet Union that were established not by national names but by geographical names. From 1 December 1991 Crimea became an integral part of independent Ukraine. On 26 February 1992 the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was renamed the Republic of Crimea, and on 5 May 1992 the independence of the state was proclaimed. On March 17, 1995, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine abolished the Constitution and the presidency of the Republic of Crimea. On December 23, 1998, the new Constitution of Crimea entered into force, and the Republic of Crimea was renamed the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, which is an integral part of Ukraine.
Donetsk of "Independence": The Plight of the Old Industrial Estate
The Donetsk region is Donbass, and Donbass is a compound word for the Donetsk Basin (Донецкий бассейн). Greater Donbas includes the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts as well as the Dnipropetrovsk and Rostov oblasts. Donbass includes northern Donetsk (excluding the sea coast of Azov) and southern Luhansk (excluding northern part of the Sloboda region).
Donetsk, eastern Ukraine
The area was for a long time sparsely populated territory, and the Don Cossacks and Zaporozhyan Cossacks settled in the area. Most of the coast of the Sea of Azov is uninhabited. After the construction of the railway in the mid-19th century, the amount of coal mined rose sharply, and the area gradually developed. In the decade between 1870 and 1879 alone, coal mining doubled — from 500,000 tons a year to 1 million tons. The discovery of the Krivorog iron ore area has provided a powerful impetus for the development of the entire region. The first mining of iron ore here began in 1881, and in 1884 the first railway connecting Krivorozh and Donbass was opened. It was these regions that became Russia's largest metallurgical centers, mining more than the Urals, the birthplace of The Russian metallurgical industry. By 1913, Donbass was mining about 25 million tons of coal and more than 6 million tons of iron ore per year, smelting 3 million tons of pig iron, which accounted for about 70 percent of Russia's total coal and pig iron production.
Donbass was the "mining capital" with a concentration of industrial workers and a very important influence on the political and economic life of the Soviet Union and ukraine today. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, due to the sharp decline of Ukraine's military-industrial system, metallurgical industry became the most profitable sector in Ukraine in the 90s and early 2000s. During this time, more than half of the country's industrial output came from the four eastern oblasts – Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporozhia, Donetsk and Luhansk. These regions are rich in iron ore and coal mines and are Ukraine's main export commodity and source of steel. No less than 70% of Ukraine's GDP is created by the eastern oblasts, while about 40% comes from donetsk Oblast and Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. In terms of per capita income, regions such as Donetsk remain the richest regions in Ukraine, far richer than Galicia. The strikes of miners in the region in 1989-1991 played an important role in the collapse of the Soviet Union. The 1993 general strike that spilled over into Donbass eventually became one of the main reasons for the defeat of Ukraine's first president, Leonid Kravchuk, in the 1994 presidential election.
The main problem in Donbass as an old industrial zone is not in essence a national question, but an economic problem, a question of how to improve the situation of workers. Oil and gas began to become the world's main energy source in the second half of the 1970s, and the 1989-1991 Strike of the Donbass miners was actually a reaction to the crisis in the coal sector, with no consideration of independence at all. But the strike, combined with the national movement of the time, eventually hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union. The protests in Donbass before and after the dissolution were largely in fact a dissatisfaction with the inability of the authorities to change their situation. The miners had been disappointed with the Soviet authorities, but even more so with Ukraine, where several post-independence government prime ministers had corruption scandals, a big reason they wanted to join Russia.
