Myths of new Ukrainian history. Brief history of Ukraine
Over 1000 years ago. Ancient Russia.
The first clearly fixed East Slavic state formation. Leading centers: Novgorod, Kyiv, Polotsk, Smolensk, Rostov, Chernigov, Ryazan, etc. Colonization in several directions. Active migration to the northern regions, away from the dangerous Steppe. Gradual division into principalities, the borders of which are in no way connected with modern borders. For example, Chernigovskoye was so elongated that it was simultaneously located both on the territory of the present Kiev region and on the territory of the present Moscow region. A simple and understandable hint of how to live and where whose historical roots are...
In cultural terms, individual regions differ very little. Naturally, in Novgorod there are separate traditions and dialects that are not close to Ryazan people, and in Rostov you can see something that is not very typical for Chernigov. But these are trifles, and it is simply impossible to talk about the division into some kind of "separate peoples". It is all one and the same large and diverse Russian Land. All its inhabitants consider themselves equally Russian.
The most important moment: the adoption of Christianity in the late 900s. The fact that Christianity came to Russia in the form of the Eastern tradition predetermined the development of a common national culture. If in the West, with the adoption of Christianity, the Latin unification of religion, culture and thought reigned for hundreds of years, then Orthodox Christianity fully allowed services and books in national languages. Consequently, all cultural development followed original paths, due to the synthesis of the uniquely Russian and the common Christian.
800-600 years ago. First break.
The Mongol invasion in the 13th century not only caused great damage to most of the Russian lands. It also marked the beginning of the separation of North and South. Defeated and scattered principalities tried to rise one by one, each in its own way. In the north, Moscow and Tver are gradually gaining strength, in the South-West, the Galicia-Volyn lands act as "gatherers" for some time. It is not known how the matter would have ended, but here a third player appears - the Lithuanian state.
Lithuania is rapidly rising and crushing many Russian principalities. In the 1320s, Gediminas captured Kyiv. The next century of the South Russian lands will pass under the sign honorary secondary all Russian. It's "honorable". In any case, at first. Orthodoxy will be the most widespread religion for a long time to come, and the Russian elite will continue to occupy a prominent place in this largest Eastern European state for a long time to come. But then things get worse...
By the way, today's nationalist publicists are very fond of inventing strange stories about the fact that "only Ukraine has preserved the Slavs, and only the descendants of the Asian conquerors remained in Russia." It is strange to listen to such stories just because the consequences of the Tatar invasions were approximately the same for everyone. Moreover, the Horde did not reach many northern Russian regions at all, not to mention any "mixing" with the indigenous population. Well, modern genetic research does not leave a stone unturned from stupid ideological fantasies.
500-300 years ago. Genocide and awakening.
In 1380, the strengthened Northern Russia gathered strength and independently clashed with the Tatar horde, taking the first serious step towards complete independence. Five years later, the Lithuanian state signed the so-called "Union of Krewo" with Poland, taking the first step towards losing its unique cultural identity. The provisions of the Kreva agreement required the imposition of Catholicism and the introduction of the Latin alphabet. Of course, the Russian elite was not happy. But she couldn't do anything.
Further rapprochement between Poland and Lithuania led in 1569 to the complete unification of these countries into the Commonwealth. By that time, the position of the Russian inhabitants was already extremely unenviable. And every year it got worse and worse. The scale of social and cultural-religious persecution that the Russian-speaking inhabitants of the Commonwealth were subjected to is hard to imagine today. Most of those who were eminent and rich, tried to quickly "polish" so as not to be an object of humiliation and a target for dashing fellow citizens. And the fate of the lower classes was completely unenviable. Killing a couple of peasants of an unloved neighbor along the way, if you return home in a bad mood, is practically the norm for a Polish pan of the 17th century.
There is nothing to go far - remember how the rebellious Bogdan Khmelnitsky appeared. A Polish nobleman attacked his farm, plundered everything, killed his son and took his wife away. Bogdan went to the king to complain, but in response he received only surprise, “why didn’t he figure out the problems himself, since the saber hangs on his side?”, and even was thrown into jail. Obviously, the personal stories of ordinary participants in the Uprising were not much more pleasant than this one ... In general, in 1648 it exploded again, and in full. The people have really been driven to the edge - where are the modern "revolutionaries" with their naive discontents already there ...
Khmelnytsky's uprising was crowned with success. De facto, as of the middle of the 17th century, we see for the first time how the territories of several former southern Russian principalities became independent from the rule of foreign peoples, for the first time in recent centuries. De jure, Khmelnitsky immediately asked for citizenship of the Moscow Tsar - under the wing of the only Russian power that existed at that time. And he successfully received this citizenship in 1654. If it hadn't been received, Poland would have suppressed the most successful of the Cossack uprisings, and finally would have exhausted the remnants of the Russian population. For the successes of the rebels lasted only the first time, and the fury of the Poles grew every year ...
What is especially important here?
1. The former Russian principalities united with the former Russian principalities. However, cultural differences have already accumulated over several centuries of disengagement. By the way, this was one of the reasons for Nikon's religious reform, which led to a split. Moscow wanted to reduce the misunderstanding between the two branches of the Russian people, and went to great pains and sacrifices for this.
2. The inhabitants of these territories could speak with Muscovites without interpreters, and in the same way considered themselves Russians (Rusyns). The Polish-Lithuanian concept "outskirts" was used along with the bookish "Little Russia" to designate the territory, but people did not call themselves "Ukrainians". This word was put into circulation by the ideologists of the Polonized elite already after the Khmelnytsky Uprising, and for a long time did not find a response from ordinary people.
3. The composition of the new South Russian elite was very diverse. Here are the old Polonized Russian nobles, here are the Cossacks, who were a complex mixture in which Russian, Tatar-Turkish, and other roots were intertwined. In the Zaporizhzhya Sich one could meet even a Scot, even a Caucasian. Accordingly, everyone looked in his own direction, and nothing good could expect the land that was under the rule of such a motley company.
4. The ordinary population of the Kiev and Chernihiv regions met the news of reunification with the Russian Tsardom with absolute delight. This is recognized by almost all contemporaries, regardless of nationalities and beliefs.
the last three hundred years. The emergence of "Ukraine".
Moscow granted the Little Russian lands broad autonomy. And in the end, the second half of the XVII century was marked by an endless fratricidal war between the Cossack leaders. The hetmans fought one against the other, betrayed their oath, marched first to Moscow, then to Warsaw, then to Istanbul. The wrath of the monarchs was directed at each other, the Tatar and Turkish armies were directed at their own people. It was a fun time. Real freedom, which almost no one interfered with. Of course, for ordinary people dying under Tatar and Turkish sabers, such freedom of leaders didn't like it. But which of the Ukrainian leaders is interested in the opinion of ordinary people, even now?
Of course, sometimes it was possible to run into. For example, the well-known hetman Doroshenko cheated so many times and became the culprit in the death of so many people that almost all the nearest capitals were ready to kill him. And he rushed to Moscow, for the Russian Tsar was the most humane of the neighboring monarchs. Here he was exiled ... as governor to Vyatka. And they were punished ... with a rich estate near Moscow. By the way, the year before last I drove past this estate and the mausoleum of the glorious hetman, decorated with wreaths and yellow-black ribbons.
As a result, the Russian monarchs got tired of all this. In the 18th century, autonomy was abolished, and Ukraine became a full-fledged part of the country, without any middlemen-robbers. Following this, the constant Crimean Tatar threat was eliminated. In place of the wild steppes starting south of the Ukraine, new areas inhabited by the Russian people were created.
On the map of the imperial provinces it is very clearly visible where the conditional Little Russian region- this is Volyn, Podolsk, Kyiv and Poltava provinces. And also, a significant part of Chernihiv. And no more. Kharkov province is already Slobozhanshchina, an intermediate region with a mixed population, which turned out to be part of the Muscovite state much earlier. The more southern provinces are Novorossia, settled after the victories over the Crimea, and have nothing to do with the former Hetmanate:
But no one could even imagine that some kind of "independent country of Ukraine" would be carved along the borders of these provinces in the future. That the old Russian territories that have been under the rule of Poland will be thrust into one zone with the Novorossiysk steppe regions and separated from the rest of Russia. That innocent-playful "cultural Ukrainianism", which was popular in Russia and Austria-Hungary of the nineteenth century, and most often went in a single pan-Slavic channel, will soon fall on the fertile ground of the First World War and the Civil War, and turn into radical Ukrainian nationalism.
Already by the beginning of the Second World War, one could safely say that "Ukraine" had finally taken place.
But how? Whereby?
In fact, there were a whole range of factors:
1. For many centuries in a row, Southern Russia was part of various states. In the process of the influence of foreign cultures and the reaction of national resistance, new features arose that were not in the more independent Northern Russia. The return of the southern regions to the united Russian state took place gradually. Someone was already part of the united Russian people, someone was just getting used to the new neighbors, and someone else was a "foreigner". Thanks to all this, it turned out to be the most complicated layer cake, in which people of noticeably different cultures and beliefs mixed up.
2. At the time of the entry of the Left-bank Ukraine into the Muscovite kingdom, linguistic differences did not hamper contemporaries. But the territories that later became part of Russia already experienced more significant foreign pressure (in the Commonwealth, after the loss of the Left Bank, a tough campaign was launched against the remnants of Russian culture).
As a result, the conventionally averaged "Little Russian dialect" by the beginning of the twentieth century became even more different from Russian than two hundred years before. If in 1654 the southern Russian lands had become part of the Muscovite kingdom as a whole, then three hundred years later, our differences would have been no higher than the differences between Burgundy and Provence. The "gradual reunification" and the growing alien pressure on the "stragglers" also played a certain role.
3. In the intellectual circles of the 19th century, for the first time, the idea was seriously raised that the "Little Russian branch" of a single Russian people could be considered practically a separate Slavic people. This idea was of little interest to ordinary residents of the Kiev region. But the tsarist government did not like it at all with a clear hint of possible separatism - and the Ukrainian language was limited in rights. At the same time, in Austria-Hungary (which included Galicia), in the period of preparation for the First World War, and during the war itself, this idea was adopted as an ideological weapon.
True, such a weapon was a double-edged sword. For the "Austrian Little Russians" showed even greater interest in separatist sentiments, since they were part of a completely alien country. But in any case, Austria-Hungary acted much more competently than Russia, having managed to keep the glory of "an island of cultural Ukrainians" behind its Galicia. And the tsarist government strongly pressed its cultural Ukrainians. And this naturally contributed to the emergence of protest-political Ukrainianism. Which fit well with fashionable socialist-revolutionary sentiments.
4. After the revolutions of 1917, the chaos of the civil war begins in the vastness from the Don to the Dniester. Different forces operate simultaneously, different "governments" function in parallel. Reds, whites, anarchists... In this whirlwind, the Little Russian population tasted for the first time a piece of "national independence", including Galician recipes. This did not last long. But there were those who liked it. Those who yesterday were still small residents of the provincial provinces, and suddenly suddenly became the "elite" of a self-made country.
5. Ukraine is part of the USSR almost in its modern form. With the Donbass and Novorossiya, stuck for some unknown reason. After the establishment of Soviet power, in line with the general policy of "indigenization", the forced Ukrainization of the population began. People who have not passed the exam in the Ukrainian language are not allowed to work in public positions. Publishing and teaching activities in Russian are severely restricted. Even in thoroughly Russian Odessa, children are taught in Ukrainian. For non-compliance with the new requirements, criminal liability has been introduced for negligent leaders.
This bacchanalia stops only in the thirties, and the opposite extreme begins: newly nurtured figures of Ukrainian culture are stigmatized as "bourgeois nationalists" and subjected to repression. And this again leads to the development of underground political Ukrainians... That's it. The events of 1991 are already predetermined. Moreover, the German occupation in the forties adds fuel to the fire. Hitler, knowing full well that the Russians are strong in unity (just like the Germans), tried to convince the people of Ukraine as much as possible of their exceptional features and dissimilarity to Muscovites. And it turned out not bad, since some soil from the representatives of Ukrainian nationalism was already ready.
That's all. It took quite a bit of time to turn the ancient Russian region, in which an anti-Polish rebellion broke out three centuries ago, into a huge state with a heterogeneous population...
What useful conclusions can be drawn from this story?
Firstly. You cannot leave parts of your people in foreign territory. They will experience someone else's influence, and it will be extremely difficult to return them (culturally). Moreover, they may be convinced that they have become a completely separate people, and will begin to assert their young and feeble national feeling at the expense of hatred for their former brothers.
Secondly. It is impossible to crush the national feeling if it has already appeared and captured a tangible part of the population. But it is not necessary to purposefully support it with your brothers, friends and neighbors. Their feelings are their business. And even more so, it is impossible to alternate struggle with support, as was done in the 20-30s of the 20th century. This, I apologize, is some kind of "Yanukovych's tactics" - "attacked-surrendered-attacked-surrendered." Concessions mixed with repression do not lead to good.
Thirdly. We are not guilty of anything, and we owe nothing to anyone. We saved South Russia in the 17th century from final Polonization and destruction, fulfilled its requests to join the united Russian state and granted it broad autonomy. In response, we received betrayal by the hetmans, rivers of blood and a sea of problems. We limited the rights of the Ukrainian language for several decades in the 19th century. However, in the 20th century, they actually "gave" the freshly baked Ukrainian republic huge Russian territories from Odessa to Donbass. Moreover, they carried out a purposeful Ukrainization. Then there were repressions to which people of different nationalities were subjected. It makes no sense to apologize for them either, because everyone took part in their organization - Ukrainians, Russians, Jews, Georgians ... "Holodomor", and other politicized episodes - belong here too.
Fourth. The presence of vast southeastern territories with a Russian-speaking population as part of independent Ukraine is normal from a theoretical point of view. From a historical point of view, it's not entirely fair. And taking into account modern Ukrainian politics, this is already completely unfair. For twenty years in a row, several million Russian people have actually been deprived of their rights. Most of them cannot send their child to a Russian school, they cannot watch a film in Russian at the cinema, and so on. Despite the fact that they are not some kind of migrants in a foreign country. They are on the land that belonged to them even before the appearance of "Ukraine" here. They lived in their native country and spoke their native language, just like their fathers and grandfathers ... And suddenly - here it is! Now they have the full moral right to active resistance, to independence, or at least to full autonomy (just like the Little Russians at the end of the 19th century). And Russia has every moral right to openly support them.
Fifth. Modern Ukrainian nationalism is a completely unhealthy phenomenon. It is based on the fact that some Russians oppose themselves to other Russians. It implies a hostile attitude towards the most culturally closest people, and requires the destruction of all traces of common history, including those (Lenin) that are associated precisely with state support for "Ukrainianism" and its revival. At the same time, nothing of the kind is observed in Russia. Moscow still has Lesya Ukrainka Street and a monument to Taras Shevchenko. And it doesn’t occur to anyone here to break and rename something (I don’t take into account anonymous Internet provocateurs on both sides). We are not enemies. And they never were. Moreover, we have always had common opponents who did not particularly distinguish us. Just strong Eastern Slavs - they were a bone in their throat. And they will.
Many more conclusions can be drawn... But it's up to you.
I sincerely believe in the independence and power of your thinking.))
1 million - 9 thousand years BC. - Paleolithic
8 - 6 thousand years. BC. - Mesolithic
VI - IV millennium BC - Neolithic
V - III millennium BC - Trypillian culture
II - I millennium BC - Bronze Age
9th century BC. - The beginning of the use of iron
7th century BC. - The appearance of the Scythians in the Northern Black Sea region
VIII - V centuries. BC. - Beginning of Greek colonization
Around 500 BC - The war of the Scythians with the Persian king Darius I
5th century BC. - Advance of the Sarmatians to the Dnieper. Foundations of Scythian Naples in the Crimea. The decline of the Scythian state.
