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Ukrainians (, ) are an East Slavs ethnic group native to Ukraine. Their native tongue is Ukrainian, and the majority adhere to Eastern Orthodoxy, forming the second largest ethno-linguistic community. At around 46 million worldwide, Ukrainians are the second largest Slavs ethnic group after Russians.
Ukrainians have been given various names by foreign rulers, which have included Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Habsburg monarchy, the Austrian Empire, and then Austria-Hungary. The East Slavic population inhabiting the territories of modern-day Ukraine were known as Ruthenians, referring to the territory of Ruthenia; the Ukrainians living under the Russian Empire were known as Little Russians, named after the territory of Little Russia.
The ethnonym Ukrainian, which was associated with the Cossack Hetmanate, was adopted following the Ukrainian national revival of the late 18th century. The Cossacks are frequently emphasized in modern Ukrainian identity and symbolism, such as in the Ukrainian national anthem. Citizens of Ukraine are also called Ukrainians regardless of ethnicity, and many identify themselves as a civic nation.
The Ukrainian language is, like modern Russian and Belarusian, a descendent of Old East Slavic.Yermolenko S. Y. (2000). History of the Ukrainian literary language // Potebnia Institute of Linguistics (NASU). In UkrainianRusanivsky V. M. (2000). History of the Ukrainian language // Potebnia Institute of Linguistics (NASU). In Ukrainian In Western and Central Europe it was known by the exonym "Ruthenian". In the 16th and 17th centuries, with the establishment of the Zaporozhian Sich, names of Ukraine and Ukrainian began to be used in Sloboda Ukraine.Wilson, Andrew. Ukrainian nationalism in the 1990s: a minority faith. Cambridge University Press, 1997. After the decline of the Zaporozhian Sich and the establishment of Russian Empire hegemony in Left Bank Ukraine, Ukrainians became more widely known by Russians as " Little Russians", with the majority of Ukrainian élites espousing Little Russian identity and adopting the Russian language (as Ukrainian was outlawed in almost all contexts). This exonym (regarded now as a humiliating imperialist imposition) did not spread widely among the peasantry which constituted the majority of the population. Ukrainian peasants still referred to their country as "Ukraine" (a name associated with the Zaporozhian Sich, with the Hetmanate and with their struggle against Poles, Russians, Turks and Crimean Tatars) and to themselves and their language as Rusyns/Ruthenian.
With the publication of Ivan Kotliarevsky's Eneyida (Aeneid) in 1798, which established the modern Ukrainian language, and with the subsequent Romantic revival of national traditions and culture, the ethnonym Ukrainians and the notion of a Ukrainian language came into more prominence at the beginning of the 19th century and gradually replaced the words "Rusyns" and "Ruthenian(s)". In areas outside the control of the Russian/Soviet state until the mid-20th century (Western Ukraine), Ukrainians were known by their pre-existing names for much longer. The appellation Ukrainians initially came into common usage in Central Ukraine and did not take hold in Galicia and Bukovina until the latter part of the 19th century, in Transcarpathia until the 1930s, and in the Prešov Region until the late 1940s. "A historic name for Ukrainians corresponding to the Ukrainian rusyny"
The modern name Ukraintsi (Ukrainians) derives from Ukraina (Ukraine), a name first documented in 1187. Several scientific theories attempt to explain the etymology of the term. According to the traditional theory, it derives from the Proto-Slavic root *kraj-, which has two meanings, one meaning the homeland as in " nash rodnoi kraj" (our homeland), and the other "edge, border", and originally had the sense of "periphery", "borderland" or "frontier region".; Russian translation: According to another theory, the term ukraina should be distinguished from the term okraina: whereas the latter term means "borderland", the former one has the meaning of "cut-off piece of land", thus acquiring the connotation of "our land", "land allotted to us".
In the last three centuries the population of Ukraine experienced periods of Polonization and Russification, but preserved a common culture and a sense of common identity.
In a 2011 national poll of Ukraine, 49% of Ukrainians said they had relatives living in Russia.