Western Ukraine: Depressed West
Western Ukraine, which is also an important region of Ukraine. It and the Donetsk region are the east and west poles of Ukraine. Historically known as Galicia (or Galicina, Galic), Western Ukraine covers an area of nearly 150,000 square kilometers, mainly including the present-day Warren, Ivano Frankivsk, Lviv, Rovno and Ternopol Oblasts, as well as Transcarpathian Oblast, which once belonged to Czechoslovakia, and Chernivtse Oblast, which once belonged to Romania. Galicia has been separated from the rest of Ukraine for centuries and has been independent, severed from major parts of Ukraine. At the end of the 18th century, Russia seized all of Belarus and most of Ukraine by dividing Poland three times. Most of Galicia in Ukraine (including Lviv and parts of Podolier and Warren) is owned by Austria. At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the lands of Eastern Galicia, i.e. Western Ukraine, were compensated by Austria. The collapse of the Russian Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in World War I created the conditions for the free development of Ukraine. From 1917 to 1920 several political entities claiming to be independent Ukrainian states came to the stage of history. However, in the context of revolution, war and civil war, due to the competition between various political forces, the independence movement in Ukraine died, and no independent Ukrainian state was established, and most of Ukraine became a republic of the Soviet Union. Most of Western Ukraine is in Poland. The Transcarpathian oblast, the Ugolrose region, had been under Hungarian rule since the Middle Ages and later became part of the Hungarian part of the Habsburg Empire. After World War I, it became part of Czechoslovakia. The Bukovina region, on the other hand, used to be owned by the Habsburg Empire. The ethnic composition of the region is complex but Ukrainians make up the majority. The north is more Ukrainianized and the south is more Romanian. After World War I, Bukovina was incorporated into Romania. Western Ukraine, with the exception of parts of Warren, never became part of the Russian Empire. It was only between 1939 and 1945 that these regions were merged with the rest of Ukraine.
In 1916, World War I, Austrian prisoners were sorted by the Russians in Galicia.
Western Ukraine is also predominantly urban, but it is not an economically developed region of the Polish-Lithuanian Republic, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, or Poland, Czechoslovakia or Romania. Today, the region remains a backward, depressed part of Ukraine's economy. Of ukraine's total industrial output, Western Ukraine's share is only slightly more than 6 percent. Foreign investment in each region of Western Ukraine is only 1% of total foreign investment. If the index of total industrial production of inhabitants of each city in Ukraine as a whole is 100, then in 2003-2005 it is 184 in Zaporozhye Oblast, 172 in Donetsk Oblast and Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, 47 in Lviv Oblast, 43 in Transcarpathian Oblast, 32 in Ternopil Oblast and 24 in Chernivts Oblast.
Language, Ethnicity, Culture: Diverse Groups of Citizens and Different Political Orientations
The various regions of Ukraine have belonged to different countries for a long time in history, and each region has its own different historical characteristics, which has also led to the extreme impurity of the ethnic and cultural composition of the various regions of Ukraine and the lack of true national cultural identity. As some scholars have said: "In fact, Ukraine is in a sense more Russian than Russia." If in Russia russians have formed a clearly dominant ethnic and cultural group, no group in Ukraine has developed this advantage, which complicates the situation even more. "Ukraine, like the Russian Federation today, is a more distinct multi-ethnic state with roots in both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.
From an ethnic and cultural point of view, Ukraine can be clearly divided into three groups of citizens of countries with roughly equal numbers. The first group is ethnic Ukrainians whose mother tongue is Ukrainian and who have grown up under the influence of the ideas and values of Ukrainian culture. Virtually all inhabitants of Western Ukraine, as well as the majority of agricultural inhabitants of the central regions of the Republic, belong to this group. The second group is ethnic Ukrainians who speak Russian from childhood and are educated in Russian culture. This part resides mainly in cities along the Dnieper River, as well as in the villages of Sloboda Ukraine (Слодская Украина) and Polesier. The third group is the Russian language is the mother tongue, and the worldview is the Ethnic Russians formed on the basis of Russian culture.
In terms of political orientation, in general, the inhabitants of Western Ukraine support Ukraine's integration into European and Western organizations, including NATO, while opposing Ukraine and Russia joining any integration bloc, supporting free-market economic and political reforms, and advocating limits on state intervention in the economy. The inhabitants of the eastern and partly southern parts retained the characteristics of Soviet political culture, opposing market reforms in the early years of independence and supporting state control over large-scale industry. Most of the residents of the east advocate close cooperation or integration with Russia, advocate the declaration of the Russian language as a second Chinese, and firmly oppose Ukraine's accession to NATO.