4th century AD - Invasion of the Huns in Eastern Europe
Con. IV - VI centuries. - Existence of a union (state) of ants
8th century - Settlement of the Slavs. Formation of tribal unions
VIII - IX centuries. - Formation of Kievan Rus
860 - 867 Askold's campaigns against Byzantium. The beginning of the introduction of Christianity
882 - 912 Interests of the Vikings of Kyiv. Oleg's reigns
912 - 945 Igor's reign
945 - 964 Olga's reign
964 - 972 Reign of Svyatoslav
980 - 1015 Reign of Vladimir
981 - Accession of Chervlensky gardens by Vladimir
988 - Adoption of Christianity in Russia
992 - 996 Construction of the Church of the Tithes in Kyiv
1019 - 1014 - The reign of Yaroslav the Wise
1036 - Unification of Russia under the rule of the Kiev prince. The defeat of the Pechenegs
1051 - Hilarion was elected Metropolitan of Kiev. "Word of Law and Grace"
1056 - 1057 - "Ostromir Gospel"
1068 - The first attack of the Polovtsy on Russia. Uprising in Kyiv
1073 - "Izbornik" Svyatoslav
1097 - The first congress of princes in Lyubech
1113 - Uprising in Kyiv
1113 - 1125 - Reigning in Kyiv of Vladimir Monomakh
1116 - "The Tale of Temporary Litas" as edited by Sylvester
1152 - 1187 The reign of Osmomysl in Galicia
1169 - The destruction of Kyiv by the Suzdal prince Andrei Bogolyubsky
1185 - Igor's campaign against the Polovtsy
1187 - The name "Ukraine" is mentioned for the first time
1187 - Hungarian intervention. Belo III proclaims himself "King of Galicia"
1199 - Creation of the Galicia-Volyn principality
1223 - The defeat of the Russian princes in the battle with the Mongol-Tatars on the river. Kalka
1228 - 1264 - Reign of Daniil Romanovich
1239 - Mongol-Tatar invasion of Pereyaslav and Chernihiv regions
1240 - Destruction of Kyiv by the Mongol-Tatars
1254 - Coronation of Daniil of Galicia as King of Russia in Dorogochin
1254 - Attack of Kuremsa
1259 Burundai attack
1264 - 1301 - Reign of Leo and Danilovich
1280 - Accession to the Galicia-Volyn principality of Transcarpathia and Lublin land
1301 - 1315 Reign of Yuri I Lvovich
1315 - 1323 Reign of Andrew and Leo II
1349 - The conquest of Galicia by the Polish king Casimir
1362 - Victory of Prince Olgerd over the Tatars on the Blue Waters River
1372 - 1378 Board of Vladimir Opolsky
1385 - Union of Kreva
1387 - The final capture of Galicia by Poland
1399 - The defeat of the Lithuanian-Ukrainian troops on the river. Vorskla
1411 - Victory over the Teutonic Order at Grunwald
1413 - Union of Gordeli between Lithuania and Poland
1430 - Accession of Western Podolia to Poland
1431 - 1435 War between Jogail and Svidrigail against Poland
1471 - The final decline of the Kiev principality
1475 - The Crimean Khanate becomes a vassal of the Turkish Sultan
1482 - The first big campaign of the Crimean Tatars in Ukraine
1489 - 1492 - The first documentary mention of the Ukrainian Cossacks
1490 - 1492 - The uprising in Galicia against the gentry under the leadership of Mucha
1498 - The first Turkish campaign against Ukraine
1500 - 1503 - War between Lithuania and Russia. Accession to Moscow of Chernihiv and Sivershchina
1508 - Uprising of the Ukrainian gentry led by Mikhail Glinsky
1529 - First Lithuanian Statute
1556 - Foundation of the Sich on the river. Khortitsa Vyshnevetsky
1557 - Charter for portages
1569 - Union of Lublin. The formation of the Commonwealth
1573 - Founding of a printing house in Lvov by I. Fedorov
1574 - Publication of "Primer" and "Apostle" in Lvov
1578 - Founding of the Ostroh Academy
1586 - Approval of the charter of the Lviv Brotherhood
1591 - 1593 - The uprising led by K. Kosinsky
1594 - 1596 - Uprising led by S. Nalivaiko
1596 - Brest Church Union
1618 - Campaign of the Cossack army led by Sagaidachny to Moscow
1618 - Edition of the grammar of M. Smotrytsky
1620 - Restoration of the Orthodox metropolis in Kyiv
1621 - Khotyn War
1625 - Peasant-Cossack uprising led by Mark Tryasil
1632 - Foundation of the Kiev-Mohyla Academy
1637 - 1638 - Peasant-Cossack uprisings
1648 - 1657 - The war of the Ukrainian people under the leadership of B. Khmelnitsky
1648 - Victories of the Cossack troops near Zhovti Vody, Korsun and Pilyavtsy
1649 - Battle of Zborov. Zboriv Treaty
1651 - Defeat near Berestechko. Bila Tserkva Treaty
1652 - Victory at Knut
1653 - Battle of Zhvanets
1654 - Pereyaslav Rada. March Articles
1657 - Swedish - Ukrainian - Semi-city coalition. Death of B. Khmelnitsky
1658 - Treaty of Hadiach, an attempt at federation with Poland
1659 - Battle of Konotop. Pereyaslav articles by Y. Khmelnytsky
1660 - Treaty of Slobodyshchensky Ukraine with Poland
1663 - Black Rada in Nizhyn. The split of Ukraine into the Left Bank and the Right Bank
1667 - Andrusiv agreement. Division of Ukraine between Russia and Poland
1672 - Capture of Podolia by the Turks. Treaty of Buchat
1676 - Zhuravensky peace treaty between Poland and Turkey
1681 - Peace of Bakhchisaray between Russia and Turkey
1685 - Subordination of the Orthodox Metropolis of Kiev to the Moscow Patriarch
1686 - "Eternal peace" between Russia and Poland
1697 - 1696 - Azov-Dnieper campaigns of Ukrainian and Russian troops
1699 - Treaty of Karlowitz
1700 - 1721 - North War
1702 - 1704 - The uprising led by Semyon Paliy
1704 - Unification by Mazepa of the Left Bank and part of the Right Bank Ukraine
1708 - Mazepa's alliance with Charles XII against Russia
1709 - The destruction of the Chertomlitskaya Sich by the Russian army on June 27
1709 - Defeat of Charles XII near Poltava
1710 - Proclamation in Bendery by P. Orlyk of the "Pacts and Constitution of the rights and liberties of the Zaporizhian Army"
1711 - Foundation of the Oleshkovsky Sich
1711 - Prut Treaty
1721 - Prohibition of printing in printing houses of sacred scripture
1722 - 1727 First Little Russian Collegium
1727 - "Decisive points" by D. Apostol
1734 - 1750 - "The Board of the Hetman's Government"
1734 - Return of the Zaporizhian Cossacks. Foundations of the Sich on Podpolnaya
1743 - Rights on which the Little Russian people are sued "
1738 - 1745 - The period of the greatest activity of the detachment of oprishki Oleksa Dovbush
1764 - Abolition of the Hetmanate
1764 - 1781 - Second Little Russian Collegium
1768 - Koliiv region. Bar Confederation
1768 - 1774 - First Russo-Turkish War
1772 - First division of Poland. Withdrawal of Galicia to Austria
1774 Kuchuk-Kainarji peace treaty
1775 - Liquidation of the Zaporozhian Sich. Austrian capture of Bukovina
1783 - Enslavement of Ukrainian peasants. Capture of the Crimea
1785 - Royal charter for the nobility of the Cossack officers and gentry
1785 - 1791 Second Russo-Turkish War
1788 - Formation of the Black Sea Cossacks
1791 - Treaty of Jassy
1793 - Second division of Poland. Withdrawal to Russia of the Right-Bank Ukraine
1795 - Third division of Poland. Withdrawal to Russia of Western Volhynia
1796 - Distribution of the all-Russian administrative structure to Ukraine
1798 - Edition of the "Aeneid" by I. Kotlyarevsky
1805 - Opening of Kharkov University
1805 - Opening of the first stationary theater in Kyiv
1806 - 1812 - Russian-Turkish war
1808 - Restoration of the Galician Metropolis
1812 - Treaty of Bucharest
1812 - War between Russia and France (Patriotic War)
June 29 - July 3, 1819 - Uprising in a military settlement in Chuguev
1821 - Organization of the Southern Society in Tulchin
1823 - Creation in Novograd-Volynsky of the "Society of United Slavs"
December 29, 1825 - January 3, 1826 - Uprising of the Chernigov Regiment
1830 - Opening of the first public library in Ukraine in Odessa
1830 - 1831 - Polish uprising
1830 - 1837 - The activities of the "Russian Troika"
1834 - Foundation of the Kiev University. St. Vladimir
1839 - Liquidation of the Greek Catholic Church in the Russian Empire
1840 - Edition of "Kobzar" by T. Shevchenko
1845 - 1847 - Activities of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood
1847 - 1848 "Inventory reforms" of the Governor-General Bibikov
1848 - Abolition of corvee in Western Ukraine
1853 - 1856 - Crimean War
November 18, 1853 - The defeat of the Turkish fleet in Sinop Bay
October 1854 - August 1855 - Defense of Sevastopol
1856 - Treaty of Paris
February 19, 1861 - Abolition of serfdom in Russia
1863 - Valuev circular
January 1863 - April 1864 - Polish uprising
1864 - Zemstvo reform
1864 Judicial reform
1865 - Founding of the Novorossiysk University in Odessa
1870 - City reform
1873 - Foundation in Lvov of the scientific society named after. T. Shevchenko
1875 - Foundation of Chernivtsi University
1876 - Emsky decree of Alexander II
1883 - Foundation of the "Askania Nova" reserve
1890 - Creation of the Ukrainian Radical Party in Galicia
1897 - Formation of the Ukrainian General Organization - UZO
1897 - Establishment of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Group in Kyiv
1897 - Creation of "unions of struggle for the liberation of the working class"
1898 - Foundation of the Kiev Polytechnic Institute
1899 - Formation of the Ukrainian National Democratic and Ukrainian Social Democratic Party in Galicia
1899 - Formation of the revolutionary Ukrainian Party
1900 - Publication of M. Mikhnovsky's brochure "Independent Ukraine"
1900 - Formation of the Ukrainian Socialist Party
1902 - Formation of the Ukrainian People's Party
1904 - Creation of the Ukrainian Democratic Party
January 12, 1905 - Founding of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Union "Soyuz"
June 14-25, 1905 - Uprising on the battleship "Potemkin"
October 17, 1905 - Manifesto of Nicholas II on the proclamation of "constitutional freedoms"
November 1905 - Uprising on the cruiser "Ochakov" in Sevastopol (P. Schmidt)
November 1905 - Rebellion of sappers in Kyiv (B. Zhadanovsky)
December 1905 - Armed uprisings in Ukraine
December 1905 II Congress of the RUP. The Ukrainian Social Democratic Party USDRP was created
April 27 - July 8, 1906 - Activities of the 1st State Duma
August 19, 1906 - Establishment of military-political courts
November 9, 1906 - Decree of the government on free withdrawal from the peasant community.
February 20 - June 3, 1907 - Activities of the 2nd State Duma
June 3, 1907 - Manifesto on the dissolution of the 2nd Duma. Changing the electoral law.
1911 - Law on the creation of zemstvos in the Western provinces
July 19, 1914 - Beginning of World War I
August-September 1914 - Battle of Galicia
August 1914 - Creation in Lviv of the "Union for the Liberation of Ukraine" (SVU)
February 27, 1917 - February Revolution
March 4, 1917 - Creation of the Central Rada
April 5 - 7, 1917 - Holding of the Ukrainian National Congress in Kyiv
April 5 - 8, 1917 - 1st Ukrainian military congress
May 28 - June 2, 1917 - First All-Ukrainian Peasants' Congress
June 29, 1917 - Arrival in Kyiv of the delegation of the Provisional Government
July 3, 1917 - II Universal of the Central Rada
September 22, 1917 Decision of the Central Council to convene the Constituent Assembly of Ukraine.
October 24 - 25, 1917 - Revolution in Petrograd
December 11-12, 1917 - I-st All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets in Kharkov. Proclamation of the Soviet UNR
January 9, 1918 - IV-th Universal of the Central Rada. Declaration of Independence of the UNR
January 26, 1918 - Troops M. Muravyova occupied Kyiv
January 27, 1918 - Signing of the separate Treaty of Brest by the Central Rada
February 19, 1919 - The offensive of German troops in Ukraine
April 23, 1918 - Economic agreement between Ukraine, Germany and Austria-Hungary
April 29, 1918 - A coup d'état led by P. Skoropadsky
July 5-12, 1918 - 1st Congress of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine in Moscow
July 30, 1918 - The assassination in Kyiv of the German Field Marshal Eigorn
October 24, 1918 - Hetman government updates
November 13-14, 1918 - Creation of the Directory
November 28, 1918 - Creation of the Bolshevik Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government
December 14, 1918 - Entry of the troops of the Directory to Kyiv
January 22, 1919 - Proclamation of the act of reunification of the UNR and ZUNR
April 15, 1919 - Denikin's offensive in the Donbass
May 7, 1919 - The beginning of the uprising of Ataman Grigoriev
June 1919 - The offensive of the volunteer army of General Denikin in Ukraine
November 16 - 18, 1919 - Battles against the Red Army in the Right-Bank Ukraine
August 31, 1919 - UNR troops entered Kyiv
November 1919 - The offensive of the Polish troops on Kamenets - the residence of the ZUNR
December 2, 1919 - The UNR delegation signed a declaration with Poland
June 22, 1941 - Nazi Germany attacked the USSR
June 22 - 29, 1941 - Border battles of the Soviet troops
June 23 - 29, 1941 - Tank battles in the Dubno-Lutsk-Rivne triangle
June 25, 1941 - Creation of the Southern Front on the territory of Ukraine
June 29, 1941 - Directive of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR to the party and Soviet bodies of the front-line regions
June 30, 1941 - Creation of the State Defense Committee
June 30, 1941 - Act of proclamation by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in Lviv of the restoration of the Ukrainian state
July 1, 1941 - The offensive of the German and Romanian troops on the Southern Front
July 5, 1941 - Decree of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) U on the creation of partisan detachments
July 7 - September 26, 1941 - Kyiv defensive operation of the Soviet troops
August 4 - October 16, 1941 - Defense of Odessa by Soviet troops
August 20, 1941 - Creation of the Reichskommissariat "Ukraine" on the occupied lands
August 25-30, 1941 - German troops reached the river. Dnieper
September 19, 1941 - Soviet troops left Kyiv
September 29 - 30, 1941 - Beginning of mass shootings at Babi Yar
September 29, 1941 - Donbas defensive operation of the Soviet troops
September 30, 1941-April 20, 1942 - Battle of Moscow
October 1941 - New German offensive in the South
January 18 - March 31, 1942 - Offensive of the Southwestern Fronts
May 8 - 9, 1942 - The offensive of German troops in the Crimea
May 12, 1942 - Beginning of the offensive of the Soviet troops near Kharkov
May 17, 1942 - The transition of German troops to the counteroffensive
May 30, 1942 - Establishment of the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement
June 28 - July 24, 1942 - The offensive of German troops in the Donbass
July 17, 1942 - February 2, 1943 - Battle of Stalingrad
October 14, 1942 Creation of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)
December 18, 1942 - Soviet troops entered Ukraine again
January 29 - February 18, 1943 - The offensive of the troops of the Southwestern Front
February 19 - March 25, 1943 - German counteroffensive in the Donbass
July 5 - August 23, 1943 - Battle of Kursk
July 17 - September 22, 1943 - Offensive actions of the Soviet troops in the Left-Bank Ukraine
September - November 1943 AD - The battle for the river. Dniester
November 3 - 13, 1943 - Kyiv offensive operation
January 24 - February 17 in 1944 - Korsun-Shevchenko offensive operation of the Soviet troops
March 22 - April 16, 1944 - The offensive of the Soviet troops in the South
July 13 - August 29, 1944 - Lvov-Sandomierz offensive operation of the Soviet troops
July 1944 - Beginning of the struggle of the UPA with the units of the Red Army
September 8 - October 28, 1944 - East Carpathian strategic offensive operation
April 16 - May 8, 1945 - Berlin offensive operation
1945 - 1953 - The struggle of the OUN-UPA with the detachments of the Soviet Army, the NKVD, the MGB
June 29, 1945 - Soviet-Czechoslovak treaty on the reunification of Transcarpathian Ukraine with the Ukrainian SSR
Later years
1946 - 1947 - Holodomor in Ukraine
March 5, 1953 - Death of I. Stalin
February 19, 1954 - Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine
February 14 - 25, 1956 - XX Congress of the CPSU
1961 - Trial in Lvov over members of the Ukrainian Workers' and Peasants' Union. accusations of nationalism
1967-1968 Closed trials of representatives of the Ukrainian intelligentsia in Kyiv, Lvov, Ivano-Frankivsk
April 26, 1986 - Chernobyl accident
February-March 1989 - The draft program of the People's Movement of Ukraine was published
September 8 - 10, 1989 - The founding congress of the People's Movement of Ukraine in Kyiv
March 1990 - Elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and local Soviets
July 16, 1990 - Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine
October 1, 1990 - Beginning of the second session of the Verkhovna Rada of the Republic
1991 - the first half of the growing crisis in the USSR and Ukraine
August 19 - 21, 1991 - Coup attempt
August 24, 1991 - Proclamation of the Act of Independence of Ukraine
December 1, 1991 - Holding a referendum on the independence of Ukraine, election of the President
December 7 - 8, 1991 - Treaty in Belovezhskaya Pushcha on the creation of the CIS
January 5, 1992 - Inauguration of Kravchuk
July 10, 1994 - L. Kuchma is elected President
November 1995 - Accession of Ukraine to the Council of Europe
June 28, 1996 - Adoption of the Constitution of Ukraine
September 1996 - Introduction of the national currency - the hryvnia
In the future, 2012 will mark one round date - the 1150th anniversary of the birth of Russian statehood. The President of Russia issued a corresponding decree and stated that he considered it expedient to celebrate the anniversary together with Ukraine and Belarus and declare next year the Year of Russian History. According to Medvedev, the invitation was due to the fact that all three countries have "common historical and spiritual roots."
The decision of Minsk will most likely be positive - to celebrate. But Kyiv will certainly refuse to participate. Still, to accept such a proposal means to cancel all the efforts of historiography, ideology, philology and pedagogy spent over the past 20 years to create a new ethnic group - “wide and holy” (real and conscious) Ukrainians.
And Ukraine's response to the "Muscovites" was not long in coming. Recently, the deputy of the Verkhovna Rada Lilia Grigorovich took the initiative in 2012 to celebrate the 1160th anniversary of the statehood of Ukraine. That is, to legally approve that the Ukrainian state is 10 years older than the Russian one. Where did this date come from? In The Tale of Bygone Years, the chronicler recorded that since 852 the territory of the settlement of the Eastern Slavs began to be called the "Russian Land". According to Grigorovich, this "Russian land" was "Rus-Ukraine".
In general, the current Ukrainian history is built for the most part on myths designed to intensify the differences between parts of the single Russian people as much as possible.
Chief among them are the myth of the Soviet occupation and the myth of the deep antiquity of Ukrainian history. This, so to speak, is the general background against which the current Ukrainian historiography is developing. But for some "researchers" the temperature is noticeably higher than the average for the hospital. Here, for example, the Ukrainian political scientist Oleg Soskin from time to time gives out such pearls that it is time to fall off the chair.
“We are Slavs, Aryans, Scythians, we are Russia, and your territory, excuse me, is a Finno-Ugric Turkic territory with a completely different ethnicity and a different language, which has nothing to do with our Slavic, Russian,” Pan Soskin said this about Russia. Or here's another: “In reality, Russia is an undeveloped and unsuccessful state that lives only at the expense of rent - oil or gas. This country is not competitive in terms of the scientific and technological development system.”
Ancient ukry on stamps of Ukraine
“The name of our state “Rus” was stolen by Peter. Bandit natural. Up to the nostrils in the blood, he killed everyone in a row. Then they made him a great emperor, and he was a simple Moscow semi-criminal authority, ”so Soskin speaks of Peter I.
Yes, Oleg Soskin is known as an odious figure in Ukrainian political circles. However, until relatively recently, he was an adviser to two successive presidents of the country and had official status.
Since 1994, he has headed the Institute for the Transformation of Society, organized by him. In 1992–1993 at the same time he was a senior adviser to the President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk on entrepreneurship and foreign economic activity, and an adviser to the Prime Minister on macroeconomic issues. And in 1998-2000. was an adviser to President Leonid Kuchma on economic issues.
Since April 1996, Soskin has been the head of the Ukrainian National Conservative Party. In 2008, he called Russia "an undeveloped and unsuccessful state" and demanded the introduction of a visa regime with it. In 2009, he shocked the Ukrainian public with a forecast about the possibility of a “war between Ukraine and Russia in the coming months.” The forecast, thank God, did not come true.
Or here is another character - the director of the Institute of Ukrainian Studies, Academician Petro Kononenko. Also "lit up" as a historian-discoverer. For example, in the time of Yushchenko, at his lecture at the scientific student conference “Youth and the State Language”, he told the audience that Prince Vladimir of Kyiv in the 9th century. did not want to accept Orthodoxy in Constantinople, deciding to do it "on his own land - in Sevastopol."
Kononenko also mentioned the history of ancient India: he said that in the Mahabharata "one of the clans was Ukrainian and came from Pripyat."
The academician did not forget to remember Russia: according to him, Tatars founded Moscow, and only then Yuri Dolgoruky married a Tatar. Kononenko stressed that the son of Dolgoruky, Andrei Bogolyubsky, was the first descendant of the Kiev princes, who went to war against Kyiv and ruined it.
References to the Mahabharata are, of course, an excess. But in general, Ukrainian historians are very diligently developing a myth about the ancient history of Ukraine. Its essence is that the distant ancestors of modern Ukrainians lived on the territory of the present state of Ukraine since the Neolithic.
The main goal of this politicized theory is to find fundamental differences between Ukrainians and Russians already at the stage of the primitive communal system. The main method is to “shove” the Indo-European tribes into the territory, where the Old Russian statehood was then formed, which is accordingly attributed to the “Ukrainians”. In fact, there is nothing surprising in these efforts - there is a political order, and nationalism is also characterized by the desire to prove the "feature" and "superiority" of its people, to make its history as "older" as possible.