According to some previous assumptions, an estimated number of almost 2.4 million people of Ukrainian origin live in North America (1,359,655 in Canada and 1,028,492 in the United States). Large numbers of Ukrainians live in Brazil (600,000), Kazakhstan (338,022), Moldova (325,235), Argentina (305,000), (Germany) (272,000), Italy (234,354), Belarus (225,734), Uzbekistan (124,602), the Czech Republic (110,245), Spain (90,530–100,000) and Romania (51,703–200,000). There are also large Ukrainian communities in such countries as Latvia, Portugal, France, Australia, Paraguay, the UK, Israel, Slovakia, Kyrgyzstan, Austria, Uruguay and the former Yugoslavia. Generally, the Ukrainian diaspora is present in more than one hundred and twenty countries of the world.
The number of Ukrainians in Poland amounted to some 51,000 people in 2011 (according to the Polish Census). Since 2014, the country has experienced a large increase in immigration from Ukraine. More recent data put the number of Ukrainian migrant workers at 1.2 – 1.3 million in 2016.
In the last decades of the 19th century, many Ukrainians were forced by the Tsarist autocracy to move to the Asian regions of Russia, while many of their counterpart Slavs under Austria-Hungary rule emigrated to the New World seeking work and better economic opportunities. Today, large ethnic Ukrainian minorities reside in Russia, Canada, the United States, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Italy and Argentina. According to some sources, around 20 million people outside Ukraine identify as having Ukrainian ethnicity, however the official data of the respective countries calculated together does not show more than 10 million. Ukrainians have one of the largest in the world.
Differentiation between separate East Slavic groups began to emerge in the later medieval period, and an East Slavic dialect continuum developed within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, with the Ruthenian language emerging as a written standard. The active development of a concept of a Ukrainian nation and the Ukrainian language began with the Ukrainian National Revival in the early 19th century in times when Ruthenians (Русини) changed their name due to the region name. In the Soviet Union (1917–1991), official historiography emphasized "the cultural unity of 'proto-Ukrainians' and 'proto-Russians' in the fifth and sixth centuries".
A poll conducted in April 2022 by "Rating" found that the vast majority (91%) of Ukrainians (excluding the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine) do not support the thesis that "Russians and Ukrainians are one people".
In a survey of 97 genomes for diversity in full genome sequences among self-identified Ukrainians from Ukraine, a study identified more than 13 million genetic variants, representing about a quarter of the total genetic diversity discovered in Europe. Among these nearly 500,000 are previously undocumented and likely to be unique for this population. Medically relevant mutations whose prevalence in the Ukrainian genomes differed significantly compared to other European genome sequences, particularly from Western Europe and Russia. Ukrainian genomes form a single cluster positioned between the Northern on one side, and Western European populations on the other.[6] There was a significant overlap with Central European populations as well as with people from the Balkans. In addition to the close geographic distance between these populations, this may also reflect the insufficient representation of samples from the surrounding populations.
The Ukrainian gene-pool includes the following Y-, in order from the most prevalent:Kushniarevich A, Utevska O (2015) "Genetic Heritage of the Balto-Slavic Speaking Populations: A Synthesis of Autosomal, Mitochondrial and Y-Chromosomal Data"
Roughly all R1a Ukrainians carry R1a-Z282; R1a-Z282 has been found significantly only in Eastern Europe. Chernivtsi Oblast is the only region in Ukraine where Haplogroup I2a occurs more frequently than R1a, much less frequent even in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast. In comparison to their northern and eastern neighbors, Ukrainians have a similar percentage of Haplogroup R1a-Z280 (43%) in their population—compare Belarusians, Russians, and Lithuanians and (55%, 46%, and 42% respectively). Populations in Eastern Europe which have never been Slavic do as well. Ukrainians in Chernivtsi Oblast (near the Romanian border) have a higher percentage of I2a as opposed to R1a, which is typical of the Balkan region, but a smaller percentage than Russians of the N1c1 lineage found among Finno-Ugric, Baltic, and Siberian populations, and also less R1b than West Slavs.Alexander Varzari, "Population History of the Dniester-Carpathians: Evidence from Alu Insertion and Y-Chromosome Polymorphisms" (2006)
Marijana Peričić et al. 2005, High-Resolution Phylogenetic Analysis of Southeastern Europe Traces Major Episodes of Paternal Gene Flow Among Slavic Populations.
