I am an ordinary Shanghai citizen, watching the news the other day, many netizens and even big V are saying that Russia has decided to end this military operation on May 9, and today is 10 days left from May 9.
Today I will talk about the Russian-Ukrainian conflict from the history of Russia and Ukraine before the First World War.
First of all, these two countries belong to the East Slavs, which can be said to be of the same origin, and at this point we will talk about the origin of the Slavs.
Ukrainians in traditional costumes
The Slavs first appeared in the Roman Empire, together with the Germans and Celts, they were called the three barbarians of Europe by the Romans, of which the Slavs were strictly nomadic and began to live a migratory life.
In the 6th century, the Slavs established the Principality of Satsuma in the Czech republic, and they often used it as a base to attack the Balkan Peninsula, which belonged to the Byzantine Empire.
In the 7th century, the Byzantine Empire lost control of the Balkans, and the Slavs migrated to the region in large numbers. The current Yugoslavs were formed, mainly concentrated in the Balkans, including what is now Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina and so on.
In 830 AD, the Great Moravian Principality was established, occupying the czech, Polish, Slovak and other territories, forming the present West Slavs.
During the same period, one of the Vikings, the Varyag, came to the present-day Black Sea coast and conquered the local Slavs, and by 882 AD, had captured Kiev and conquered some of the surrounding areas, establishing the Duchy of Rus, with the capital of Kiev, known as Ancient Rus' . This group of people merged with the local population to form today's East Slavs, including today's Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, etc.
At its peak, the Territory of Ancient Rus stretched north to Lake Ladoga (which bordered Finland), west to the Baltic Sea, south to the Black Sea, and east to the Volga River.
In the 12th century, The Ancient Rus began to split and fall into chaos, and the Ancient Rus was divided into more than a dozen principalities (equivalent to princely states), and finally destroyed by the Mongols in 1240 AD.
It was at this time that the path of the development of the original common Ancient Rus' peoples took a turn for the worse, and three distinct East Slavic peoples— russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians— began to form.
At this time, the northeast region of the former Ancient Rus became a vassal state of the Mongol Golden Horde, the princes were divided, and Moscow was only a humble border town, but with the passage of time, Moscow continued to expand its power and territory through various combinations, and in 1480 AD, the Grand Duchy of Moscow defeated the Golden Horde, thus ending two and a half centuries of Golden Horde rule and officially gaining independence.
Traditional Russian dance
At this time, the Ukrainian region, due to the inability of the Mongol army to reach the whip, did not establish effective rule, and successively experienced the chaos of the princes, the rule of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Kingdom of Poland.
In 1569, Lithuania and Poland formed the Polish-Lithuanian Republic (later known as Poland), which formally ruled the entire Ukrainian region. During his reign, the rulers forcibly forced the people to convert their religions in the Ukrainian regions, which led to the deterioration of the contradictions between the ruling and the ruled classes, and the armed groups cossacks seeking independence appeared on the left bank of Ukraine.
In 1648, the Cossacks officially launched an independent uprising. The area controlled by the Ukrainian Cossacks at that time was called Eastern Ukraine, while the Polish-controlled Galicia-Volinia region was called "Western Ukraine". However, due to the disparity in strength, he sought the help of Tsarist Russia, which was of the same origin.
In 1654, the Cossacks signed the Treaty of Pereyaslavl with Tsarist Russia. This led to the war between Tsarist Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Republic in Ukraine, interspersed with various struggles between the Cossacks.
Finally, in 1667, Russia signed the Treaty of Andrewsovo with Poland, dividing Ukraine into left and right banks. The left bank belongs to the emirate (equivalent to a princely state) and the right bank belongs to Poland.
In 1700 AD, Russia and Sweden broke out the "Northern War", Ukraine first supported Tsarist Russia in the war, suffered serious losses, and later turned to cooperation with Sweden in exchange for support for independence, but the war ended in the victory of Tsarist Russia. To this end, Tsarist Russia tightened controls on Ukraine and wantonly deprived Ukraine of its resources.