In order to further alienate the inhabitants of Ukraine and Russia from each other, modern Ukrainian historical thought attributed the Russians to the Finno-Ugric world, the Muscovites are a small admixture of Slavic blood to the base - Finno-Ugric. But the Ukrainians are the direct descendants of the inhabitants of the ancient Trypillia culture - this Eneolithic archaeological culture was widespread in the 6th-3rd millennium BC. e. in the Danube-Dnieper interfluve. Further, stepping from one archaeological culture to another, innovative historians come to Kievan Rus. And this is, from their point of view, a 100% state of the “ancient Ukrainians”.
A page from a textbook designed to form a conscious Ukrainian out of a child
When such theories are born in the minds of scientists, this is not so bad. After all, they can be proven or disproved through discussions and exchanges within the scientific community. It is very bad when such ideas migrate to school textbooks.
Here are examples. According to the four times reprinted in 1999 - 2005. "History of Ukraine" by R. Lyakh and N. Temirova (textbook for secondary school, approved and recommended by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine), the Ukrainian people are more than 140 thousand years old. That is, the history of the Ukrainian people includes the period before the appearance of a modern type of man.
Or here are the titles of paragraphs from a ninth grade textbook: “Ukraine under the rule of the Russian and Austrian empires”, “The colonization policy of tsarist tsarism in Ukraine”, “Ukraine in the conquest plans of Napoleon I”, “Huge opposition to Russian tsarism in Ukraine”, “Crimean war and Ukraine”, “Ukrainians in the defense of Sevastopol”…
On the transfer of the Crimea to Ukraine in 1954, it is said that “the economic life of the Crimea was paralyzed”, the RSFSR could not manage to restore these territories after the war. “In such an environment, the inclusion of the Crimean peninsula into the Ukrainian SSR, which took place to mark the 300th anniversary of the “reunification of Ukraine with Russia,” was initially inevitable.”
By the way, the authors of another mass textbook - "Introduction to the History of Ukraine" - give a very original explanation of Ukraine's acquisition of Crimea: force it to undertake the restoration of economic and cultural life on the peninsula.
Imagine a Ukrainian schoolchild coming to a history lesson for the first time in his life. Over the next years, this version of Ukrainian history is put into his head: until 1991, Ukraine was languishing under the Muscovite yoke. What foreigners did to break the Ukrainians: they starved them, persecuted the best sons of the people like Hetman Mazepa and Bandera. But now we have thrown off the age-old yoke and will never let invaders into our land again.
It has long been noted that young nations, at birth and formation, necessarily create history precisely in their own imagination. For the countries of the post-Soviet space, overcoming the “complex of Russia, Moscow” becomes the most relevant on the way to the formation of national identity. And here any means are good - from glorification to falsification. For some, these processes are hidden, latent, for others - in an acute form. Ukraine is among the latter.
As a result, Kyiv's attempts to become an alternative center of gravity to Moscow in the post-Soviet space and ignoring, and even counteracting Russian initiatives in the political, cultural and spiritual spheres.
So we can almost say for sure - next year Ukraine will not be celebrating the 1150th anniversary of the birth of Russian statehood together with Russia and, possibly, Belarus. Her statehood, as it turns out, is already ten years older. So, Muscovites-we ourselves with a mustache.
Vladimir Pinegov
"Remember Russia"
Short stories about people who determined the course of the country's history from the time of Kievan Rus to the present day
Project 100 outstanding personalities in the history of Ukraine- an attempt to create an accessible desktop guide on the history of the country for a variety of people - from students to businessmen. This is the history of Ukraine, concentrated on 32 pages. This project narrates in an accessible way about the people who determined the course of the history of Ukraine from Kievan Rus to our times.
Many will discover new names here or learn more about people they have heard about more than once. For a long time I wanted to make a project in which it would be possible to find out in 30 seconds what Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky did outstanding and what Cardinal Joseph Slipy was imprisoned in Soviet camps for. Knowing our history helps us understand who we are and why we have become the way we are. This knowledge gives free lessons, requires not to repeat the mistakes that may have already been made. This is the case when the hackneyed phrase is appropriate Without knowledge of the past, there is no present and future.
Even scrolling through this small application, one can understand that not only the struggle for freedom and statehood determined the course of the country's history. Ukraine has given the world many talented people - physicists, thinkers, architects, microbiologists, writers.
This list is subjective, like any other. However, we made every effort not to forget anyone: over several months, we interviewed 75 experts and opinion leaders. Then they put the results together and wrote succinctly about each of these 100 iconic people.
The so-called popular - not academic - history is in demand, for example, among our neighbors in Poland. Historical supplements to weekly magazines are sold there in huge numbers. A wide demand for history is only being formed in Ukraine. I would like you to be able to snatch this supplement from the magazine, put it somewhere nearby and have it always at hand.
Vitaly Sych,
Chief Editor HB
Princess Olga
(c. 920-969)
Politician,
head of the ancient Russian state
After the death of her husband, Prince Igor, Olga became the first woman to rule the Old Russian state. She pursued a tough policy towards the tribes subordinate to Kiev. From the annals, the story of Olga's reprisal against the nobility of the Drevlyans is known - in the lands of this tribe, while collecting tribute, Igor was killed. After that, by order of the princess, the then fiscal system was improved: strongholds were built throughout the state to collect tribute - graveyards.
In 957, the princess made a diplomatic mission to Constantinople, the capital of Byzantium. There she met with Emperor Constantine and signed a contract - obviously a trade one. After staying in Byzantium for more than six months, Olga was imbued with the achievements of the strongest Christian state at that time. In the same year she converted to Christianity, but she failed to spread the new religion in her homeland.
GREAT ANGER: The burning of the Drevlyansk ambassadors in Kyiv on the orders of Princess Olga in retaliation for the murder of her husband Prince Igor. 13th century drawing
Svyatoslav Igorevich
(c. 942-972)
Old Russian prince
Having taken the throne of Kyiv, Svyatoslav significantly expanded the possessions of the Old Russian state in the northeast and defeated the centuries-old enemy of Russia - the Khazar Khaganate. Under the rule of Kyiv were the Volga Bulgarians, the lands in the lower reaches of the Volga, the Taman and Kerch Peninsulas (Tmutarakan). And since the main trade routes passed through the annexed territories, this strengthened the economy of Ancient Russia.
Svyatoslav successfully fought with Byzantium. Constantinople paid off his first campaign against the empire with 15 centinaries of gold (480 kg). However, this briefly stopped the Kiev prince, who planned to create his own large empire with lands in the Balkans, and move the capital to the Danube.
He approached his goal in 971, when he occupied several Bulgarian cities and entered Thrace, a province of Byzantium. Then the Byzantine emperor John I Tzimiskes himself arrived at peace negotiations with the prince and offered Svyatoslav a large tribute. Having concluded a peace treaty with Byzantium, Svyatoslav turned his horses to Kyiv. At the Dnieper rapids, he was ambushed by the Pecheneg Khan Kuri and was killed.
Vladimir Svyatoslavich (Great)
(c. 960-1015)
Politician,
Prince Vladimir introduced the Old Russian state into the orbit of world politics and culture. In the conquered Crimea, he adopted Christianity and made it the state religion. This allowed Kiev to establish close relations with the Byzantine Empire, the largest and most developed state in the expanses of Europe and the Middle East.
Religious reform also contributed to state reforms. The power of Kyiv at the head of vast territories at the administrative level increased, which was not the case under the father of Vladimir Svyatoslav, who rarely visited Kyiv and spent his whole life on campaigns.
Vladimir created a state council, which, in addition to the boyars - the old hereditary nobility, also included representatives of large cities. The council was an instrument of legislative and executive power.
Vladimir is the first head of Ancient Russia, who began to mint his own coins: golden coins and silver coins. On them, as well as on objects of state importance, the prince ordered to put his sign - a trident, the prototype of the current coat of arms of Ukraine.
OWN CURRENCY: Srebrenik of Vladimir Svyatoslavich
Yaroslav Vladimirovich (Wise)
(c. 978-1054)
Politician,
head of the ancient Russian state
Under the great Kiev prince Yaroslav Vladimirovich, the territory of the Old Russian state expanded to the maximum. The power of Kyiv extended from the Black to the Baltic Sea - from south to north - and from the Carpathians to the Volga - from west to east. The political and military power of the Old Russian state was recognized in Europe. Yaroslav's daughters were married to the kings of France, Hungary, Norway, Denmark, England, which in those days was considered a kind of treaty of friendship and cooperation.
The prince compiled the first written set of laws in Eastern Europe - Yaroslav's Truth. For several centuries, it became the basis for the legal system of neighboring states, such as the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Yaroslav weakened the power of the Varangian elite ruling before him, endowing representatives of the local Slavic elites with state powers.
The wise prince was known among the people due to the fact that he raised culture and education to the world level. Under him, schools of painting, stone construction and chronicle writing arose, and educational institutions were opened. An extensive library was collected at the Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv.
Nestor the Chronicler
(1056-1114)
Monk of the Kiev Caves Monastery, chronicler
The writing of the events from the time of the founding of the Old Russian state has come down to our days thanks to the Kiev monk of the Kiev-Pechersk monastery Nestor. He is considered the only known intellectual of his time. He thoroughly knew the Greek language, which allowed him to study the literature of the Orthodox world.
Nestor is considered the compiler of the Tale of Bygone Years - a set of chronicles available by that time that have not been preserved. It is known that the monk made trips to Vladimir-Volynsky, where he studied the works of local chroniclers. Thus, the Volyn Chronicle became part of the Tale.
Daniel Galitsky
(1201-1264 )
Politician,
statesman
During the fragmentation of the Old Russian state, Prince Daniel was the most successful ruler in the lands of modern Ukraine. His reign fell on dramatic events - the invasion of the Mongol-Tatars. Daniel had to pursue a subtle policy in order to protect his lands from complete ruin. He made a long trip to the headquarters of Batu Khan, where he received guarantees of the security of the Galicia-Volyn state.
In 1253, Daniel of Galicia, who was looking for military and political support in the West, received a royal title from the Pope.
During his reign, he founded a number of cities in his lands that exist to this day. Among them are Kholm (now Chelm in Poland) and Lvov.
HARD REBACK: The defeat of the crusaders by the army of Daniil of Galicia near Dorohochyn in 1238. Artist - Stanislav Servetnik, XX century
Roksolana
(Anastasia Lisovskaya)
(1505-1558)
First Lady of the Ottoman Empire
As the wife of Sultan Suleiman I, Roksolana influenced the foreign policy of the Ottoman Empire, the most powerful Asian-European state at that time. She opened schools and caravanserais, financed the construction of mosques. It is believed that, remembering her homeland, Roksolana restrained the aggression of the Ottoman troops against the Ukrainian lands and cared about the fate of Slavic slaves and Cossacks.
According to the main version, Roksolana was the daughter of an Orthodox priest from Rogatin (now Ivano-Frankivsk region). As a teenager, she was captured during a raid by the Crimean Tatars and was sold at a slave market in Istanbul. So she got into the Sultan's harem.
Having withstood fierce competition among the concubines, the Ukrainian became the main wife of the padishah. During the long military campaigns of Suleiman I, she corresponded with her husband in Arabic and Persian.
Many European ambassadors, before negotiations with the Sultan, sought to meet with Roksolana in order to state the requests of their rulers. This often influenced Suleiman's foreign policy plans.
Roksolana was buried in the mausoleum of the Suleymaniye Jami mosque with her husband.
Dmitry Vishnevetsky
(baida)
(c. 1517-1564)
In the service of the Polish King Sigismund II Augustus, Prince Dmitry Vishnevetsky built several fortresses in the lower reaches of the Dnieper. Around 1552, with his own money, he laid fortifications on the island of Malaya Khortitsa, which laid the foundation for the Zaporizhzhya Sich. At the same time, the local Cossacks elected Vyshnevetsky as their hetman.
At the head of the Cossack detachments, Prince Dmitry made trips to the Crimea and the Tatar fortresses located on the Black Sea. Vyshnevetsky's military campaigns were so effective that the sultan of the Ottoman Empire himself took up his liquidation. The Cossack hetman was nevertheless caught on the territory of modern Moldova and then executed. Prince Dmitry was very popular among the people and became a hero of folklore, which has survived to this day.
FREEDOM: Zaporizhzhya Sich in the heyday of the Cossacks. Drawing by an unknown artist
Ivan Fedorovich (Fedorov)
(1520-1583)
Printer
And van Fedorovich is one of the first masters who laid the foundation for printing in the Old Slavonic language. He received his education at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, then took part in the creation of the first printing house in Moscow. It is believed that here Fedorovich, together with comrade Peter Mstislavets, published the Apostle - the first printed book in the Muscovite state. However, the master's enterprise was burned by the monks, and he himself barely took his feet.
In 1572, Fedorovich moved to Lvov, where two years later he published the Apostle, similar to the Moscow one, and the first East Slavic Primer. For six years he was in the service of Prince Konstantin Ostrozhsky. At this time, the printer created the New Testament, the Psalter, the Ostroh Bible.
In addition to religious books, Fedorovich published the first secular work - The Legend of the Letters of the Bulgarian author Brave, which outlines the history of Slavic writing.
NEW TECHNOLOGY: Pages of the first printed book of Ivan Fedorovich Apostol
Konstantin-Vasily Ostrozhsky
(1526-1608)
Military and political figure, philanthropist
Prince Konstantin Ostrozhsky is the richest and most influential figure in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the founder of the first higher educational institution on the territory of modern Ukraine and Eastern Europe - the Ostroh Academy.
After the Union of Lublin in 1569, he owned many lands in Volhynia, in Galicia, in the Kiev region, as well as castles in the Czech Republic and Hungary, the annual income from which brought the prince a million zlotys.
Having become the head of the Kiev province, Prince Konstantin built cities and castles on the borders with the steppe and successfully repelled the raids of the Crimean Tatars. King Sigismund III granted him privileges in protecting the rights of the Orthodox Church and nominating candidates for episcopal positions.
In his native Ostrog, the prince gathered a circle of Orthodox intellectuals, who had a large library at their disposal. This is how the powerful cultural and educational center of the Ostroh Academy was created. Here, with the financial support of the prince, the first printer Ivan Fedorovich, the publisher of the complete text of the Bible in Slavic, founded a printing house.
FORMER GREATNESS: Ruins of the castle in Ostrog. Drawing by Zygmunt Vogel, turn of the 18th-19th centuries
Petr Konashevich-Sagaydachny
(c. 1582-1622)
Military and political figure
The brilliant commander Peter Konashevich had such a strong influence in the Commonwealth that he was able to achieve for Ukraine, which was part of Poland, a status akin to autonomy. Moreover, he became Sagaydachny in the Zaporizhzhya Sich: for example, from the word sagaydak (a quiver for arrows), he was nicknamed by the Cossacks for his accuracy in archery and then was elected their leader several times.
Beginning in 1603, Sahaidachny, at the head of the Cossack troops, made a number of sea campaigns against the Turks. He created the largest flotilla in the history of the Zaporizhzhya Sich of 150 small seagull ships. With their help, he occupied the Turkish port of Trebizond, raided cities at the mouth of the Danube, and even burned part of the Turkish fleet in the suburbs of Istanbul.
In 1618, the Polish prince Vladislav decided to capture Moscow in order to be crowned on the throne there. Sagaydachny with the Cossack regiments also went on a campaign against Belokamennaya. And before the start of the campaign, he demanded from the king the full administrative autonomy of the Ukrainian lands as part of the Commonwealth. And the king agreed.
Later, the hetman made another political move - he obtained from the Jerusalem Patriarch the episcopal rank for several Ukrainian priests and restored the Kiev Metropolis.
Sahaidachny died in battle: during the Polish-Turkish war in 1622, in the battle of Khotyn, he received injuries incompatible with life.
THUNDER OF THE BLACK SEA: The Cossack flotilla under the command of Pyotr Konashevich-Sagaydachny storms Kafa (present-day Feodosia), in which the largest slave market in the Crimea was located. The work of modern battle painter Artur Orlenov
Bohdan Khmelnytsky
(1595-1657)
Politician, hetman
B ogdan Khmelnytsky led the first successful Cossack uprising, the goal of which was the independence of the Ukrainian lands. He is the first hetman of the Ukrainian state that seceded from the Commonwealth.
The son of the elder of the city of Chigirin, he was educated at the Lvov Jesuit College. Having entered the royal service, he took part in many military campaigns against the Crimean Khanate, the Ottoman Empire and the Muscovite state. In the battle of Tsetsora, he was captured by the Turkish, from where he fled two years later.
Khmelnytsky had a long conflict with the princes of Konetspolsky, who ruled the Chyhyryn lands on behalf of the Polish king. After the ancestral village of Subotov was taken away from Khmelnytsky, he went to the Zaporozhian Sich, where the Cossacks elected him hetman. From there, he sent out universals to the people calling for an uprising that began in 1648. And the very next year, Khmelnytsky signed the Zborov agreement with the king, which determined the territory of the Ukrainian state within the borders of the Kiev, Bratslav and Chernihiv voivodeships.
During the War of Independence, Khmelnytsky entered into a temporary coalition agreement with Tsar Alexei, which for a long time was considered an act of joining Ukraine to the Muscovite state.
FIRST HETMAN: Bogdan Khmelnitsky enters Kyiv on a white horse. Painting by Nikolay Ivasyuk, 1912
Petr Grave
(1596-1647)
Church and political figure, educator
With the efforts of Peter Mohyla, reconciliation was achieved in society, which split after the Union of Berestey, when part of the Orthodox church hierarchs recognized the supremacy of the Pope. Although Mogila was a Moldavian boyar and educated in Catholic schools in Poland, Holland and France, he was devoted to Orthodoxy. He was tonsured Mohyla at the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra and at the age of 30 became its head - archimandrite. Here he set up book printing and founded a school, which later became the Kiev-Mohyla Academy - one of the oldest universities in Ukraine. Already in the 18th century, the academy became one of the best universities in Europe, where many hetmans, philosophers, architects and composers of that time studied.
Over time, Mohyla was elected Metropolitan of Kiev, and before his death he bequeathed all his property - ten villages, a library and 81 thousand zlotys - to the future Kiev-Mohyla Academy.
Ivan Vygovsky
(c. 1608-1664)
Hetman
The Ukrainian hetman Ivan Vyhovsky, who received the mace after Bogdan Khmelnytsky, is famous for his desire to achieve independence of the Ukrainian Cossack state from the influence of Moscow. His greatest feat of arms was the defeat of Russian troops in the famous Konotop battle.
Vyhovsky was educated at the Kiev fraternal school, worked for some time in the courts, and then entered the service in the army of the Commonwealth. He participated in many battles, fell into the Tatar captivity, from where he was redeemed by Khmelnitsky. In the Cossack army, he made a brilliant career - from the hetman's clerk to the head of the General Military Chancellery - the Cossack cabinet of ministers under the hetman.
Already as a hetman in 1658, Vyhovsky concludes the Gadyach Treaty, which is beneficial for Ukraine: the Cossack lands are part of the Commonwealth as the Russian principality, along with Poland and Lithuania.