In terms of haplogroup distribution, the genetic pattern of Ukrainians most closely resembles that of Belarusians. The presence of the N1c lineage is explained by a contribution of the assimilated Finno-Ugric tribes.
The third important state for Ukrainians is the Cossack Hetmanate. The Cossacks of Zaporizhzhia since the late 15th century controlled the lower bends of the river Dnieper, between Russia, Poland and the Crimean Khanate, with the fortified capital, Zaporozhian Sich. Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky is one of the most celebrated and at the same time most controversial political figures in Ukraine's early-modern history. A brilliant military leader, his greatest achievement in the process of national revolution was the formation of the Cossack Hetmanate state of the Zaporozhian Host (1648–1782). The period of the Ruin in the late 17th century in the history of Ukraine is characterized by the disintegration of Ukrainian statehood and general decline. During the Ruin Ukraine became divided along the Dnieper River into Left-Bank Ukraine and Right-Bank Ukraine, and the two-halves became hostile to each other. Ukrainian leaders during the period are considered to have been largely opportunists and men of little vision who could not muster broad popular support for their policies. There were roughly 4 million Ukrainians at the end of the 17th century.Ukraine, Orest Subtelny, page 152, 2000
At the final stages of the First World War, a powerful struggle for an independent Ukrainian state developed in the central Ukrainian territories, which, until 1917, were part of the Russian Empire. The newly established Ukrainian government, the Central Rada, headed by Mykhailo Hrushevsky, issued four universals, the Fourth of which, dated 22 January 1918, declared the independence and sovereignty of the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR) on 25 January 1918. The session of the Central Rada on 29 April 1918 ratified the Constitution of the UNR and elected Hrushevsky president.
During 1932–1933, millions of Ukrainians were starved to death by the Soviet regime which led to a famine, known as the Holodomor." Ukraine remembers famine horror ". BBC News. 24 November 2007. The Soviet regime remained silent about the Holodomor and provided no aid to the victims or the survivors. But news and information about what was going on reached the West and evoked public responses in Polish-ruled Western Ukraine and in the Ukrainian diaspora. Since the 1990s the independent Ukrainian state, particularly under President Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian mass media and academic institutions, many foreign governments, most Ukrainian scholars, and many foreign scholars have viewed and written about the Holodomor as genocide and issued official declarations and publications to that effect. Modern scholarly estimates of the direct loss of human life due to the famine range between 2.6 millionFrance Meslè et Jacques Vallin avec des contributions de Vladimir Shkolnikov, Serhii Pyrozhkov et Serguei Adamets, Mortalite et cause de dècès en Ukraine au XX siècle p.28, see also France Meslé, Gilles Pison, Jacques Vallin France-Ukraine: Demographic Twins Separated by History , Population and societies, N°413, juin 2005Jacques Vallin, France Mesle, Serguei Adamets, Serhii Pyrozhkov, A New Estimate of Ukrainian Population Losses during the Crises of the 1930s and 1940s , Population Studies, Vol. 56, No. 3. (November 2002), pp. 249–264 (3–3.5 million)
and 12 millionRosefielde, Steven. "Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union: A Reconsideration of the Demographic Consequences of Forced Industrialization, 1929–1949." Soviet Studies 35 (July 1983): 385–409 although much higher numbers are usually published in the media and cited in political debates.Peter Finn, Aftermath of a Soviet Famine , The Washington Post, 27 April 2008, "There are no exact figures on how many died. Modern historians place the number between 2.5 million and 3.5 million. Yushchenko and others have said at least 10 million were killed." As of March 2008, the Verkhovna Rada and the governments of several countries, including the United States have recognized the Holodomor as an act of genocide.