Specifically, according to the 2001 census, almost 25.6% of the inhabitants of Kharkiv Oblast are ethnic Russians. For the vast majority of local residents, Russian is a native language. Neither during nor after the collapse of the Soviet Union was the national movement among the ukrainian electorate in Sloboda as it was in Kiev, especially in Lviv or Ivano-Frankiv, as popular with voters. General pro-Russian sentiment prevails in Sloboda Ukraine. The vast majority of The inhabitants of Kharkov were intellectuals who wished to live and work better, but were not fascinated by the question of independence.
Kharkiv, Ukraine
The urban population of the Donetsk region is dominant – 40 to 50 per cent of the total population of the Krai region. The southern and eastern cities of Ukraine are inhabited mainly by factory workers (70-90 per cent of the population). Such a concentration of the working class did not occur in any other province of Tsarist Russia. In 1996 the Donetsk and Luhansk regions were home to more than 8 million people, and the population density here is the highest in Ukraine. According to the 2001 census, the number of ethnic Russians in both oblasts was 39 per cent. The Donetsk region, on the other hand, is spoken by 65% of the inhabitants of the Donetsk region, regardless of ethnicity. The inhabitants of Donetsk and Luhansk were not Russian immigrants, but indigenous peoples of krai. Because of the large number of Russian-speaking residents, it was difficult to promote Ukrainianization here, both during the Stalin period of the Soviet Union and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Because of this, Ukrainian nationalism has no market here.
The New Russia region was developed by Ukrainians and immigrants from Ethnic Russians, Greeks, Jews and Germans, so there was a mixture of ethnic groups. In New Russia, nationalist ideas were never popular. During the Russian Civil War, the most famous figure in the new Russian part of Ukraine was not General Petriura or Denikin, but Nestor Mahno, who founded an anarchist republic in the steppes of southern Ukraine. This situation is also very typical in Odessa.
Since its founding at the end of the 18th century, Odessa has been a mixed population of ukrainians, a cosmopolitan city, where it is spoken mainly in Russian. According to popular belief, the dominant Jews here are the Jews, but by no means the Jewish inhabitants with religious sentiments. Odessa provided Russia and the Soviet Union with a number of outstanding Jewish writers, composers, and actors. In New Russia, Russian is the home language of local Russians and Ukrainians, as well as the language of school and social life. The parallel promotion of Russian and Ukrainian in these regions is also an everyday language for the vast majority of the population.
The inhabitants of New Russia themselves have a much smaller Ukrainian identity than those of the central Ukrainian region. The vast majority of new Russians do not see a fundamental difference between "Russian self-consciousness" and "Ukrainian self-consciousness" and between the two cultures. The Policy of Ukrainianization in the Soviet Period, if for the central region of the Republic, was some kind of return to its own culture, then for the south and east of Soviet Ukraine it was a cross-cultural imposition. People here may not like the Ukrainian state either, but they never irrationally venture to make any revolution against it.
When Crimea of New Russia was incorporated into Russia in 1783, the main inhabitants of the peninsula were Crimean Tatars. Later, as a result of the exclusion of the Tatars by the Tsarist government, a large number of Tatars migrated to Turkey, and the population of ethnic Russians, Ukrainians and other nationalities poured in, and russians made up the majority here before the October Revolution. According to the 2001 All-Ukrainian Census, Ukraine is now home to more than 130 representatives of ethnic groups and different religious cultures. Crimea is the most ethnic region in Ukraine, according to the National Council of Nationalities and Migration of Ukraine, there are more than 125 ethnic groups and more than 80 ethnic groups living in the region, of which 58.5% are Ethnic Russians, 24.4% are Ethnic Ukrainians and 12.1% are Crimean Tatars. Crimea is the meeting point for most of the ethnic and geopolitical issues that Ukraine encounters. There was a strong pro-Russian sentiment, and Kiev relied on Crimean Tatars to fight pro-Russian sentiment, but it also led to new problems such as the illegal union of Crimean Tatars, the establishment of a Grand National Assembly, demands the recognition of Crimea as a Tatar republic, and unauthorized land appropriation.