However, he gradually loses the support of his comrades-in-arms and is forced to hand over the hetman's mace to Bogdan Khmelnitsky's son, Yuri. Later he tries to return to power, but loses the election to Pavel Tetera. His last political action was the organization of an anti-Polish uprising in Right-Bank Ukraine, which ended tragically for Vyhovsky.
THE HORROR OF MOSCOW: Vygovsky at the head of the Cossacks defeated the Moscow army near Konotop
Ivan Mazepa
(1639-1709)
Politician, hetman
And van Mazepa ruled Ukraine - part or all of its territory, which was part of the Muscovite state - for 22 years. Thus, he was the Ukrainian hetman for the longest term. Although Mazepa received the hetman's mace thanks to the direct intervention of Russian troops, he achieved virtually independent rule of the country.
Under Mazepa in Ukraine, many buildings were restored and built in the style of the baroque that reigned then in Europe. The money for this was allocated from the hetman's treasury.
Mazepa also sponsored educational institutions and achieved the status of an academy for the Kiev-Mohyla collegium. For a long time it was the only university in the Orthodox world where, in addition to theology, science courses were taught along the lines of European universities.
The hetman pursued a subtle foreign policy with the aim of finally dissociating Ukraine from the Muscovite kingdom. But the alliance concluded with the Swedish king Charles XII led to the defeat of the coalition troops near Poltava and the imminent death of Mazepa in exile.
The hetman's biography served as material for many writers, artists and composers, such as George Byron, Eugene Delacroix, Franz Liszt.
Pylyp Orlyk
(1672-1742)
Politician, hetman
Having received the hetman's mace after the death of Ivan Mazepa, Orlyk signed the document Treaties and Decrees, which is called the first Ukrainian Constitution.
He was elected hetman in 1710, after a year earlier the coalition forces of the Swedish king Charles XII and hetman Ivan Mazepa were defeated by Russian troops near Poltava. Then more than 4.5 thousand Cossacks followed their leader to Moldova, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire.
Orlyk's constitution is an agreement between the hetman and the Cossacks subordinate to him and their foremen. According to the document, the hetman limited his power, undertook to regulate relations between social groups, and also to fight for the political and ecclesiastical separation of Ukraine from Muscovy.
GRAINS OF DEMOCRACY: Pages of the Constitution of Pylyp Orlyk
Feofan Prokopovich
(1681-1736)
Writer, scientist, theologian
Feofan Prokopovich, a prominent Ukrainian intellectual of the Baroque era, became famous not only in his homeland - he became one of the most influential people at the court of the Russian Tsar Peter I.
Prokopovich received an excellent education - first at the Kiev-Mohyla Collegium and the Uniate Collegium in Vladimir-Volynsky, and then at the Vatican and educational institutions in France and Germany.
Returning to Ukraine, Prokopovich forever renounces Catholicism and begins teaching at the Kiev-Mohyla collegium, for which he creates a course in rhetoric and rhetoric. Hetman Ivan Mazepa, as well as the Kiev dignitaries of Peter I, highly appreciated his oratory skills. Moreover, the Russian tsar invited Prokopovich to St. Petersburg, where he began writing scientific treatises on astronomy, geography and physics.
Peter contributed to the appointment of Prokopovich as the head of the Holy Synod - in fact, the Russian Orthodox Church. This position does not prevent the scientist from taking part in the creation of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the so-called scientific team - a kind of college of the first Russian secular intellectuals.
EMPIRE IDEOLOGY: Prokopovich's treatise, in which he substantiated royal rights, was published in 1722
Grigory Skovoroda
(1722-1794)
Philosopher
Hryhoriy Skovoroda was the first to adapt the writings of ancient Greek philosophers for Ukrainian culture and academic education. Having studied the writings of Plato and his followers at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy, he created his own system of views on their basis and became one of the most prominent Ukrainian philosophers.
The works of Skovoroda were published after his death, but even during the life of the thinker they were copied by hand - this is how they became popular. And his poems to the Skin City are in character and rights, everyone has their own mind and head were in the repertoire of wandering kobza musicians.
Srodna pratsia is the most popular theme of Skovoroda's reflections. The philosopher believed that each person should find his purpose in life and do what he has the greatest disposition for. Then he can be in harmony with himself and the world. Otherwise, when people are engaged in “non-native practice”, the earth is filled with evil.
Another theme - unequal equality - is depicted on the modern 500-hryvnia banknote. The philosopher compares God to a fountain that seethes with water and fills the vessels around with it. Although the vessels have an equal opportunity to receive enough water, everyone gets according to their volume, and it is different for everyone. In this metaphor, vessels are people. To overcome such inequality, you need to know your volume, in other words, to find “akin to practice”.
PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNTAIN: With this drawing Grigory Skovoroda illustrated his theory of unequal equality
Maxim Berezovsky
(1745-1777)
Composer
Demofont, the author of the first Ukrainian opera and the creator of the classical choral concerto, was born in Hlukhiv, which was then the capital of Hetman Ukraine. Very young, Berezovsky mastered several musical instruments, and received his education at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy, where he began to write music.
Berezovsky developed a clear, colorful bass early on, and it was selected for the court chapel of the Grand Duke of Russia, Pyotr Fedorovich, who lived on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. Here, a talented Ukrainian sang solo parts in Italian operas for the Russian aristocracy.
In 1769 he was sent to study at the Bologna Academy of Music. Berezovsky spent five years in Italy, and right there, in Livorno, the premiere of his famous opera took place. He graduated from the Academy with honors and returned to St. Petersburg to direct the court chapel. However, the contrast between the attitude towards musicians in Europe and Russia caused Berezovsky to have a nervous breakdown, because of which he died early. Only a small part of his works have survived to this day, however, all of them are known in the world.
Dmitry Bortnyansky
(1751-1825)
Composer
Dmitry Bortnyansky, a classic of Ukrainian music, is considered a pioneer in this area: he was the first to write large classical concertos for two choirs. Bortnyansky is also the author of six operas, and is famous as a talented singer and conductor.
He was born in the hetman's capital, Hlukhiv, and received his primary musical education at a school founded by the nominal ruler of Ukraine, Kirill Razumovsky. For excellent vocal abilities, he was selected to the chapel at the court of Prince Paul, son of Catherine II. For several years he lived in Italy, where he studied music with local composers. At the Venetian theater of San Benedetto, his first operas Creon and Alcides were a great success.
Returning to St. Petersburg, Bortnyansky became the court bandmaster, and was also appointed censor of all spiritual works created on the territory of the Russian Empire. His opera Sokol is the first opera written by a Ukrainian and staged in St. Petersburg.
Russian musicologists believe that Mikhail Glinka, Alexander Borodin and Pyotr Tchaikovsky will later use Bortnyansky's musical techniques in their works. Moreover, the latter will become the editor of the complete 10-volume edition of Bortnyansky's works.
ONE OF THE FIRST: Title page of the printed libretto of Dmitry Bortnyansky's opera Creon, staged in Venice, at the San Benedetto Theater in 1776
Artem Vedel
(1767-1808)
Composer, conductor, singer
Ukrainian Artem Vedel is one of the few world-class composers who has not written a single secular work. All his music - about 80 works, including 20 spiritual concertos - has a religious component. Moreover, according to experts, it was Vedel who elevated Ukrainian polyphonic choral singing to the heights of world musical art.
He received his musical education at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy and, as a student, led the academic choir. And his first great work - the Liturgy of John Chrysostom - Vedel wrote when he was barely 18 years old.
After graduation, Vedel was invited to Moscow, where he led the church chapels, which were under the jurisdiction of the Governor-General. Then the composer led the chapel at the headquarters of the Ukrainian Infantry Corps in Kyiv, and then organized the choir and orchestra of the Kharkov governorship.
In Kyiv, he continued to write music and think about God - for some time he even became a novice of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. The measured life of the musician-monk was changed by the unsubstantiated accusation that Vedel called Tsar Paul I a murderer. Then Vedel was declared mentally ill, and the musician spent the last nine years of his life in an insane asylum. Only at the end of his life did his father manage to take him home.
Ivan Kotlyarevsky
(1769-1838)
Poet, playwright
The poem Aeneid by Ivan Kotlyarevsky is the first work written in the Poltava dialect, which became the basis for the formation of the Ukrainian literary language. In the Aeneid, ancient heroes are depicted as Cossacks, which contributed to the wide popularity of the poem.
In 1796, the writer, who graduated from the theological seminary and was a home teacher, enters military service in the Seversky Carabinieri regiment. Then he participates in the Russian-Turkish war, and during Napoleon's campaign against Russia, he was instructed to form the 5th Ukrainian Cossack regiment, for which he received the rank of major.
Moreover, Kotlyarevsky set the condition that this unit after the war would remain a permanent Ukrainian military formation. However, the condition was not met.
Later, Kotlyarevsky directed the Poltava Free Theater and even wrote for him the play Natalka Poltavka and the vaudeville Moskal the Sorcerer, which laid the foundation for the Ukrainian musical and drama theater.
UKRAINIAN HUMOR IN PETER: The first edition of Kotlyarevsky's Aeneid was published without the knowledge of the author
Nikolay Gogol
(1809-1852)
Writer
Nikolai Gogol outlined the main themes of Russian-language literature for two centuries to come - bribery in power, the stupidity of officials, the provincial narrow-mindedness of society. A native of Sorochintsy in the Poltava region, Gogol introduced Ukrainian romantic folklore, primarily demonology, into world culture by publishing a collection of short stories Evenings on a farm near Dikanka.
The first work of Gogol, which Emperor Nicholas I got acquainted with, was the comedy The Government Inspector, staged in 1836. The author himself was dissatisfied with the performance. His idea was almost avant-garde. After all, the final silent scene, when all the characters freeze upon learning that a real auditor has arrived in the city, is conceived to last at least ten minutes. Thus, the audience had to be confused, to think and understand that corruption - the main theme of the play - is everyone's problem.
But even without this, the Inspector liked the tsar, who, after watching it, said: “Well, what a play! Everyone got it, but me more than anyone!” The autocrat ordered all his ministers to watch the comedy.
Gogol's main work - the poem Dead Souls - is an equally sharp satire that is still relevant. What is the remark about the official, who "looked, and appeared somewhere at the end of the city house, bought in the name of his wife."
POEM IN PROSE: The second edition of Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls
Taras Shevchenko
(1814-1861)
Poet, prose writer, artist
And the name of Taras Shevchenko has become a symbol of freedom for many generations of Ukrainians, his philosophy has become a national idea, and his works have become an obligatory part of humanitarian education. In terms of significance for compatriots, literary critics equate his poetry collection Kobzar with the Gospel.
Many songs based on Shevchenko's verses have become popular, among them the Wide Roar and Stogne Dnipr, which in Soviet times was considered an informal national anthem. Shevchenko also created a poetic interpretation of the history of Ukraine: in poetic form and prose, he wrote many works about the real life of his contemporaries.
The great Ukrainian poet left his homeland at the age of 15, spoke Russian for most of his life, and returned to Ukraine only for a short time - 2.5 years. He graduated from the Art Academy in St. Petersburg and gained fame in the Russian Empire as a painter and graphic artist.
At that time, Shevchenko was a serf, and the St. Petersburg artist Karl Bryullov, together with the writer Vasily Zhukovsky, organized a lottery, the funds from which allowed Shevchenko to gain freedom.
Today the great Ukrainian is one of the most published authors in the world. His Kobzar has been translated into more than 100 languages of the world, and monuments to Shevchenko stand in 35 countries. There are 1.384 of them in total. This is the largest number of monuments erected to a cultural figure.
Platon Simirenko
(1821-1863)
Entrepreneur, philanthropist
During his short life - only 42 years - Platon Simirenko managed to make a scientific and technological revolution on an all-Ukrainian scale. A graduate of the Paris Polytechnic Institute, Simirenko took over from his father the trading company Brothers Yakhnenko and Simirenko and turned it, by modern standards, into an exemplary industrial holding.
INDUSTRIAL POWER: Sugar factory of brothers Yakhnenko and Simirenko in Gorodishche in Cherkasy region
Having staked on the sugar industry, the young entrepreneur built the first steam plant in the Russian Empire, equipped with the latest technologies. For its service, he attracted Western European engineers, and provided the Ukrainians who worked at the enterprise with a “social package” unprecedented for the times of serfdom.
Developing his business, Simirenko also built the first steamships in Ukraine - Ukrainian and Yaroslav, opening up export routes for Ukrainian sugar. He also went down in history as one of the most iconic domestic philanthropists - it was Simirenko's money that was used to publish the first Kobzar of Taras Shevchenko.
COMPANY LOGO: Label of sugar products of the factory of brothers Yakhnenko and Simirenko
Mikhail Dragomanov
(1841-1895)
Historian, folklorist, public figure
Mikhail Drahomanov is the first Ukrainian scientist who told the world community about the oppression of the Ukrainian language and culture in the Russian Empire. This was the subject of his report at the Paris Literary Congress of 1878. Two years earlier, Emperor Alexander II signed the so-called Em Decree, according to which it was forbidden to import into the Russian Empire and publish books in Ukrainian, stage Ukrainian theatrical performances, print sheet music with Ukrainian texts and teach in Ukrainian.
Dragomanov graduated from Kyiv University and later taught history there. He organized the cultural and educational society Staraya Hromada. For participation in it, he was expelled from the university and was forced to emigrate to Europe.
Drahomanov spent the last years of his life in the Bulgarian capital Sofia, where he was invited to the local university as a professor of history.
FOR THE RIGHTS OF UKRAINIANS: Monument to Mikhail Dragomanov in Kyiv in front of the university that bears his name
Nikolay Lysenko
(1842-1912)
Composer, pianist
The writings of Natalka Poltavka and Taras Bulba, written by Mykola Lysenko, have not left the stages of Ukrainian theaters for a century and a half, and their author is the founder of Ukrainian opera and symphonic music.
Although Lysenko graduated from the Faculty of Natural History at Kiev University, thanks to his abilities as a virtuoso pianist, he made a career as a musician. However, he received his musical education in Leipzig, and studied opera in St. Petersburg with Rimsky-Korsakov.
The composer was a member of cultural and educational organizations that promoted Ukrainian culture at home and in Europe. During his foreign trips, he gave concerts, performing his own adaptations of folk songs. The then critics compared his style of playing with such virtuosos as Franz Liszt and Frederic Chopin.
In 1872, when the first performance of the Ukrainian musical theater took place in Kyiv, the opera Chernomortsy was chosen for the premiere, the music for which was written by Lysenko.
Ivan Pulyuy
(1845-1918)
Physicist, public figure, translator
Yi van Puluy invented a device for medical research using X-rays. The author of this innovative technology was born in Grimailov near Ternopil on the territory of Austria-Hungary, graduated from the University of Vienna and then worked in it. Corresponding with a colleague from Germany, Wilhelm Roentgen, he shared his scientific experiments. As a result, the German patented a device with X-radiation, although he knew that a Ukrainian had invented it 12 years earlier.
Pulyui closely communicated with Ukrainian writers. Together with Panteleimon Kulish and Ivan Nechuy-Levitsky, he translated the Gospel from ancient Greek into Ukrainian, which was published in Lviv with the help of Pulyui.
As a student, he created one of the first public organizations of Ukrainians in Austria-Hungary - the Vienna Sich. And when he became a professor at the University of Prague, he opened a fund to support Ukrainian students. He was the first to formulate the thesis: "Independent Ukraine is the key to the hall of peaceful Europe." In the 20th century, it will be repeated by US Secretary of State Zbigniew Brzezinski, and it will become one of the principles of global international relations.
Two years before his death, Puluy received an invitation to become the Minister of Education of Austria-Hungary, but declined due to health reasons.
CONVENTIONAL INVENTION: A device for determining body heat, designed by Pulyui
Ilya Mechnikov
(1845-1916)
Biologist
The Obel Prize of Ilya Mechnikov, received by him in 1908 for the discovery of the mechanisms of immunity, became the first Nobel Prize in history, which Ukraine can write to its own account. The outstanding biologist was born in the Kharkov province, graduated from the local university and worked for a long time in Odessa as a professor at the university (now he bears the name of Mechnikov) and headed the first bacteriological station in the Russian Empire.
In 1883, it was in Odessa that Mechnikov made a report on his main discovery - phagocytosis, the process of absorption of foreign objects by a cell, due to which immunity is formed. In addition, the scientist left the world the most important developments in the field of microbiology, embryology, cytology, the fight against tuberculosis, and also created his own theory about the aging of the body.
When Mechnikov decided to leave Russia in 1887, all doors were open to him in Europe: until the end of his life, the scientist worked at the Louis Pasteur Institute in Paris.
ALL FOR SCIENCE: Before his death, Ilya Mechnikov bequeathed his body for medical research
Bogdan Khanenko
(1849-1917)
Patron, collector
A descendant of a glorious family of Cossack foremen, Bohdan Khanenko managed to take an even more significant place in Ukrainian history. Domestic museums owe him the richest collection of art objects and archaeological finds, which Khanenko, together with his wife Varvara, collected all his life and bequeathed to Ukraine. Moreover, the maiden name of Varvara Khanenko is Tereshchenko, she comes from a family of famous Ukrainian sugar producers and patrons of art.
A successful businessman and a certified lawyer who worked for a long time in St. Petersburg and Warsaw, Khanenko methodically bought up world masterpieces of painting not only in the Russian Empire, but also in Austria, Italy, Spain, France, and Germany. It was he who became the main ideologist and "motor" of the creation of the Kiev Art, Industrial and Scientific Museum - now it is the National Art Museum of Ukraine. Even during his lifetime, he gave him his entire unique archaeological collection - the philanthropist carried out excavations at his own expense in the Kiev province.
Today, the National Museum of Art named after Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko, located in the center of Kyiv in the house where the spouses lived (pictured), is the largest collection of foreign art in Ukraine.
Maria Zankovetskaya
(1854-1934)
Actress
The heyday of Ukrainian dramaturgy at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries required vivid images on the stage as well. Maria Zankovetska, one of the best actresses in the history of Ukraine and all of Eastern Europe, became the face of the new theater. Over the years of work in the leading Ukrainian troupes of that time - with Mark Kropyvnytsky, Mikhail Starytsky, Nikolai Sadovsky, Panas Saksagansky - Zankovetskaya played more than 30 roles, almost all of them not in the classics, but in the plays of Ukrainian playwrights written in those years.
Despite the most difficult censorship conditions for the domestic theater in Tsarist Russia, the actress was very popular, and her tours in Moscow and St. Petersburg were a great success. The game of Zankovetskaya conquered even Emperor Alexander III, and for many years the leading Russian theaters invited the actress to their place - however, to no avail.
She made a huge contribution to the development of the theater in Ukraine: together with Sadovsky, she created the first Ukrainian stationary theater in Kyiv (1907), directed the People's Theater in Nizhyn (1918), and participated in the founding of the People's Theater in Kyiv (1918).