Following the Invasion of Poland in September 1939, German and Soviet troops divided the territory of Poland. Thus, Eastern Galicia and Volhynia with their Ukrainian population became part of Soviet Ukraine. When the German armies invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, those regions temporarily became part of the Nazi-controlled Reichskommissariat Ukraine. In total, the number of ethnic Ukrainians who fought in the ranks of the Soviet Army is estimated from 4.5 million to 7 million. The pro-Soviet partisan guerrilla resistance in Ukraine is estimated to number at 47,800 from the start of occupation to 500,000 at its peak in 1944, with about 50% being ethnic Ukrainians. Of the estimated 8.6 million Soviet troop losses, 1.4 million were ethnic Ukrainians.
In 1943, under the command of Roman Shukhevych, UPA began the ethnic cleansing. Shukhevych was one of the perpetrators of the Galicia-Volhynia massacres of tens of thousands of Polish civilians. It is unclear to what extent Shuchevych was responsible for the massacres of Poles in Volhynia, but he certainly condoned them after some time, and also directed the massacres of Poles in Eastern Galicia. Historian Per Anders Rudling has accused the Ukrainian diaspora and Ukrainian academics of "ignoring, glossing over, or outright denying" his role in this and other war crimes.
The creation of a sovereign and independent Ukraine in 1991, however, pointed to the failure of the policy of the "merging of nations" and to the enduring strength of the Ukrainian national consciousness. Today, one of the consequences of these acts is Ukrainophobia.
Biculturalism is especially present in southeastern Ukraine where there is a significant Russian minority. Historical colonization of Ukraine is one reason that creates confusion about national identity to this day. Many citizens of Ukraine have adopted the Ukrainian national identity in the past 20 years. According to the concept of nationality dominant in Eastern Europe the Ukrainians are people whose native language is Ukrainian (an objective criterion) whether or not they are nationally conscious, and all those who identify themselves as Ukrainian (a subjective criterion) whether or not they speak Ukrainian.
Attempts to introduce a territorial-political concept of Ukrainian nationality on the Western European model (presented by political philosopher Vyacheslav Lypynsky) were unsuccessful until the 1990s. Territorial loyalty has also been manifested by the historical national minorities living in Ukraine. The official declaration of Ukrainian sovereignty of 16 July 1990 stated that "citizens of the Republic of all nationalities constitute the people of Ukraine."
Comparisons are often made between Ukrainian and Russian. Yet, there is more mutual intelligibility with Belarusian, and a very close lexical distance between the two. Historically, state-inforced Russification saw the Ukrainian language banned as a subject from schools and as a language of instruction in the Russian Empire. The oppression continued in various ways while Ukraine was a part of the Soviet Union. However, the language continued to be used throughout the country, especially in the Western Ukraine.
However, it was only by the 10th century that the emerging state, the Kievan Rus', became influenced by the Byzantine Empire; the first known conversion was by the Princess Saint Olga who came to Constantinople in 945 or 957. Several years later, her grandson, Prince Vladimir baptised his people in the Dnieper. This began a long history of the dominance of the Eastern Orthodoxy in Ruthenia (Ukraine).
Ukrainians are majority Eastern Orthodox Christians, and they form the second largest ethno-linguistic group among Eastern Orthodox in the world. Ukrainians have their own autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine headed by Metropolitan Epiphanius, where it is the most common church and in the small areas of Ukraine the Ukrainian Orthodox Church who were under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate is the smaller common. The Russian invasion of Ukraine impacted the religious identity of some Ukrainians. In the Western region known as Halychyna, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, one of the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches has a strong membership. Since the fall of the Soviet Union there has been a growth of Protestantism churches (Baptists, Evangelism, Pentecostalism)Adrian Ivakhiv. In Search of Deeper Identities: Neopaganism and Native Faith in Contemporary Ukraine. Nova Religio, 2005. There are also ethnic minorities that practice other religions, i.e. Crimean Tatars (Islam), and Jews and Karaite Judaism (Judaism).
Also, some Ukrainians are members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Jehovah's Witnesses.