The Galicia region of Ukraine has long been independent of the main part of Ukraine. Traditionally, it is in the midst of European culture and value systems. And each region here – Galicia, Warren, Bukovina, Trans-Balcates – has its own different history. Therefore, these regions are not only less influenced by Russian culture, but also Ukrainian culture here. According to Roy Medvedev, Galicia was not really aware of not only Pushkin's work, but also of Taras Shevchenko. This region, due to its late incorporation into the Soviet Union, was not greatly influenced by Soviet communism, and was "not as willing and devoted to the construction of communism as other regions." Ukrainian nationalism is more popular here, especially in Lviv or Ivano-Frankivsk.
How to deal with Russian culture? The dilemma and struggle to construct a Ukrainian identity
An independent and sovereign Ukraine was born as a result of the evolution of the internal political situation in the Soviet Union, rather than the difficult struggle of the whole nation to unify, coupled with the complexity of the Ukrainian history and culture mentioned above, and the national ideology of Ukraine after its independence "did not take shape". One researcher pointed out: "Ukrainian national culture, as a reflection of the times and as a way of thinking acceptable to ordinary people, has not yet been formed." We do not yet have here, as in the Post-World War I Czech Republic, which has neither had its own Hašek nor its own Chapec. ”
Kharkiv city streets
Because of the huge differences between the various regions of Ukraine, "there is quite a thing that can separate the various regions of Ukraine". Because of this, after Ukraine's independence, how to ensure the unity and territorial integrity of the country and establish a Ukrainian political nation has become one of the main problems facing Ukraine after independence. The voices of the state becoming federal have been there, and the debate over the status of the Russian language has long existed. Politicians have taken various approaches to build a strong Ukrainian identity, but none has achieved the desired results. Ukrainian nationalists oppose the coexistence of Russian culture and Ukrainian culture and put the two in complete opposition, but do not make the development of Ukrainian culture their priority, but make it their goal to exclude Russian language and Russian culture and to disassociate Ukraine and Russia. This approach is not only detrimental to the development of Ukrainian national culture, but also causes many new contradictions. It is an undeniable fact that Ukraine and Russia have lived under one roof for more than three hundred years. Ukraine has long learned about the world's cultural wealth mainly through the Russian language, and Ukrainian culture has also been transmitted through the Russian language. In fact, Russian culture can also be said to be part of Ukrainian culture to some extent, "rejecting this heritage of Ukrainian history and Ukrainian culture like a desert". According to one scholar: "The denial of the Russian language and culture would impoverish Ukrainian culture itself, depriving it of real historical roots that could not have been completely replaced by hastily made up myths." ”
Although Ukraine completed the unification of its territory in various ways during the Soviet period, Ukraine was not an internal cultural-linguistic unity. For historical reasons, the degree of identification with Ukraine varies from place to place. Judging from the history of national liberation movements in Ukraine, Crimea and the New Russia region are its absentees, and the liberation movements have almost no participation in them. In a region as complex as Ukraine's history and culture, the construction of a new national identity depends on the wisdom of politicians and is a test of the Ukrainian government's ability and level of governance. Former Ukrainian President Kuchma's attitude many years ago still seems justified: "We should not adhere to pro-Russian or pro-Western policies and values, but should adhere to the policies and values of our own people." We should be aware that Ukraine is both a European country and a country with which the former Soviet republics lived in close quarters for decades and with whom it still has a special relationship. We go to the West, not separated from the East, in these two in one, there is a huge potential for our development prospects. Ukraine needs the West, "which is the standard of the state, the way to world civilization," and Russia and other CIS countries because "most of our historical, cultural, and purely interpersonal ties bind us to them." We have similar problems, and this means that there may be similar paths to these problems", "The sooner all Ukrainian politicians understand that it is meaningless and foolish to try to break off blood ties with Russia, and the sooner all Russian politicians understand that attempts to annex Ukraine in some way are hopeless and dangerous, the sooner a new era of life for our two peoples will begin". Kissinger actually said the same thing in the Washington Post on March 15, 2014: "The Ukrainian question is often put on a showdown, will Ukraine join the East or the West?" But if Ukraine wants to survive and prosper, it cannot be an outpost of either side against the other – it should be a bridge between the two. ”
Editor-in-Charge: Shanshan Peng
Proofreader: Ding Xiao