MEZZO-SOPRANO: Maria Zankovetskaya in Nikolai Lysenko's operetta Chernomortsy
Ivan Franko
(1856-1916)
Writer, publicist, public figure
For Ukrainian culture, which for a long time developed not thanks to, but in spite of, Ivan Franko became an unprecedented iconic figure. A talented poet, prose writer and playwright who almost won the Nobel Prize in Literature, Franko, in fact, created the Ukrainian analogue of Balzac's The Human Comedy - he depicted the Ukraine of his time in a whole series of socio-psychological works. Also, many of his poetic works for supporters of independent Ukraine have become programmatic. And Franco's historical prose is classified as a national classic of the first echelon.
Being fluent in many languages, he translated dozens of world literary classics into Ukrainian, and many of them received Ukrainian translation for the first time: from Homer, Dante and Shakespeare to Goethe, Mickiewicz and Zola. As an ethnographer, Franko streamlined tons of folklore, published a number of important works on literary theory, history, economics of Ukraine and philosophy, and was one of the leading publicists of his time.
The Franco-politician stood at the origins of the first Ukrainian parties, insisting on expanding the political rights of Ukrainians and their culture - it was not without reason that even in his youth he was arrested three times. And contrary to the opinion of many Galician compatriots, the writer insisted on the commonality of all Ukrainian lands and urged not to divide Ukrainians into “Galician” or “Bukovinian”.
Nikolay Pimonenko
(1862-1912)
Painter
The talent of Nikolai Pimonenko was lucky enough to be appreciated during his lifetime. A master of everyday painting, who in his paintings depicted not a static landscape, but a living Ukraine, Pimonenko was the most famous artist in the entire Russian Empire.
Academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, he became a member of the famous association of "Wanderers" artists, regularly participated in international exhibitions - in Berlin, Paris, Munich, London. At one of the Parisian art salons, his work Gopak was awarded a gold medal, it was even bought by the Louvre.
Pimonenko, who received his primary art education at the Kiev Drawing School under the famous Nikolai Murashko, spent most of his life in Kyiv, traveling around the city to sketch. He did a lot for the development of art in Ukraine - he stood at the origins of the Kiev Art School, and also taught graphics at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute.
VICTIMS OF FANATISM: The work of Pimonenko in 1899, in which the artist depicted a real conflict in the Jewish community of Kremenets - there fellow believers beat a girl who fell in love with a Ukrainian guy
Vladimir Vernadsky
(1863-1945)
Natural scientist, philosopher
Vladimir Vernadsky became the first president of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (UAS), established in 1918 in Kyiv under Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky. He headed UAN for three years. During this time, the main institutes of the academy and the scientific library, the largest in present-day Ukraine, were created.
Although Vernadsky's scientific activity took place mainly in Russia, he enthusiastically accepted the independence of Ukraine in 1917.
Vernadsky organized many geological expeditions - from the Urals to the south of Ukraine - to study natural resources. He was the first in the Russian Empire to draw attention to the need for research on radioactive minerals, so he is considered the ideologist and founder of the nuclear power industry in Ukraine and Russia.
The doctrine of the noosphere - the most important scientific and philosophical theory of Vernadsky - remains relevant to this day. Noosphere - the totality of all the minds on the planet, existing in interaction. This teaching is important for understanding how humanity can use the sphere of inanimate nature and the biosphere in order to renew them and live in harmony.
SCIENTIFIC AWARD: Modern Russian Order of the Star of Vernadsky
Vladislav Gorodetsky
(1863-1930)
Architect
In Ladislav Gorodetsky lived in Kyiv for three decades, designing and building buildings for this city that made it unique. Among his works are the National Bank, the Art Museum, the Church of St. Nicholas, the House with Chimeras and other buildings, which today have become the most striking sights of Kyiv in the field of architecture.
Moreover, Gorodetsky had his own For cement plant, which allowed him to freely embody the most innovative ideas.
The architect also headed the urban planning department of the Kiev City Duma. He was responsible for the design of the streets and approved the designs for the original buildings for Kyiv. In addition, Gorodetsky designed buildings for Uman, Cherkassy, several cities in Poland. Then he was invited to work in Tehran, and for this city he created his last buildings.
CHIMERA CHARM: House built by Vladislav Gorodetsky for his family in 1901-1903
Olga Kobylyanska
(1863-1942)
Writer
One of the first feminists in Ukrainian literature and public life, Olga Kobylyanska was a recognized master of psychological prose. In her short stories, short stories and stories, Kobylyanska depicted the problems of the Ukrainian intelligentsia of her generation and a picture of the life of Bukovinian villages.
Her story Earth was admired by the best writers of that time, including Mykhailo Kotsyubinsky, Lesya Ukrainka and Ivan Franko. Moreover, the latter called this work "a document of the way of thinking of our people."
The personal life of the writer did not work out. For a long time, her romance with the writer Osip Makovei lasted - mainly in letters. However, this story did not end with marriage.
FROM GERMAN TO UKRAINIAN: Edition of the novel Nature in 1897. It was first published in German
Mikhail Kotsiubinsky
(1864-1913)
Writer
Among domestic classics, experts consider Mikhail Kotsyubinsky one of the most underestimated by the general reader. In addition to Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, a masterpiece about the soul and life of the Ukrainian Hutsuls, Kotsiubynskyi also introduced an absolutely new, modernist style of writing to Ukrainian literature.
The writer had an excellent education, knew nine languages, including gypsy. He was familiar with many celebrities of his time, was friends with the composer Nikolai Lysenko, and when he went to treat tuberculosis in Capri, he stayed there with Maxim Gorky.
Kotsyubinsky was called an impressionist writer - like the artists of this trend, he created his stories and short stories (Apple Blossom, Intermezzo, etc.) from dozens of moments, strokes, sensations, which was fresh and new for the writers of that time. In addition, Kotsiubynsky was a brilliant master of psychological storytelling and, in addition to plots from the history of Ukraine (Fata Morgana, Dear price), he turned to topics rare for Ukrainian literature - for example, he studied the personality of the executioner in the story Persona grata.
PREMIERE OF THE STORY: First edition of Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
Andrey Sheptytsky
(1865-1944)
Primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
While leading the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) in the most difficult years for Ukraine, Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky managed to make it not only a religious, but also a cultural, social and economic center.
A descendant of a famous Galician noble family and a doctor of law, Sheptytsky took monastic orders in 1888. Church activities allowed him to become one of the most authoritative figures in all of Eastern Europe.
He reformed theological education, founded the Lviv Theological Academy (the only Ukrainian university in Poland at that time), from where he sent the best students to study abroad. Under Sheptytsky, the UGCC for the first time began to use the living Ukrainian language in liturgies.
Possessing a considerable fortune, Sheptytsky became a philanthropist. With his money or with his assistance, the National Museum in Lviv with a huge collection of icons, a library, a people's hospital, several gymnasiums, a Land Bank and a credit union were opened. Sheptytsky also patronized young Ukrainian artists, establishing a special scholarship for them.
BLESSING: Letter of welcome from Sheptytsky on the resumption of the Ukrainian state in Lvov on July 13, 1941
Mikhail Grushevsky
(1866-1934)
Historian, politician
Mikhail Grushevsky is famous as the creator of the first fundamental research on national history - the History of Ukraine-Rus. This work took Hrushevsky three decades, and these years also included the time of the creation of the Ukrainian Independent Republic, when the scientist was the head of the first national parliament - the Central Rada.
Grushevsky graduated from Kyiv University, at the age of 28 he became a professor of world history at Lviv University. Two years later, he was elected head of the Taras Shevchenko Scientific Society, a kind of Ukrainian Academy of Sciences on the territory of Austria-Hungary.
With the outbreak of World War I, the scientist ends up in Kyiv, where he is arrested for his pro-Austrian views. He spent three years in exile in Kazan and Simbirsk, and then left for Moscow.
In 1917, Grushevsky had the opportunity to return to Kyiv, where by that time he had already been elected head of the Central Rada in absentia. In this position, he worked on the Constitution of Ukraine and signed four universals - the last one proclaimed the independence of the country.
When the Bolsheviks came to Kyiv, Grushevsky was already living in Prague, and then in Vienna. But in 1924 he returned to Kyiv again. With the onset of Stalinist repressions, the authorities begin to suspect him of leading the non-existent Ukrainian Nationalist Center. A scientist is not shot just because he is dying of an illness.
NEW CHRONICLE: Illustrated History of Ukraine Hrushevsky, 1913
Bogdan Kistyakovsky
(1868-1920)
Lawyer, philosopher, sociologist
B ogdan Kistiakovsky is a brilliant representative of the Ukrainian intelligentsia at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, whose professional enthusiasm and national consciousness were many years ahead of their time. Treatises in the field of the theory of law and sociology and philosophical works of Kistyakovsky became the most important milestone in Russian and European science. His concept of the rule of law, ideas about civil society and national sovereignty are still relevant today.
For pro-Ukrainian views and participation in underground student circles, Kistiakovsky was expelled from three universities in the Russian Empire, but he received an excellent education at the Universities of Berlin and Strasbourg. In the latter he defended his thesis Society and individuality, which became famous in the German philosophical environment.
In addition, Kistiakovsky was one of the founders of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, taught at Kiev University and headed the Kyiv branch of the Liberation Union, a secret organization that intended to limit the autocracy in the Russian Empire.
Lesya Ukrainka
(1871-1913)
Poetess
Ivan Franko once called Lesya Ukrainka the only man in all of Ukraine, noting that she has no equal among our contemporary poets. Classic did not exaggerate. Lesya Ukrainka, who was given only 42 years of life by fate, enriched Ukrainian poetry with absolute perfection of form, a variety of universal themes and a multitude of poetic genres.
Her dramatic poems (Stone Gospodar, Obsessed, Cassandra and others) are staged again and again on the stages of domestic theaters, and the famous drama-extravaganza Lisova Song gave Ukraine a whole cultural layer - a ballet and many theatrical versions were staged based on it, several screen adaptations were shot.
Despite a serious illness - bone tuberculosis - the poetess was distinguished by her colossal capacity for work and fortitude, which became one of the main motives of her lyrics. Lesya Ukrainka spoke several languages and was one of the best translators in Ukrainian literature: she translated Heinrich Heine, Adam Mickiewicz, Victor Hugo, Homer and other world classics.
ITALIAN TRAIL: Memorial plaque on the house in San Remo, where Lesya Ukrainka lived
Vasily Stefanik
(1871-1936)
Writer
Vasily Stefanyk's novels stunned the Ukrainian literary environment at the beginning of the 20th century. He became the first domestic expressionist writer: his concise, poignant sketches-tragedies from the life of Ukrainian peasants simultaneously depicted the drama of the whole people and the tragedy of the human person.
During his lifetime, the writer published five collections of stories, and all of them aroused the astonishment of the critics of that time, were published in Canada and the Czech Republic.
Stefanyk was an active member of the Russian-Ukrainian Radical Party (RURP) - the first domestic political force that united the entire color of the intelligentsia and insisted on self-government in Ukraine. As a delegate from the RURP, the writer was a member of the Austrian parliament in 1908-1918, where he defended the rights of Ukrainians and other peoples to self-determination.
Ivan Piddubny
(1871-1949)
Wrestler, athlete, artist
A native of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks, Ivan Piddubny glorified his ancestors throughout the planet. An epic strongman, the first six-time world champion in Greco-Roman wrestling, he was known as a phenomenal athlete and did not lose a single tournament in his life, although he completed his performances at the age of 70.
Both on the wrestling mat, and in the circus arena, and during personal tours, Piddubny was a huge success with the public. The Ukrainian strongman, who defeated the strongest fighters in the world, conquered four continents and more than fifty cities, including in the USA and Western Europe.
By the way, when in the USSR he was given a passport with the nationality “Russian” and a surname written in Russian, the athlete, who was born in the Poltava region, personally changed his data in the document to “Piddubny” and “Ukrainian”.
BOGATYR: No one in the world could beat Piddubny on the wrestling mat for 25 years
Solomiya Krushelnytska
(1872-1952)
Opera singer
Her voice was applauded by the best concert halls of the world and several continents: in the heyday of her fame, Ukrainian Solomiya Krushelnytska conquered opera houses throughout Western Europe, Poland, Russia, and even exotic Egypt, Chile and Argentina. Her repertoire included the main roles in the most iconic operas - Giuseppe Verdi's Aida, Georges Bizet's Carmen, Eugene Onegin and Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades.
In 1904, it was Krushelnytska who saved the famous Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini - after the debut failure on the stage, the composer finalized the opera and entrusted the main part to the Ukrainian woman. This time the work was a huge success and since then has not left the world stages.
After leaving the opera, Krushelnytska also performed successfully in concerts in Europe and America, invariably including Ukrainian songs in her programs. In recent years, the singer lived in Lviv, the city of her youth, where she graduated from the conservatory and achieved her first stage success.
Pavel Skoropadsky
(1873-1945)
Political figure
Pavel Skoropadsky, heir to an old Ukrainian noble family, built a brilliant military career, participating in the Russo-Japanese and World War I. And during the revolutionary events in Ukraine in 1917, the delegates of the congress of the Free Cossacks in Chigirin elected him their ataman.
He was alien to the socialist ideas of the Central Rada, the first Ukrainian parliament. And after the Bolshevik coup in St. Petersburg, he agreed with the first generalists of the new government about the independence of Ukraine.
In February-March 1918, the Russian Bolsheviks invaded Ukraine and occupied Kyiv for three weeks. The Central Rada was evacuated from the city, and soon German troops entered there, with the support of which Skoropadsky proclaimed himself hetman of Ukraine.
During the seven and a half months of the Hetmanate, economic stability was established in the country. Skoropadasky opened the Academy of Sciences, the National Historical Museum, a library, Ukrainian universities in Kyiv and Kamenets-Podolsky, 150 Ukrainian schools, for which several million textbooks were published in their native language.
COSSACK KIND: Family coat of arms of the Skoropadskys
Alexander Murashko
(1875-1919)
Painter
One of the first Ukrainian impressionists, Oleksandr Murashko was a celebrity not only at home, but also in Europe, where before the October Revolution of 1917 he often traveled and even lived there for several years. However, he received his primary art education at the drawing school of his uncle, the famous artist Nikolai Murashko. This allowed him to enter the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts in the class of Ilya Repin, who was very sympathetic to Ukraine.
Then he got acquainted with world painting in Europe, and returning to Kyiv, his works attracted the attention of the general public and emerging artists. In 1913, Murashko opened a studio in the attic of the first "skyscraper" in the Russian Empire - the 11-story Ginzburg building on Institutskaya Street in Kyiv. Many young artists dream of becoming his students.
With the formation of the Ukrainian People's Republic, Murashko takes part in the creation of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts - he had long dreamed of this. He died from a bullet from a Bolshevik patrol, as he violated curfew.
RURAL FAMILY: Painting Murashko 1914
Nikolai Leontovich
(1877-1921)
Composer
Thanks to Nikolai Leontovich, the whole world sings at Christmas by the Ukrainian Shchedryk, known in English as Carol of the Bells. The composer thought about its arrangement throughout his life - five editions of the choral chants of the song are known.
Leontovich received his musical education at the Seminary of Kamenets-Podolsky. Then he worked as a teacher in the village of Chukovo (now the Nemirovsky district of the Vinnitsa region). There he created an amateur symphony orchestra, which performed folk melodies processed by him.
In 1904, the composer went to work as a school teacher in the Donbass at the Grishino railway station (now Krasnoarmeysk, Donetsk region). Here he creates a chorus of workers, for which he writes his first works.
In 1917, with the proclamation of the Ukrainian People's Republic, Leontovich moved to Kyiv. Here he creates his first symphonic works, begins to write the opera On the Rusalchin Velikden. And after the Bolsheviks came to power, he left for Tulchin (now the regional center of the Vinnitsa region), where he founded a music school. In 1921, his life was tragically cut short: a Chekist who asked to spend the night with the composer robbed the house and shot the owner.
SHCHEDRIK IN METAL: Commemorative coin with notes of the famous carol
Kazimir Malevich
(1879-1935)
Painter
Art historians refer Kazimir Malevich, born in Kyiv, to the highest echelon of avant-garde artists, his exhibitions are hosted by the best museums on the planet, and his paintings become the top lots of auctions. So, in 2014, a retrospective of Malevich’s works was held at the famous British gallery Tate Modern, and a few years ago, his painting Suprematist Composition went under the hammer at Sotheby’s for $60 million. This is one of the record sales for an artist in the post-Soviet space.
Malevich, who extolled non-objective painting, founded its new direction - Suprematism - and became an influential art theorist. He devoted no less time to substantiating his works than to creating them, and during his lifetime he was recognized as one of the world's leading avant-garde artists. His exhibitions were held in Warsaw, Berlin, Vienna.
The artist, who often called himself a Ukrainian, was born into a Polish family in Kyiv and worked part of his life in the Ukrainian capital, where he first studied at the Kiev Drawing School, and later taught at the Kiev Art Institute. However, the most famous work of Malevich Black Square is in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.
BLACK SQUARE: Work by Kazimir Malevich 1915
Simon Petlyura
(1879-1926)
Political figure
Symon Petlyura, once a literary and theater critic, made a dizzying career: he became the head of the first revolutionary government of the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR). Previously, he headed the Ministry of Military Affairs of the UNR and was the organizer of the armed forces of the republic in 1918.
And Petlyura began his political career with journalism. During the First World War, he wrote the program article War and Ukrainians, in which he argued for the need to obtain greater political and cultural rights for compatriots within the Russian Empire.
“He is from the breed of leaders, a man from that dough that once, in the old days, dynasties were founded, and in our democratic time they become national heroes,” a contemporary wrote about Petliura.
During the peak of his political power, the unification of the UNR and the Western Ukrainian People's Republic took place. However, this political union soon fell apart. At the same time, Petlyura himself began a subtle diplomatic game with neighboring Poland, in which he saw an ally in the fight against Bolshevik Russia.
However, his plans were not destined to come true: he was forced to emigrate and ended up in Paris. On a sunny May day in 1926, he was shot on the street by an unknown person, presumably an NKVD agent.
Vladimir Vinnichenko
(1880-1951)
Political and public figure, writer
The three-volume memoirs of Volodymyr Vynnychenko Resurrection of the Nation are considered the most valuable source on the events of the Ukrainian revolution of 1917-1919. Vinnichenko held in his hands its most important threads.
He headed the first Ukrainian government, created in 1917 by the Central Rada, and was the main author of all declarations, universals and legislative acts of the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR). Vinnichenko also headed the directorate of the UNR, which replaced Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky. Even after emigrating in 1919 and never returning to Ukraine, Vynnichenko was looking for ways to influence what was happening in the country for a long time.
However, he himself often called literature, and not politics, his life's work. Vinnichenko, who worked in the style of psychological realism, masterfully succeeded not only in small genres - stories and short stories, but also in novels and dramas. The most famous of his plays, Black Panther and the White Bear, was filmed in Germany during the life of the writer, and also staged on the theater stage by his great contemporary, director Les Kurbas.
REVIVAL OF A NATION: The first edition of Vinnichenko's book, in which he analyzed the events in Ukraine in 1917-1919 and proposed further ways of developing the country
Alexandra Exter
(1882-1949)
Artist, set designer, graphic artist
Paris, London, Berlin, New York, Prague are just some of the cities where Alexandra Exter's solo exhibitions were held during her lifetime. She was one of the most notable avant-garde artists of her time, her bold experiments delighted the world and became one of the best examples of Suprematism and Cubo-Futurism.
