|
Ukrainian military cadets march during the parade at the main street in Kiev, Oct. 28, 2004, commemorating the anniversary of the liberation of Ukraine from Nazi Germany 60 years ago. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)
|
INDEPTH: UKRAINE
Ukraine: A Profile
CBC News Online | November 22, 2004
Ukraine is not only a new player in the game of democracy, it's also light on experience with independence.
The country has tasted independence twice in the past 100 years. Both times came as a result of the collapse of its giant neighbour, Russia. On Aug. 24, 1991, Ukraine decided to go it on its own when the old Soviet Union could no longer contain it within Soviet borders.
Ukrainians had established their own state when the Russian Revolution overthrew the Czar in 1917, freeing them from the Russian Empire, but there was no unity in the new state. None of a long list of factions could win decisive support among the general population.
Civil war broke out and the country quickly descended into anarchy. Six armies battled for power and the capital, Kiev, changed hands five times in one year. After prolonged fighting involving Russia, Poland and various Ukrainian political and ethnic factions, Poland took parts of western Ukraine and the Soviets got the rest.
Ukraine officially became part of the U.S.S.R. in 1922. When Stalin assumed power in Moscow in 1927, he decided to make an example of Ukraine's "harmful nationalism." Stalin engineered a famine in 1932-33 that killed an estimated seven million people. Executions and the deportation of intellectuals further depopulated the country. Stalin also went after Ukraine's churches and cathedrals.
Fighting between German and Soviet troops in the Second World War is estimated to have killed another six million Ukrainians.
By the end of the first half of the 20th century, famines, war and purges killed half the country's men and about a quarter of its women.
There are reasons Ukraine's neighbours have prized its soil for centuries. The southern part of the country borders on the Black Sea, offering warm-weather ports that are available for year-round shipping.
Ukraine has some of the most fertile farmland in Eastern Europe. The country's fields produced more than a quarter of Soviet agricultural output. Its farms provided substantial quantities of meat, milk, grain and vegetables to other republics. Ukraine was second to Russia in terms of economic importance to the U.S.S.R.
It was also the centre of the first Slavic state, Kievan Rus, which was the largest and most powerful state in Europe during the 10th and 11th centuries. It didn't last. Infighting and Mongol invasions weakened Kievan Rus and it was eventually incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Later, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth absorbed it.
But the cultural and religious legacy of Kievan Rus laid the foundation for Ukrainian nationalism over the next several centuries. A new Ukrainian state, the Cossack Hetmanate, emerged during the mid-17th century after an uprising against the Poles.
Despite continuous pressure from Moscow, the Hetmanate managed to remain autonomous for well over 100 years. However, the last decades of the 18th century saw most Ukrainian territory taken over by the Russian Empire.
By the late-19th century, a movement for Ukrainian national and cultural revival blossomed despite Russia's ban on the use of the Ukrainian language in schools and in publications. There was also renewed agitation for Ukrainian independence and for the union of all Ukrainian lands under a single state.
Ukrainian flag
|
Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukrainian nationalism was re-emerging. Ukrainians had held senior posts in the Soviet leadership – especially in the 1960s. Leonid Brezhnev was born in Ukraine and held important party posts there before being called to Moscow.
Former Soviet ruler Nikita Khrushchev – a Russian by birth – served as first secretary of the Ukrainian Communist party during the 1930s and carried out the Stalinist purges in Ukraine.
In 1986, the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl exploded, contaminating a large part of the Ukrainian countryside. Moscow's slow official response and lack of support for victims of the world's worst nuclear accident spawned widespread discontent.
By 1990, the Ukrainian People's Movement for Restructuring, an umbrella nationalist movement founded by prominent intellectuals and writers, won local seats in elections across the country.
In July 1990, Ukraine's parliament issued a declaration of sovereignty. It was not a declaration of independence – that would come just over a year later, after a military coup failed in Moscow, leading to the unravelling of the Soviet Union.
But in a country where state control had been firmly established, moving to a market economy has been difficult. Widespread corruption has stalled efforts at economic reforms, privatization and civil liberties.
In the early years of the 21st century, Ukraine is showing signs of emerging as a modern European country. Chernobyl was closed for good in 2000. The last Soviet nuclear missile silo was destroyed in 2001. And economic growth has been solid since 2002.
^TOP
|
|
 |
 MENU |
|
|
| QUICK FACTS: |
Population: 47,732,079
Government type: Republic
Capital: Kiev
Independence: Aug. 24, 1991
Industries: coal, electric power, ferrous and nonferrous metals, machinery and transport equipment, chemicals, food processing (especially sugar)
GDP: $260.4 billion
Unemployment: 3.7% officially registered; large number of unregistered or underemployed workers
Population below poverty line: 29%
Life expectancy: men 61.35 years, women 72.27 years
Languages: Ukrainian, Russian, Romanian, Polish, Hungarian
Ethnic groups: Ukrainian 77.8%, Russian 17.3%, Belarusian 0.6%, Moldovan 0.5%, Crimean Tatar 0.5%, Bulgarian 0.4%, Hungarian 0.3%, Romanian 0.3%, Polish 0.3%, Jewish 0.2%, other 1.8%
Religions: Ukrainian Orthodox – Moscow Patriarchate 26.5%, Ukrainian Orthodox – Kyiv Patriarchate 20%, Ukrainian Catholic (Uniate) 13%, Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox, Protestant, Jewish
Source: CIA World Factbook
|
|
| MORE: |
|
|
|