In 1762, Tsarist Russia directly abolished the autonomy of Ukraine and implemented a policy of centralization.
In 1795, under the partition of Tsarist Russia, Prussia, and Austro-Hungarian Empire, Poland collapsed, the right bank of Ukraine was incorporated into Russia, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire annexed the remaining areas. At this point, Ukraine was separately controlled by Russia and Austria-Hungary.
In order to systematically merge the western regions and comprehensively promote the Policy of Russification, Russia established Russian universities. However, in the face of the Russification policy, there are still a few Ukrainians who continue to preserve Ukrainian culture, and Kiev, as a concentration of cultural trends, has given birth to many Ukrainian elites. In order to prevent the rise of Ukrainian nationalism, Russia banned all publications in the Ukrainian language.
In Western Ukraine, the Austro-Hungarian Empire did not ban Ukrainian-language publications. Local Ukrainians have their own schools, schools, media, and even political parties and parliamentary representatives, enjoying greater political freedom. So the Eastern Ukrainians got in touch with the Western Ukrainians. With the rise of Ukrainian nationalism, the power of Ukrainian political parties has also begun to form.
In 1914, World War I broke out. The Allies, led by Britain, France, and Russia, went to war with the Allies led by Germany and Austria. Not only did Ukraine become the main battlefield on the Eastern Front, but the Ukrainians also killed each other in the two camps.
A corner of the battlefield in Mariupol
In 1917, the "February Revolution" broke out in Russia, the tsarist Russia collapsed, replaced by a provisional government, and a central parliament was established in Ukraine, with nearly 300,000 Ukrainian soldiers swearing allegiance. Because of the war situation, Russia was forced to recognize the Central Parliament. In October of the same year, the Russian Bolsheviks launched a revolution to establish Soviet power.
In 1918, the Central Assembly of Ukraine proclaimed the establishment of the Republic of Ukraine. In the same year, Germany announced its unconditional surrender, and World War I officially ended. At the same time, Ukrainians in the Austro-Hungarian Empire proclaimed the establishment of the "People's Republic of Western Ukraine" and subsequently merged with the "Ukrainian People's Republic".
In 1919, the Red Army entered Ukraine and established the Ukrainian Soviet Government. Soon, with the support of the Allies, the Russian White Army launched an offensive against the Red Army, capturing all of Ukraine, forcing the Soviets to dissolve the local government. On the other hand, the Poles who successfully restored their country pointed out that there were a large number of Poles living in Western Ukraine, claiming sovereignty over Western Ukraine, and that Ukraine had a new war with Poland, known in history as the "Polish-Ukrainian War".
In 1920, as the Red Army advanced steadily, the Polish army withdrew from Ukraine. After the occupation of Ukraine, soviet and Russian control methods were heavily Ukrainian, allowing ukrainian governments and institutions to continue to use the Ukrainian language and allowing Ukrainians to develop cultural undertakings. Under various measures, Ukraine was fully integrated into the Soviet Union and became one of the republics.
From the origin of the Ukrainian nation to the history of the First World War, we can see that Ukraine has been controlled by great powers in history, and has been in a state of non-existence for a long time in history.
Traditional Games of the Cossacks
The eastern region has long been under Russian rule and has a high degree of internal Russification, while the western region, which has long been under Polish rule, has a higher degree of westernization. At the same time, with the continuous migration to Ukraine during the period of Tsarist Rule, there were a large number of Russians living in the east.
This has also caused that in today's Ukrainian country, most of the people in the eastern part of Ukraine speak Russian, while most of the people in the wuxi region speak Ukrainian, and there are already big differences in culture and living habits.
How the situation in Ukraine will develop in the future is not clear, but the reality is that The east of Ukraine to Russia, the west of Ukraine to Europe, no matter how to choose is wrong, I hope that Ukrainian politicians will be more mature, so that the Ukrainian people can stay away from the flames of war.