The artist, who was educated at the Kiev Art School, continued it in Paris, where she entered the circle of the European creative elite. Since then, she has been a full participant in all first-class art shows in France and Italy, and since 1924 she has constantly lived abroad.
Exter is also known as a talented film and theater artist. As a set designer, for the first time she used the entire space of the theater stage, and the costumes she designed corresponded to the innovative spirit of stage and film productions of the early twentieth century.
VANGUARD: Costume design for the play Famira-kifared based on the play by Innokenty Annensky
Mikhail Boychuk
(1882-1937)
Painter
Mikhail Boychuk, the founder of the school of Ukrainian monumental painting, was born in the village of Romanovka near Ternopil in a family of simple peasants. However, he managed to get a brilliant education: with the money of the Taras Shevchenko Society and personally Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, he went to study at the Vienna Art Academy, and then graduated from Krakow. Then there was the Munich Academy, life in Paris and travels in Italy, where he also studied art.
In 2011, Boychuk returned to Ukraine, where he was invited to paint old churches after restoration. In 1917, Boychuk took part in the creation of the Kiev Art Academy, restored mosaics in St. Sophia Cathedral. However, the energy of the revolution brings the artist out of the temple to the street: he is fond of street propaganda, decorates the central squares of large cities and party congresses for the holidays.
At this time, Boychuk began to be called the Ukrainian Siqueiros - in honor of the great Mexican muralist. He has disciples and followers.
With the beginning of the Stalinist repressions, the authorities accuse the artist of bourgeois nationalism, since in his works he gravitated towards the Ukrainian theme. In 1937, Boychuk was arrested and executed for "espionage". Almost all of his works were destroyed.
YOUNG WOMAN: The work of Mikhail Boychuk miraculously survived, although it was cut up after the arrest and execution of the artist
On August 24, Ukraine celebrated 26 years of independence. And November 21 will mark the fourth anniversary of the start of the Euromaidan.
The last date divided the history of Ukraine into "before" and "after".
Ukraine before November 2013 and after - these are two completely different countries. Fundamentally different. And, one might say, even hostile to each other. By its concept, ideology, views on the past and on the future.
Therefore, the birthday of today's Ukraine is not August 24, but November 21. Just like the Soviet Union led its ancestry from November 7, 1917.
On November 7, 1917, the previous course of the history of Russia was refracted, and on November 21, 2013, the previous course of the history of Ukraine was refracted. Although, naturally, in both cases, long before the revolutionary events, their objective prerequisites matured in society, which made the turning point, if not predetermined, then quite probable.
In order to understand how this happened and what lies ahead for our country, we decided to analyze in detail all 25 years of Ukraine's independence.
Let's look to the past to see the future.
Year one. Independence as a Fruit of the Great Compromise
As early as the beginning of August 1991, there were few signs of the imminent proclamation of Ukraine's independence. Six months before that - on March 17, 1991 - a referendum was held, in which 70.2% of the inhabitants of the Ukrainian SSR voted for the preservation of the Soviet Union. The national movement was popular in Western Ukraine and in Kyiv, but even in the central regions, it was treated with caution, to put it mildly.
The Verkhovna Rada had a communist majority led by Oleksandr Moroz. The speaker was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk.
Everything changed within three days.
The putsch of the GKChP on August 19 and its subsequent failure led to a sharp rethinking by the party nomenklatura of the Ukrainian SSR of its attitude to the preservation of the Union. It was obvious that power in Moscow was gradually passing from Gorbachev to Russian President Boris Yeltsin and the USSR, together with the socialist system, was living its last days in its former form.
And therefore - is it not worth following the example of the Baltic states and declaring independence while there is such an opportunity? So as not to share power and state assets with the union center on the eve of their privatization?
This logic guided both the red directors of the southeast and the Kiev party apparatchiks. That is why, having united with the national forces, they voted for independence on August 24th. The compromise of these three groups, having gone through various transformations, became the foundation on which Ukraine lived until 2014.
It was this Compromise that became the progenitor of Ukrainian statehood. Which, thanks to him, was born without war and blood.
On December 1, more than 90% of the inhabitants of the republic voted for independence in a referendum. At the same time, Leonid Kravchuk was elected the first president.
Thus, the citizens of the new country, as it were, consecrated the Compromise, showing that they did not want drastic changes: in fact, they voted for the same Ukrainian SSR, but without the all-Union mess of the Gorbachev and perestroika era.
Year two. Compromise's strength test
The very first year of independence became the greatest test for Ukraine. The main blow was dealt to the economy. Since January 2, prices have gone into free float. The former socialist economic system began to rapidly collapse, but a normal market economy had not yet emerged. Chaos began, which was aggravated by the rupture of intra-union economic ties. The people quickly became poor.
In fairness, it should be recognized that Ukraine in this case was rather led. The main trend was set by the policy of shock therapy pursued by the Russian leadership. But for millions of Ukrainians, the onset of economic collapse began to be clearly associated with the country's independence.
In addition, since the autumn of 1992, a gap in the standard of living of Ukraine and Russia has become noticeable. In the latter, at the expense of funds from the export of oil and gas, it was possible to somewhat soften the blow of the reforms. In Ukraine, there were no such props.
Introduced in 1992, the coupon-karbovanets quickly depreciated.
This is what coupon-karbovanets looked like
The people murmured. Particularly noticeable fermentation was in the Crimea, where a sharp conflict began between Ukraine and Russia over the division of the Black Sea Fleet, which coincided with the growth of pro-Russian sentiment.
The peninsula gradually became a potential hotspot.
In parallel, Kyiv began an active Ukrainization of the humanitarian sphere. An attempt was made to separate the Ukrainian parishes from the Russian Orthodox Church, which was only partially successful and led to a split in Ukrainian Orthodoxy and a series of acute conflicts.
Against this background, Kravchuk tried to restore the shattered Compromise by nominating Leonid Kuchma, one of the leaders of the red directorate of the southeast, to the post of prime minister. He is remembered for his appeal to Parliament with a call to say what he should build. As well as words about the need to restore order and search for a common language with Russia.
But that didn't help much.
Year three. Crisis and Return to Compromise
Economically, 1993 became even worse than the previous one. It was then that hyperinflation was recorded in Ukraine - prices rose by 10,000%. In June, a strike of miners in Donbass began, which grew into mass protests in the region. The formal reason was another jump in prices.
The conflict for power between the Dnepropetrovsk clan (led by Kuchma) and the Donetsk clan (led by the mayor of Donetsk Yefim Zvyagilsky) was then called informal. Then, in fact, the country spoke about these clans for the first time.
Miners' strike in Donetsk
But in reality, the significance of those events was much broader. The demands of the strikers were not only anti-government, but also, by today's standards, separatist. Even then, in the Donbass, they called for economic independence and autonomy, to restore ties with Russia.
Together with the growing pro-Russian movement in Crimea, as well as the growing socio-economic problems, this has become a critical challenge for Ukrainian independence. At that time, there were many calls in the Kiev media to strangle the "Donetsk rebellion" (in the language of our time - to start the ATO back in 1993).
But Kravchuk and his entourage then judged otherwise. They went to Compromise. Efim Zvyagilsky was appointed First Deputy Prime Minister (and soon acting Prime Minister - Kuchma did not want to work with him and resigned). The protests have subsided.
In the same year, a temporary agreement was concluded with Russia on the basing of the Black Sea Fleet in the Crimea, which reduced the intensity of passions on the peninsula.
In domestic politics, a rule was gradually established: the Russian-speaking southeast (primarily the Donetsk and Dnepropetrovsk clans competing with each other) is in charge of the economy and business, while the humanitarian sphere was left to the nationalists.
Severe merchants and red directors of the southeast felt like the real masters of the country and looked down on strange people in embroidered shirts who were engaged in the Ukrainization of education, rewriting history textbooks and other matters of little importance from the point of view of strong business executives.
It is curious that the first coming of the Donetsk people to power was marked by the first temporary stabilization of the economy. Zvyagilsky's government gradually lowered inflation, agreed with Russia on energy supplies, and began to put things in order in the sphere of public administration. Although the socio-economic situation of the country remained the most difficult. The people vegetated in poverty, corruption and banditry were rampant.
Returning to the events of the summer of 1993, it should be recognized that if the central government then decided on a military option against Donbass, then Ukraine would no longer exist within its current borders. The beginning of armed clashes, against the backdrop of the peak of the most acute socio-economic crisis, would inevitably lead to the disintegration of the state and the immersion of its fragments into long years of chaos and anarchy.
But then the country managed to move away from the brink.
Year four. Registration of the state
In 1994, Ukraine signed one of the most important agreements in its history - the Budapest Memorandum on the renunciation of nuclear weapons. This decision at that time removed the tension around our country. Although, as subsequent events showed, the states that signed the memorandum did not in reality become guarantors of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. But more on that later.
In domestic politics, 1994 was an election year. Early elections of the Supreme Soviet were held in March. For many in Kyiv, their results were a shock - representatives of the revived Communist Party and the socialists of Alexander Moroz won in many districts (after the elections, he became the speaker of parliament).
The "Reds" went to the polls under the simple slogan "And under the communists, it was possible to drink and eat." Plus they promised to be friends with Russia. Against the backdrop of the economic and humanitarian catastrophe that had occurred by that time in Ukraine, these "messages" were in great demand.
The trend was caught by Leonid Kuchma, who was in disgrace. He went to the subsequent presidential elections under the slogans of the fight against corruption and with a poster "Ukraine and Russia: less rivers, more bridges." He was actively supported by Russian television.
Kuchma defeated Kravchuk in the second round.
True, it immediately became clear that he would not be a pro-Russian president.
In the summer-autumn of 1994, Kuchma, through intrigues, first split and multiplied by zero the Russian-oriented leadership of Crimea, headed by Meshkov and Tsekov. Meshkov lost his post of president of Crimea in March 1995, but already before that he had turned into an undecided figure.
From then until February 2014, pro-Russian forces on the peninsula were completely marginalized.
At the same time, Kuchma tried not to make any sharp attacks against Moscow, establishing a strong male friendship with Yeltsin and Russian Prime Minister Chernomyrdin. In parallel, establishing contacts with the West and the IMF.
Later, this policy was called "multi-vector policy". A kind of geopolitical Compromise, which allowed Ukraine to exist relatively conflict-free in a not very simple environment.
Year five. Final course selection
Having stabilized the foreign policy situation around Ukraine and put out the hot spots inside the country, Kuchma also decided on the internal course, which marked the vector of the state's development for many years to come.
The key issue was ownership. Although privatization began back in 1993, it was neither shaky nor bumpy.
Therefore, in 1995 there was a choice of strategy. There were three options. The first is to turn back and follow the path of state capitalism, along which Alexander Lukashenko led Belarus. The second is to embark on the Eastern European path by letting large Western corporations into the country. The third is to prefer the Russian path, placing a bet on the cultivation of their own financial and industrial groups.
Kuchma chose the third option. Moreover, it was the most logical from the point of view of the business-industrial environment that actually ruled Ukraine.
This decision had far-reaching consequences. On the one hand, it allowed the creation of large national capital, which, having passed the turbulent stage of its birth, gradually began to restore the industrial potential of the state to life, invest in the development of the economy, create jobs (thanks to which, until 2014, Ukraine was able to avoid the total deindustrialization that occurred many Eastern European countries).
On the other hand, in an effort to protect themselves from competition with more powerful Russian and Western financial-industrial groups, the oligarchs erected powerful corruption barriers, establishing a close link with the authorities, using it to minimize taxes and maximize profits.
Therefore, when Western partners are now complaining about corruption and how much more Ukraine needs to do to become a "normal European country", they mean precisely the presence of a problem in the face of large national capital, which does not want to let competitors into its hunting field and lives by the principle "Texas should be robbed by Texans."
Also, the presence of national capital created an economic basis for a multi-vector policy (the oligarchs were interested in normal relations with both the West and Russia). And, after this policy died in 2014, the political and economic system created under Kuchma found itself in a deep crisis.
But back to 1995.
If the so-called loans-for-shares auctions played a key role in the creation of the largest Russian financial-industrial groups, the Ukrainian oligarchy had a more exotic way of being born.
It was born from complex gas-credit schemes. When a private gas trading company was given the right to supply gas to a particular enterprise. Then it was entangled with debts, on account of which the trader took the products. And, over time, completely established control over its financial and economic activities. A little later, this control was formalized through uncompetitive privatization.
Year six. Constitution and Lazarenko
Already in 1996, this scheme almost led to the emergence of a mega-corporation that brought key sectors of the Ukrainian economy under its control. We are talking about the Dnepropetrovsk company "United Energy Systems of Ukraine" (UESU).
It was headed by Yulia Tymoshenko, and was patronized by the former governor of the Dnepropetrovsk region, Pavel Lazarenko, who was appointed prime minister in 1996.
Pavel Lazarenko
True, the UESU did not establish this control immediately. Its biggest competitors were representatives of the Donetsk business, who established the Industrial Union of Donbass (ISD) corporation specifically to work on the gas market.
But soon the "Donetsk" were eliminated from the road.
First, back in 1995, an authoritative person and the president of FC Shakhtar Akhat Bragin (also known as Alik Grek) was killed by an explosion at the Shakhtar stadium in Donetsk. In the spring, one of the founders of the ISD, Alexander Momot, was shot. Soon the governor of the region, Vladimir Shcherban, was dismissed from his post, and in the fall of that year, his namesake and informal leader of the "Donetsk clan" Yevgeny Shcherban was killed right at the airport.
After all these events, the UESU became the main player in the gas market, and Lazarenko began to be seen as the main competitor to Kuchma in the struggle for power in the state.
However, Kuchma also achieved some success in the same year - he managed to push the Constitution through the Verkhovna Rada, which increased his powers and turned Ukraine into a presidential-parliamentary republic with a dominant role of the head of state.
The emergence of such a powerful institution of the presidency has led to the fact that every election has become a real battle of destruction.
Moreover, a battle without rules, which played a negative role in the subsequent history of the country.
Year seven. The fall of Lazarenko, the political start of Tymoshenko and Yanukovych
1997 was marked by several significant events. First, the expansion of Lazarenko and the UESU united a variety of forces against them, including Kuchma himself.
In the summer, the all-powerful prime minister was dismissed and literally immediately went into opposition.
Fortunately, the election campaign to parliament began and Lazarenko headed the Gromada party. Yulia Timoshenko became his closest associate. It was in 1997 that the whole country learned about it.
Pavel Lazarenko and Yulia Timoshenko
Ukraine recognized that year and one more person - Viktor Yanukovych. He was appointed governor of the Donetsk region by Kuchma. The appointment was not accidental.
Preparing for the war with Lazarenko, the president decided to reinforce the "Donetsk" ones again. The murdered Bragin and Shcherban were replaced by a new generation of reputable businessmen, among whom the key role was played by Rinat Akhmetov (who inherited the post of president of FC Shakhtar from Akhat Bragin) and Vitaliy Gayduk (the former deputy governor of Shcherban, one of the ideologists of the creation of the ISD). Yanukovych was a figure close to both.
After the resignation of Lazarenko, the UESU business empire was crushed within a matter of months.
The Dnipropetrovsk corporation was deprived of the right to supply gas to enterprises. This sinecure was distributed among other companies, which then became the backbone of the formation of the largest business groups in Ukraine.
Secondly, the Great Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between Ukraine and Russia was concluded. He recorded the absence of territorial claims of the two states to each other, removed the issue of the status of Crimea and Sevastopol. By a separate agreement, Ukraine leased the base of the Black Sea Fleet to Russia for 20 years.
This agreement, as it were, emphasized the final post-Soviet normalization and stabilization of relations between the two countries. Ukraine did not join the Union with Russia, like Belarus, but was ready to be friends in all directions.
Thirdly, under the patronage of the Americans, an association of CIS countries was created under the code name GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova). These states were not averse to playing their own, different from Russia, geopolitical role in the post-Soviet space. In particular, in terms of transporting Caspian energy resources to Europe, bypassing the Russian Federation.
This was the first sign that Ukraine was included in the big world game, in which it could not be on the same side with Russia.
However, the unsteadiness of the unification itself and the upheavals of the following years then diverted attention from this issue.
In general, 1997 was remembered for a long time as the calmest year in the "dashing 90s". Introduced in 1996, the hryvnia was stable at 1.8 per dollar. Inflation dropped to single digits.
The first Ukrainian since the collapse of the Union - Leonid Kadenyuk - flew into space.
And on the surface of the Earth at that time, Dynamo Kiev, led by the returned Valery Lobanovsky, smashed Barcelona and Eindhoven. Europe recognized the name of Andriy Shevchenko.
Year eight. Elections and default
In the spring, the first party elections were held in Ukraine. Half of the parliament is elected according to party lists, but even this is enough for television screens to be flooded with videos of little-known but wealthy political forces - the SDPU (o), the Green Party, the pro-government NDP, the PSPU of Natalia Vitrenko and Pavel Lazarenko's Hromada.
All of them go to parliament, taking 4-5%. However, the old parties remain the favorites: the SPU (in alliance with the Peasant Party), the People's Movement and the undisputed leader - the Communist Party, which won a quarter of all votes.
With her support, the leader of the Peasant Party, Alexander Tkachenko, becomes the speaker.
The apparent stability of 1997 and the first half of 1998 ended with a crisis that remained in Ukrainian history as a default.
In fact, we did not have a default - it was in Russia, where the ruble exchange rate collapsed from 6 to 30 per dollar. We have experienced "only" a two-fold fall - from 2 to 4 hryvnia per dollar.
Pavel Lazarenko, having entered parliament, starts a war against the president, who reciprocates: in the fall, the newspaper Vseukrainskie Vedomosti, which is close to the oligarch, was closed, and in December, Gromada split into groups of Lazarenko and Tymoshenko - it decided to make peace with Kuchma separately.
In parallel, the process of formation of domestic business continues. The latter, through credit schemes and privatization, becomes the owner of the largest enterprises.
Western companies that were aiming to participate in the sale of shares of energy companies are flying by.
In the West, they are increasingly writing about total corruption, the establishment of the authoritarian regime of Kuchma, and they complain that Ukraine has taken a completely different path than the countries of Eastern Europe.
Year nine. Kuchma-2
Leonid Kuchma ran for a second term in 1999 in very poor conditions. A crisis raged in the country, the people became impoverished and sat without salaries.
The oligarchs solved the issue of the initial accumulation of capital through the theft of budgetary funds and the ruin of still state-owned enterprises. Naturally, nobody paid taxes.
The project is hindered by two - the leader of the socialists Alexander Moroz and the head of the "Narodny Rukh" Vyacheslav Chernovol. Rukh by that time had already split into two parts, but Chernovol remained popular in the West of the country. And, in the case of his campaign for the elections, he could confuse the cards for Kuchma's team.
But in March, Chernovol suddenly dies in a car accident.
In the meantime, a dirty struggle is being waged around Moroz: he gathers the "Kanev Four" (Moroz, Tkachenko, Marchuk and the current emigrant Vladimir Oleinik), which should nominate a single candidate, but the four fall apart, and everyone plays for himself (and Kuchma turns out to be the winner) .