A 2020 survey conducted by the Razumkov Centre found that majority of Ukrainian populations was adhering to Christianity (81.9%). Of these Christians, 75.4% are Eastern Orthodox (34% of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and 13.8% of the Moscow Patriarchate, and 27.6% are simply Orthodox), 8.2% are Greek Catholics, 7.1% are simply Christians, a further 1.9% are Protestants and 0.4% are Latin Catholics. As of 2016, 16.3% of the population does not claim a religious affiliation, and 1.7% adheres to other religions. According to the same survey, 70% of the population of Ukraine declared to be believers, but do not belong to any church. 8.8% do not identify themselves with any of the denominations, and another 5.6% identified themselves as non-believers.
Ukraine is often called the "Breadbasket of Europe", and its plentiful grain and cereal resources such as rye and wheat play an important part in its cuisine; essential in making various kinds of bread. Chernozem, the country's black-colored highly fertile soil, produces some of the world's most flavorful crops.
Popular traditional dishes varenyky (dumpling), nalysnyky (crêpe), Cabbage soup (cabbage soup), nudli (dumpling stew), borscht (sour soup) and holubtsi (cabbage roll). Among traditional baked goods are decorated korovai and paska (easter bread). Ukrainian specialties also include Chicken Kiev and Kyiv cake. Popular drinks include uzvar (kompot), Ryazhenka, and horilka. Liquor (spirits) are the most consumed type of alcoholic beverage. Alcohol consumption has seen a stark decrease, though by per capita, it remains among the highest the world.
Ukrainian folk oral literature, poetry, and songs (such as the dumas) are among the most distinctive ethnocultural features of Ukrainians as a people. Religious music existed in Ukraine before the official adoption of Christianity, in the form of plainsong "obychnyi spiv" or "musica practica". Traditional Ukrainian music is easily recognized by its somewhat melancholy tone. It first became known outside of Ukraine during the 15th century as musicians from Ukraine would perform before the royal courts in Poland (latter in Russia).
A large number of famous musicians around the world was educated or born in Ukraine, among them are famous names like Dmitry Bortniansky, Sergei Prokofiev, Myroslav Skoryk, etc. Ukraine is also the rarely acknowledged musical heartland of the former Russian Empire, home to its first professional music academy, which opened in the mid-18th century and produced numerous early musicians and composers.
Ukrainian dance is often described as energetic, fast-paced, and entertaining, and along with traditional Easter eggs ( pysanky), it is a characteristic example of Ukrainian culture recognized and appreciated throughout the world.
Ukraine's national symbols include its flag and its coat of arms.
The national flag of Ukraine is a blue and yellow bicolour rectangle. The colour fields are of same form and equal size. The colours of the flag represent a blue sky above yellow fields of wheat. The flag was designed for the convention of the Supreme Ruthenian Council, meeting in Lviv in October 1848. Its colours were based on the coat-of-arms of the Kingdom of Ruthenia.
The Coat of arms of Ukraine features the same colours found on the Ukrainian flag: a blue shield with yellow trident—the symbol of ancient East Slavic tribes that once lived in Ukraine, later adopted by Ruthenians and Kievan Rus rulers.
Cuisine
Ukrainian cuisine has been formed by the nation's tumultuous history, geography, culture and social customs. Chicken is the most consumed type of protein, accounting for about half of the meat intake. It is followed by pork and beef. Vegetables such as , , and are widely consumed. Pickling are considered a delicacy. Salo, which is cured pork fat, is considered the national delicacy. Widely used include dill, parsley, basil, coriander and chives.
Music
Ukrainian music incorporates a diversity of external cultural influences. It also has a very strong indigenous Slavic peoples and Christian uniqueness whose elements were used among many neighboring nations.
Dance
Ukrainian dance refers to the traditional of the peoples of Ukraine. Today, Ukrainian dance is primarily represented by what Ethnography, Folklore and dance historians refer to as "Ukrainian Folk-Stage Dances", which are stylized representations of traditional dances and their characteristic movements that have been choreographed for concert dance performances. This stylized art form has so permeated the culture of Ukraine, that very few purely traditional forms of Ukrainian dance remain today.
Symbols
Historiography
See also
Notes
Bibliography
Primary sources
Literature
Further reading
External links
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Linguistic Divisions of Europe in 1914
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