In October, in Kryvyi Rih, an attempt was made on Natalya Vitrenko, in which Moroz is accused. The accusation is not confirmed by anything, but it plays its role: Kuchma and Simonenko go to the second round.
Kuchma wins. Then there was a lot of talk about the total falsification of the elections, but the communist leader did not dispute the victory.
Almost all leading FIGs have bet on the victory of the incumbent president. They were just completing the process of consolidating assets, creating their own media.
And, in exchange for Kuchma's support, they were promised a green light in all directions. The process of creating national capital was entering its final stage.
Year ten. Death of Gongadze
On January 1, 2000, a significant part of Ukrainians is in a hurry to celebrate the beginning of a new century, although it will begin only in a year.
But the new economic age for Ukraine really began in 2000: for the first time after almost 10 years of recession, the economy began to grow.
For the most part, this was facilitated by the devaluation of the hryvnia, which by that time had fallen to 5.5 per dollar, as well as the economic growth that had begun in neighboring Russia and other CIS countries.
But for many, all these successes were associated with the new prime minister - Viktor Yushchenko, who was appointed to this position at the end of 1999.
In the 1990s, he served as head of the National Bank and established close contacts with Western structures.
Viktor Yushchenko
By that time, Ukraine faced the acute issue of restructuring its external debt.
Relations with the West, after the controversial election of Kuchma, were bad, and the latter, in order to restore dialogue, decided to appoint Yushchenko as prime minister. According to legend, this was strongly recommended to him from Washington.
At first, Yushchenko was not taken seriously. But he, as it were, began to accumulate the expectations of many Ukrainians on his own.
Especially since Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko developed a stormy activity. She declared war on barter-offset schemes in the energy sector and positioned herself as an ardent opponent of the oligarchs.
All this, unexpectedly for many, turned Yushchenko into an alternative figure to Kuchma. The West also provided serious support to Viktor Andreevich.
Since the middle of 2000, there have been rumors that the US sees the prime minister as Kuchma's successor as president.
However, Kuchma had his own plans in this regard. Back in April 2000, he held a referendum where the people voted to amend the Constitution to expand the powers of the head of state.
He then demanded that Parliament implement its results by amending the Basic Law. If this happened, Kuchma would have established complete control over the Verkhovna Rada, which would have opened the way for him to a third term, which began to be actively discussed that same year.
Another important point: since the summer of 2000, very close contact has been established between Kuchma and the new Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
In autumn, for the first time, a proposal was made to create an international consortium to manage the Ukrainian gas transmission system. Rumors were spreading throughout the country that closer integration processes were possible.
It was also said that the Yushchenko-Tymoshenko government, which has already broken pots with many influential people in the country and enjoys too obvious support from the West, is about to be dismissed.
Even the name of the new prime minister, the head of the State Tax Administration Mykola Azarov, was mentioned. He had to change course. But that did not happen.
There was a cassette scandal.
Back in September, Georgiy Gongadze, editor-in-chief of the Ukrayinska Pravda website, became aware of the disappearance.
And already in November, Alexander Moroz published the legendary "Melnichenko's tapes", which indirectly allow accusing Kuchma of Gongadze's murder.
There are many versions of who is behind the cassette scandal. Who actually helped Major Melnichenko record Kuchma, who and why provoked the president against Gongadze.
This is a topic for a separate study. We can still state the obvious consequences.
Kuchma is beginning to turn into a pariah for the international community. His plan for the third term was buried. Viktor Yushchenko is being promoted to the forefront of Ukrainian politics with the support of the West. Ukraine is turning into a field for a big geopolitical battle. The country entered a period of great upheaval.
It was then that many subsequent events were predetermined. First of all, the countdown to the Maidan began.
Year eleven. The stakes are rising
The cassette scandal fell on prepared ground. Kuchma during his reign managed to make numerous enemies, who now all together raised their heads. The main thing was that now there was something to fight for: for Kuchma to leave as soon as possible and give way to Yushchenko.
In particular, George Soros urged him to do this in plain text.
Protests began on the streets of Kyiv - "Ukraine without Kuchma." There was a tent city of protesters. But the president was not going to give up.
Action "Ukraine without Kuchma"
In February, the tent city was dispersed. On March 9, violent (at that time) clashes between the participants of the action "Ukraine without Kuchma" and the police took place.
The protesters were dispersed and mass arrests began.
All this time, Yushchenko showed no support for the protesters. On the contrary, together with Kuchma and speaker Plyushch, he condemned them, calling them fascists. Viktor Andreevich was then convinced that the president would nominate him as his successor anyway. The main thing is not to climb on the rampage.
However, such "collaborationism" does not save the prime minister: in April, parliament passes a vote of no confidence in him.
What is characteristic - the day before he came into conflict with Ukrainian business groups, trying to remove them from participation in the privatization of oblenergos. But "national capital" decided to show Yushchenko who is the boss in the country.
However, the resignation of the prime minister and the end of the protests did not mean that political life returned to a calm course. The Ukrainian politicians began to actively prepare for the elections to the Rada in the spring of 2002.
A significant part of the elite is defecting to Yushchenko, forming the Our Ukraine bloc with him. The ideology of the future president is being created - the European choice, the fight against corruption.
Kuchma hastily gathers his bloc "For a United Ukraine". A separate column is the SDPU (o) party headed by Viktor Medvedchuk.
Meeting between Vladimir Putin and Leonid Kuchma in 2001
The West is increasingly attacking Kuchma. The accusations come one after another. In the eyes of the world community, he becomes a politician like Milosevic. In response, the president turns to Russia. Contact with Putin is getting stronger.
With all this, the economy continues to show steady growth - more than 10%. Inflation is falling and people's incomes are rising.
Year twelve. The scenario is predetermined
The 2002 elections ended unsuccessfully for Kuchma. According to party lists, "Our Ukraine" took the first place. With a small margin from it were the Communists. The "For a United Ukraine" bloc, headed by the head of the presidential administration, Volodymyr Lytvyn, was only third, gaining almost two times less than the Yushchenko bloc (and that only due to the fact that it was actively supported by the "Donetsk people", ensuring a good result in your region).
The opposition Socialist Party and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc also entered the Rada.
After the elections, it became finally clear that Kuchma's third term was an unrealizable dream and the guarantor had to make a choice.
Either really crown Yushchenko as his heir, to which the West and part of the elite were pushing him, or nominate another successor, or, as some political strategists suggested, amend the Constitution, transforming Ukraine into a parliamentary republic, devaluing the significance of the presidency.
Kuchma rejected the first option. He did not trust Yushchenko, moreover, he was considered a protege of the West, which was unacceptable for the "multi-vector" Ukrainian business.
However, Kuchma did not trust not only Yushchenko, but no one at all. Therefore, he also did not want to go to the second option. In the end, it was decided to go for the "third way".
The signal for its implementation, as well as for the impossibility of a compromise with Yushchenko, was the appointment of the enemy of Our Ukraine leader Viktor Medvedchuk as head of the Presidential Administration. The latter became the main ideologist and technologist for amending the Constitution.
In order to prevent a possible alliance between the "Donetsk" and Yushchenko (which was possible on the basis of their common dislike for Medvedchuk), Viktor Yanukovych was appointed to the post of prime minister.
But then, for the reasons described above, no one perceived him as Kuchma's successor. Moreover, the story of his two convictions became known to the whole country.
Having come to the conclusion that a soft option with a "Yushchenko-successor" does not work, the West stepped up pressure on Kuchma.
Back in the spring, a scandal began with the supply of the Ukrainian air defense system "Kolchuga" to Iraq, about which there was allegedly evidence on Melnichenko's tapes. This caused a strong reaction from the United States, although the Ukrainian authorities argued that there were no supplies (which, as it turned out later, turned out to be true).
But Bankova was not inactive either. Ever since the elections to the Rada, a massive campaign to discredit Viktor Yushchenko has begun.
He was portrayed as a Ukrainian nationalist, Bandera, who hates Russian speakers and wants to sell Ukraine to the West. The Russian media also actively participated in this campaign, and Russian political technologists, headed by Marat Gelman, became one of the main strategists in the Presidential Administration.
The scenario for the future battle in 2002 was actually predetermined: a war between Viktor Yushchenko and the then Ukrainian government, with the active use of the topic of splitting the country and with large-scale support from the West and Russia from both sides, respectively.
True, there was a chance, if not to avoid, then at least to soften the intensity of this battle - to actually carry out a political reform, reducing the president's powers. Under the sign of these attempts, the whole next year passed.
Year thirteen. Constitution and Tuzla
2003 was a successful year for the economy. GDP growth amounted to almost 10%. The rise in activity was recorded in all sectors of the Ukrainian economy.
Entrepreneurs demonstrated optimism and believed in a brighter future. Optimism (at least in terms of consumer sentiment) gradually returned to ordinary Ukrainians. People start talking about Ukraine as a new "economic tiger".
The sources of growth were the same: the increase in world prices for the main export commodities, the rise of the Russian market (the main one for Ukrainian exports), the presence of underutilized industrial capacities, the increase in household incomes, and low gas prices (thanks to a long-term contract with Russia).
Relations with the Russian Federation generally developed quite rapidly this year. Kuchma and Putin agreed to set up a tripartite consortium to manage the gas transmission system (the third party was to be Germany, where Putin's friend Schroeder was Chancellor at the time). It was also announced the creation of a Common Economic Space, which could include Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus.
True, both projects remained on paper. And not only because of the opposition of the Americans, but also because of the unwillingness of Kuchma and the Ukrainian elite to share their influence in the country with the Russians. Good relations with the Kremlin were important to them in order to fend off Yushchenko and the West, but nothing more.
Multi-vector - first of all.
Therefore, as soon as Kiev had the opportunity to improve relations with the Americans by sending its contingent to Iraq, Kuchma immediately did it.
Tuzla Spit
That same year, for the first time since the early 1990s, the issue of Crimea came up. There was a famous conflict around the island of Kos Tuzla, to which Russia began to build a dam. As the Kremlin later explained, the reason for such actions was allegedly Ukraine's plans to give permission to warships of third countries (read - NATO countries) to enter the waters of the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov.
The conflict was then quickly hushed up, and the decision on the ships was never made. But the "Tuzla crisis" showed that against the backdrop of growing contradictions between the United States and Russia, the Kremlin is ready to respond extremely harshly to any issues related to relations between Ukraine and NATO. Although then at this moment, like many others, few people in Kyiv paid attention.
In domestic politics, the pro-government camp plunged into endless intrigues and internecine wars, which prevented the implementation of the strategic task - pushing changes to the Constitution through parliament. This process has seriously stalled.
It was covertly sabotaged by "Donetsk", hoping to push Yanukovych to the presidency, and openly - "Our Ukraine" and Yushchenko (for obvious reasons).
True, Moroz was among the supporters of the political reform. Only at the end of the year, with a big scandal, the changes managed to be voted in the first reading.
Year fourteen. The first Maidan and the third Great Compromise
The story of the political reform ended in failure already in April 2004, when only seven votes were not enough for its adoption in the final reading.
It was a shock for the president's team, which ended up with nothing - they didn't have a ready successor. Therefore, we had to quickly rely on the only one who was at hand with the highest rating of all the candidates from the government - Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.
It was a fatal decision. Yanukovych was the most convenient opponent for Yushchenko, since the opposition could easily mobilize its electorate against a pro-government candidate with two convictions. In addition, many representatives of the Ukrainian elite treated the ex-governor of the Donetsk region semi-contemptuously, and it was difficult to build a united front in his support.
But, on the other hand, Kuchma had no choice - there was very little time left before the start of the election campaign, and attempts to replace Yanukovych as prime minister and, accordingly, a candidate from the authorities in the elections, could cause a riot of "Donetsk" and their transition to the camp of supporters Yushchenko.
From the very beginning, everything went according to the worst-case scenario.
Yanukovych was quickly given the image of a convict and a candidate who is even worse than Kuchma. Yushchenko launched a vigorous campaign. Many representatives of the Ukrainian elite began to secretly bet on him, not believing in Yanukovych's victory.
But the hopes of Yushchenko's political technologists for an easy walk through the electoral field did not come true.
They underestimated the impact of the anti-nationalist campaign against the leader of Our Ukraine. Instead of trying to refute it, they indulged it in many ways, trying to mobilize the Western Ukrainian electorate with the theme of the "national idea."
The flip side of this was the mobilization of the southeastern voter.
The largest mass media, reluctantly, but joined this campaign, showing videos "about three varieties of Ukrainians", into which Yushchenko allegedly wants to divide the country.
In response, the supporters of the latter began to create an image of the enemy from the “Donetsk”, painting the inhabitants of this region entirely as bandits.
The economy worked into the hands of Yanukovych, as well as some effective steps taken by his government. So, since the beginning of the year, following the example of Russia, Ukraine introduced a single income tax rate - 13%, instead of the progressive one with a minimum of 20% and a maximum of 40%.
GDP growth rates hit a record - 13%. Never before or since has the Ukrainian economy grown at such a pace.
Since autumn, pensions and other social payments have been sharply raised.
All this led to the fact that already in September the ratings of Yanukovych and Yushchenko became equal. It became clear that the elections would not go smoothly. Russia openly played on the side of the prime minister, and the West played on the side of the leader of the opposition.
Both sides created the image of an enemy out of a political competitor, playing off their supporters.
The first round of elections ended in a draw. During the second round, the opposition announced massive falsifications with the help of absentee ballots (they really took place) and did not recognize the victory of Yanukovych announced by the CEC.
Maidan gathered in Kyiv. Moreover, unlike previous protest actions, it became truly massive.
At once, at least 100 thousand people came out, a tent city was set up.
Orange Maidan
The regional councils and city councils of the center and west of the country (including the Kyiv City Council) did not recognize Yanukovych's victory. The capital was in the hands of Yushchenko's protesters. Kuchma did not want to use force to disperse them.
In parallel, the Supreme Court accepted for consideration a claim to declare the elections invalid. And after several days of hearings, the verdict was announced: to appoint a re-vote of the second round of elections (in fact, the third round of elections).
Seeing the worsening situation in Kyiv, Yanukovych's supporters gathered for the famous congress in Severodonetsk, where they threatened to secede the southeast from Ukraine. Russia supported these actions in every possible way.
The country was on the brink of civil war.
Saved from her again by the Great Compromise. In the form of the same political reform. A deal was made.
Supporters of Kuchma and Yanukovych agree to "merge" the third round of elections in favor of Yushchenko (for which the CEC was reorganized). In response, Our Ukraine agreed to vote for changes to the Constitution, which, from January 1, 2006, reduced the powers of the future president.
This proved to be a strategic decision that prevented war. Unfortunately, not forever. And just 10 years...
Year fifteen. Trying to destroy the Great Compromise
At the beginning of 2005, after the inauguration of Viktor Yushchenko, no one in his entourage believed that he had made any concessions or compromises.
Everyone quickly forgot about the fact that the political reform would come into force on January 1, 2006, as there was confidence that everyone would be able to win over in a year.
And there really were reasons for this.
Enormous international support (the whole world learned about Ukraine during the Orange Revolution, and our country was at the peak of popularity), a high level of trust (or rather, expectations) of the population, the readiness of even former enemies (Yanukovych's support groups) to swear allegiance to the new president - all it was optimistic.
But Yushchenko made two key mistakes. First, he immediately began to destroy the Great Compromise, on which Ukraine has been based since 1991-1993. He immediately abandoned the multi-vector policy, declaring a course towards integration into the EU and NATO.
Inside the country, Yushchenko emphasized "national revival" (in his understanding, of course), which resulted in the planting of Sharovarshchina, attempts to speed up the Ukrainization of the humanitarian sphere.
The increased glorification of the OUN-UPA began, the state apparatus was actively working to create a single local church and support the Kiev Patriarchate. Against this background, relations with Russia began to deteriorate rapidly.
With the Donbass, the new president behaved emphatically arrogantly. During his first visit to Donetsk, where the local elite was already ready to faithfully serve Yushchenko and establish communication with him, he was rude to people right during a meeting in the regional administration.
His phrase "before you is the president, and not a shepherd of geese is standing."
In other words, Yushchenko did everything to confirm the main theses of Viktor Yanukovych's election propaganda.
That is why Viktor Fedorovich, who had already been written off in early 2005, did not lose his electorate, and since the fall, when the crisis in the "orange camp" began, he began to rapidly increase his popularity.
Yushchenko's second major mistake was the appointment of Yulia Tymoshenko as prime minister.
Although this was spelled out in a special agreement, according to which Tymoshenko supported Yushchenko in the elections, the president had to calculate the risks of appointing the ambitious and uncontrollable Lady Yu to the second most important post in the country.
But he did not calculate, for which he soon paid dearly.
Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko
Tymoshenko did not become Yushchenko's assistant in governing the state, but immediately became his main competitor. The new prime minister drew attention to herself, created the impression that it was she who was carrying out reforms, and the president’s entourage (in which she appointed NSDC Secretary Petro Poroshenko as the main enemy) was sabotaging them for corruption reasons.
By the summer, this led to an open conflict between Tymoshenko and the president and his people (the so-called "love friends").
This conflict paralyzed the state system. The declared reforms were not carried out, all the energy was spent on mutual disassembly.
All this could not last long, and the explosion occurred in September.
It all started with a press conference of the head of the Presidential Secretariat Alexander Zinchenko, who accused Petro Poroshenko and other "any friends" of corruption, and ended with Tymoshenko's resignation from the post of prime minister. Lady Yu went into open and ruthless opposition to Yushchenko, the big "orange coalition" was destroyed.
A special memorandum was signed between the president and the "opposition leader" (that's how he was called in the document) Viktor Yanukovych, which marked the collapse of Yushchenko's and the new "orange power" attempts to destroy the Great Compromise.
In subsequent years, there were still some encroachments in this direction, but they could no longer have any success.
Strategically, the end was set precisely in the fall of 2005. At the same time, a "triune" landscape of Ukrainian politics was formed, which remained unchanged until the 2010 presidential elections.
There is President Yushchenko, who has lost a lot of influence and popularity. And there are two main contenders for the role of his successor - Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovych.
Year sixteen. Yanukovych is prime minister again, the first conflicts with Russia, the beginning of the story with NATO
Already in the fall of 2005, after the crisis with the resignation of Tymoshenko and the signing of a memorandum with Yanukovych, it became clear that Yushchenko did not have the strength to stop the political reform from January 1, 2006 from coming into force.
What happened.
Changes to the Constitution sharply reduced the powers of the president. The government was no longer formed by the head of state, but by parliament. But in reality, these changes should have taken effect after the elections to the Verkhovna Rada, which were scheduled for March 2006.
These elections were the first to be held according to a purely proportional system (party lists), and in them the "orange" political forces reaped the fruits of their split.
The first place was taken by the Party of Regions of Viktor Yanukovych - more than 32%. BYuT lagged far behind - just over 22%. "Our Ukraine" Viktor Yushchenko was only third - about 15%. The Socialist Party of Oleksandr Moroz and the Communist Party also passed.
A lengthy bidding for a coalition began. It was whispered on the sidelines that Yushchenko and the Party of Regions would try to create a so-called "broad coalition" in order to overcome the split of the country (as an official pretext).
But these plans were actively torpedoed by Yulia Tymoshenko, who insisted on the restoration of a purely "orange" coalition consisting of the BYuT, Our Ukraine and the Socialist Party. At the same time, she naturally saw herself in the prime minister's chair.
Yushchenko's protracted hesitation was put an end to by the Americans, who in June recommended that he still agree to an "orange" coalition (more on the motives for this below).
Reluctantly, the president was forced to take this step, but due to the mutual distrust of the negotiators, the process stalled again, which was immediately taken advantage of by the regionals.
They managed to convince the Socialist Party to form a coalition with the Party of Regions and the Communists. Frost got the post of speaker. The ill-wishers said that the socialists were paid a large amount of money, but it should be recognized that objectively everything went towards the creation of a coalition in which the Regions would participate as the largest faction of the Rada. It was a social trend. And if Our Ukraine was not included in it, then one should not be surprised that the socialists were included.
Yushchenko tried to jump into the departing train. Formally preventing the Our Ukraine team from joining the coalition, he agreed with the Party of Regions to keep several positions in the government for his people.
The Universal of National Unity was signed, where the idea was carried out in confusing terms about the need to overcome the split of the country. Yushchenko introduced Yanukovych's candidacy for the post of prime minister. And the Parliament approved it in July.
For about two months, there was a semblance of interaction between the president and the prime minister, although the Regions very quickly put the entire government apparatus under their control. And the remaining presidential people in the Cabinet (including, for example, Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko) felt extremely uncomfortable there.
The situation exploded in September.
The main, and, in fact, the only reason for this was Viktor Yanukovych's refusal to sign Ukraine's application for joining the NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP), which paved the way for the country to join the Alliance.
A small digression is needed here. When Yushchenko and Yanukovych signed a memorandum in the fall of 2005, it concerned the restoration of the Great Compromise only in domestic politics.
At the same time, Yushchenko believed that he had no obligation to return to a compromise in foreign policy (that is, to a multi-vector approach).
On the contrary, since the beginning of 2006, the president has stepped up the Euro-Atlantic and anti-Russian vector. So, on New Year's Eve, the first gas war between Ukraine and Russia began. Gas transit to Europe was temporarily suspended.
The war ended with the defeat of Ukraine - the former, beneficial for the country, long-term gas supply agreement was terminated, according to which the price of blue fuel was fixed until 2010 at $50 per thousand cubic meters. And under the new contract, the price immediately almost doubled (and then continued to grow every year).
In early 2006, Yushchenko tried to interrupt Yulia Tymoshenko's campaign on the topic "Yushchenko and his beloved friends betrayed the Maidan", pedaling the theme of confrontation with Russia. The situation around the objects of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation in Crimea escalated, the blockade of Transnistria began.
But that was not the point. There was an agreement with the Americans that in 2006 Ukraine would apply for the MAP.
That is why Washington did not want Yushchenko to form a coalition with the Regions, because he did not believe that they would agree to open the way for the country to join NATO (the anti-NATO theme was one of the main ones in the PR rhetoric).
But after long negotiations with Yanukovych, Yushchenko apparently decided that he had convinced him to support the course towards Euro-Atlantic integration, and therefore agreed to his premiership.
However, they probably did not understand each other. And when the time came to sign the MAP application, Yanukovych refused to do so.
The crisis erupted almost immediately. Yushchenko condemned the refusal. Then people from the presidential quota were gradually removed from the government. The new head of the Presidential Secretariat, Viktor Baloga, began to prepare forces for an attack on the Yanukovych government. At the same time, for the first time, they started talking about the dissolution of parliament.
In turn, the regionals began to lure away some of the deputies from the BYuT and Our Ukraine, trying to bring the coalition to 300 people so that it would be possible to overcome the president's veto.
It should be noted that, despite the permanent political crisis, the economy, after the fall of 2005, again increased its growth rates, household incomes also grew rapidly, and the Ukrainian football team led by Oleg Blokhin first got to the World Cup and immediately reached the quarterfinals.
Many looked to the future with optimism. Popular was the idea that Ukraine was becoming a normal country, in which politics by itself, and the economy by itself.
Year seventeen. Dissolution of parliament, new crisis and new compromise
The crisis in relations between Yanukovych and Yushchenko grew throughout the first months of 2007 and ended with the dissolution of the Verkhovna Rada.
Alexander Moroz later said that the main reason for this was the unwillingness of him and Yanukovych to support the course of integration into NATO (which the Americans demanded).
Perhaps it was.
But Yulia Tymoshenko, who skillfully played on the contradictions between the prime minister and the president, acted as the main internal engine of the process. The political reform of 2004 gave rise to these contradictions, giving power to the prime minister, but allowing the president to block the decisions of the government and parliament indefinitely.
Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych
After that, Tymoshenko began to besiege Yushchenko, demanding that he dissolve parliament. The grounds were extremely dubious (transition of deputies to other factions, which, according to the Constitution, is not a basis for early elections), and this embarrassed the president.
However, the BYuT leader was stubborn, and the Regions, for their part, only added fuel to the fire by re-recruiting all the new parties of people's deputies. And on April 2, Yushchenko signed the decree.
A new confrontation began: the government and parliament did not recognize the decree and appealed to the Constitutional Court demanding it be canceled.
The COP dragged on for a long time, and the confrontation heated up.
Dual power arose in the country, which at any moment could develop into an open conflict. Ukraine found itself one step away from him after Yushchenko tried to remove Prosecutor General Svyatoslav Piskun and put his acting president in his place. The government and the Rada did not recognize this decision, and the forces of the special forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs controlled by the government actually seized the building of the GPU. Yushchenko's appointee was simply not allowed there.
The President in response ordered the Internal Troops to march on Kyiv. And the Ministry of Internal Affairs reassigned them to itself and forbade them to carry out Yushchenko's orders.
The situation could well develop into armed clashes, fraught with civil war.
But at the last moment, the opposing sides again came to a compromise. Yushchenko, Yanukovych and Moroz were negotiating all night on Trinity Street on Bankova Street. They left the building on the morning of May 27 and announced an agreement - there would be early parliamentary elections, but in the fall. And until then, the government of Yanukovych operates.
According to unofficial information, a behind-the-scenes agreement was also concluded between the Party of Regions and Yushenko (which was allegedly consecrated by Viktor Baloga) that after the new elections, the Party of Regions and Our Ukraine would create a new coalition. It was under this promise that Yanukovych agreed to early elections.
But "it didn't happen like that, I guessed."
Yulia Tymoshenko ran an extremely effective campaign, scattering pre-election promises like from a cornucopia. And managed to take 30% of the vote. Our Ukraine came third with 15%. The formal winner of the elections was the Party of Regions, which gained more than 34%. But the problem for the regionals is that the BYuT and Our Ukraine had enough votes for two to create a majority, albeit a fragile one (by a margin of only two votes), but a majority in parliament.
And it was difficult for Yushchenko's voters to explain why, in such a situation, Our Ukraine was creating a coalition with Yanukovych, and not with Tymoshenko. Moreover, Yuriy Lutsenko, who headed the pre-election list of the presidential bloc, became an active lobbyist for an alliance with her.
Baloga and Yushchenko tried for a long time to come up with an excuse to avoid a coalition with Tymoshenko, but to no avail.
Most of the Our Ukraine faction, led by Lutsenko, advocated an alliance with the BYuT. Eventually this coalition was formed. And at the end of 2007, Tymoshenko returned to the chair of the prime minister. Few people then understood that this was a prologue to her future political defeat in the presidential election.
And Yanukovych, on the contrary, miraculously escaped from the prospect of creating a “shirk” with Our Ukraine, which would be fatal for his rating.
The results of 2007 showed that, becoming a hostage to the geopolitical game of external forces, Ukraine can quickly find itself on the verge of an internal conflict and even civil war. But this lesson was not learned then or later.
Year eighteen. Abandonment of NATO and the global crisis
In 2008, two events took place that determined the development of Ukraine until the beginning of 2014.
The first is the failure of the plan for Ukraine's accession to NATO. At first, everything went well here. Tymoshenko signed an application to join the NATO Membership Action Plan, which the Alliance had to approve at its summit in Bucharest.
Admittedly, joining NATO was not popular with the population (slightly more than 20 percent were in favor), but it was decided to correct this moment with a massive information campaign.
However, by that time the geopolitical balance in Europe had changed dramatically. Russia has come to an agreement with France and Germany that Ukraine and Georgia should not receive the prospect of NATO membership. And the MAP was failed by the efforts of the Germans and the French in Bucharest.
This had several major implications. First, Yushchenko's big political game is over. Having failed, in fact, to fulfill the main task of his presidency, he finally became a "lame duck", whose role is only to decide who to transfer power to - Yanukovych or Tymoshenko.
Secondly, external players took Ukraine out of the big geopolitical game for a while, in fact agreeing with its neutral status.
This prompted leading Ukrainian politicians (except Yushchenko) to return to a multi-vector policy. And if Yanukovych was always committed to her, then Yulia Tymoshenko's active search for contacts with Russia surprised many, although it was, we repeat, the natural result of the failure of the MAP.
The consequences of this reversal were already felt in August 2008, when, after the war in South Ossetia, Tymoshenko, unlike Yushchenko, did not clearly condemn Russia. This position of the premier exacerbated the already strong contradictions with Bankova and already in September led to the collapse of the coalition of BYuT and Our Ukraine.
At the same time, for the first time, they started talking about creating a coalition between the BYuT and the Party of Regions. After Tymoshenko's transition to a multi-vector approach, there really were no fundamental disagreements between the two political forces.
In addition, by the end of 2008, both in the elite (except for Yushchenko) and among the majority of the population, a scheme of national consensus had developed around which one could unite. This scheme included the neutral status of the country (we are friends with both the West and Russia), the refusal to pedal painful topics that split society (history, church, language), granting the Russian language the status of an official language in Russian-speaking regions and the rejection of forced Ukrainization, as well as the withdrawal from attempts to arrange a redistribution of property.
If a broad coalition around these ideas had emerged in 2008-2010, then the development of the country could have gone completely differently. But the agreements both then and later failed because of the huge distrust between potential partners.
Yes, and there were too conflicting figures on both sides. For the voters of Yulia Tymoshenko, Yanukovych was a "convict" with whom it was impossible to negotiate anything. And for Yanukovych's voters, Tymoshenko was a rogue and a thief who, as legend has it, promised to surround the Donbass with barbed wire.
It also played a significant role that a significant part of the “ideological” Maidan activists considered themselves to be the bearers of the “only true doctrine” about the path of Ukraine’s development and did not accept any alternatives, did not recognize the right to a different opinion among the “blue-white” opponents, regarding as a betrayal any attempts by the "orange" leaders to negotiate with the regionals.
The lack of the ability to keep a given word and make mutual concessions became the hallmark of Ukrainian politicians, which played a fatal role in the tragic events five years later.
At the end of 2008, Tymoshenko created a shaky alliance in parliament of BYuT, part of Our Ukraine and the Lytvyn bloc, thanks to which the Rada was saved from dissolution (which Yushchenko had already tried to do).
But at this time, political battles receded into the background. The main event was the global crisis. It began with a mortgage collapse in the US and escalated sharply after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. The government initially reacted nonchalantly to the alarming news from across the ocean. But it soon turned out that a wave of economic tsunami was sweeping Ukraine.
The crisis has destroyed almost all the sources of growth that previously fueled the Ukrainian economy. In particular, prices began to collapse for the main Ukrainian exports, and most importantly, the flow of Western loans to Ukrainian banks, which had previously covered the deficit in the balance of payments, stopped.
Hryvnia exchange rate in 2008
The hryvnia collapsed from 5 to 8 per dollar, the collapse of industry began, the collapse of banks, the panic of the population. From the illusion of "endless prosperity" and the consumer boom that gripped Ukrainians in previous years, there is no trace left.
This had significant consequences. Ukraine has entered a long period of stagnation (turned into a collapse after the events of 2014). Dreams were shattered, disappointment grew.
Politically, the crisis dealt a colossal blow to Tymoshenko's presidential prospects.
And before that, she had difficulty fulfilling most of her election promises (and forgot about some immediately), and after the crisis, this became completely impossible.
Year nineteen. Putin's contract - Tymoshenko and elections
New 2009 Ukraine met without gas. That is, it was still in the vaults, but there was no contract. Control over gas flows meant for Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko control over the financial resources for the presidential campaign, and they raced to send emissaries to Vladimir Putin, trying to offer better terms than a competitor.
As a result, by January 1, no bargaining was done. Gazprom turned off the valve, and it became clear that there would not be enough gas for heating until the end of winter. And then Tymoshenko decided to take an extreme step: without the decision of the government, she went to Moscow and agreed on a contract that determined a lot in the fate of the country for the next five years.
The base gas price was unheard of - $450 per thousand cubic meters. But Tymoshenko received a discount for one year and, moreover, used 11 billion cubic meters of gas owned by RosUkrEnergo. That was enough for her to get through 2009 with an average price of $232. And what will happen then was not thought.
Russia, on the other hand, has received a very strong lever of pressure on Ukraine. Which she later took full advantage of.
Yushchenko harshly condemned the conclusion of the Tymoshenko-Putin contract and finally decided to bet on the "drowning" of Lady Yu and her prospects in the presidential election.
Thus becoming an unspoken ally of Yanukovych.
Fortunately, the rating of Tymoshenko herself was decimated by the economic crisis, the burden of broken promises, as well as constant scandals. Like the upcoming "shirk" between the BYuT and the Party of Regions (which Viktor Yanukovych later publicly abandoned), the murder of a person by the people's deputy Lozinsky, the panic over bird flu and the pedophile scandal in Artek.
Despite this, Tymoshenko led a very competent and energetic election campaign, and at some point it began to seem that she had a chance to defeat Yanukovych. The oligarchs phlegmatically watched this process, laying eggs in two baskets at once.
The main slogan of Tymoshenko's campaign - Won pratsyuє
Year twentieth. Yanukovych - President
Already at the end of 2009, it became clear that Yanukovych's rating was going into the lead and Tymoshenko would hardly be able to overcome it. Therefore, the results of the elections, in which Yanukovych won in the second round, were taken for granted by everyone, and Lady Yu's attempts to challenge their results were unsuccessful.
Inauguration of Viktor Yanukovych
Although for some time it seemed that the country would have to watch a tense struggle between President Yanukovych and Prime Minister Tymoshenko.
But the Ukrainian elite and its representatives in parliament were so tired of political strife and so exhausted by the crisis that they wanted stabilization as soon as possible.
Therefore, dozens of deputies from the BYuT, Our Ukraine immediately went over to the camp to the regionals. Together with the factions of Lytvyn and the communists, the PR created a coalition, dismissing the Tymoshenko government and appointing Mykola Azarov in its place.
In the autumn of the same year, having strengthened his own vertical of power, Yanukovych, through the Constitutional Court, restored the operation of the former Constitution, regaining the powers of Leonid Kuchma.
The opposition then called it a usurpation of power, but this did not bother Viktor Fedorovich much. He did the main thing for himself - he brought the government out of the control of the parliament (and the representatives of the oligarchs who were sitting there).
This meant that the way was opened to get rid of dependence on those people who helped him come to power.
It was from this moment that the internal crisis began in the Yanukovych team, which contributed to the victory of the Maidan in 2014.
But that was later. In the spring of 2010, urgent problems had to be addressed. The Tymoshenko government spent the entire 2009 borrowing money at huge interest rates, which now it's time to repay. At the same time, the gas price exceeded $300, bringing down the country's balance of payments into a deep minus. A new crisis was brewing.
However, Yanukovych, contrary to the doubts of many, managed to solve these problems.
On April 21, the presidents of Ukraine and Russia signed the Kharkiv Accords, a $100 discount on gas in exchange for extending the Black Sea Fleet's stay in Crimea until 2042. This caused violent protests from the opposition, but they had no effect. The hole in the trade balance was plugged, the hryvnia was saved from falling.
Further, cooperation with the IMF was resumed. Due to the received tranche and the restoration of economic growth, the government was able to pay off most of Tymoshenko's debts and itself began to actively borrow funds on the foreign market (through the placement of Eurobonds).
By the end of the summer, it seemed that the country was returning to the good old days of Kuchma - a multi-vector policy (we are friends with both the West and Russia), economic growth, political stability.
Protests promoted with the support of the opposition like the "Tax Maidan" in November 2010 were a little embarrassing, but they quickly faded away without any special consequences. Also, vague rumors about rampant corruption, about the introduction of an "institute of beholders", about a grandiose construction project in Mezhyhirya have not yet threatened the authorities.
Nothing seemed to threaten stability. But this was a deceptive impression.
Year twenty-one. Condemnation of Tymoshenko, aggravation of relations with Russia and the West
Outwardly, 2011 was one of the most peaceful years in the history of independent Ukraine. The government was intensively preparing for Euro 2012, economic growth accelerated, wages gradually increased with the hryvnia exchange rate unchanged.
However, already this year, the first bells of future problems sounded. First of all, relations with Russia worsened. The fact is that due to the rise in oil prices, the price of gas rose again to 300 or more dollars, leveling the positive effect of the Kharkiv agreements.
Yanukovych appealed to the Russian leadership with a request to revise the generally enslaving formula for calculating the price of gas in order to reduce its cost. But the answer came from Moscow: any new concessions will be possible only after Ukraine joins the Customs Union. This association of three countries - Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus - started working just in 2011 and became the first really functioning integration project in the post-Soviet space.
The Russian Federation wanted to see Ukraine in its composition, and therefore they activated the "gas lever".
However, Yanukovych and his entourage, who lived according to the above-described principle "Texans must rob Texas", did not want to delegate some of their powers to some supranational bodies.
Especially when it came to customs flows, which were one of the main sources of shadow income for the authorities.
Negotiations on gas and other economic concessions to Ukraine from Russia have stalled. The price of gas grew, the pressure on the hryvnia exchange rate intensified. The hole in the balance of payments was once again filled with foreign loans.
At the same time, relations with the West began to deteriorate. There, Yanukovych was never liked, considered a suspicious type, prone to corruption and deals with Russia.
But since at first he pursued a rather careful policy, actively negotiated the signing of an Association Agreement with the EU that would be beneficial for Europeans (including a free trade zone), the West did not put much pressure on him. Although he continued to assist the opposition in the person of Yulia Tymoshenko and Arseniy Yatsenyuk, as he did not want to create a situation where Yanukovych would remain the uncontested leader.
The authorities did not like this. Moreover, the opposition was quite active, constantly trying to create some kind of confusion.
Therefore, since the end of 2010, a gradual tightening of the screws began. Yury Lutsenko was arrested and several cases were initiated against Yulia Tymoshenko at once.
After some time, one main one was singled out from them - about the abuse of power in connection with the signing of a gas contract with Russia to the detriment of Ukraine. The main role was played by the relevance of this topic, taking into account the growing "gas" problems with the Russian Federation.
Trial of Yulia Tymoshenko
The trial of Tymoshenko started in June 2011. The ex-premier was judged by the famous Rodion Kireev. Tymoshenko did not recognize the accusation and mocked both the prosecutors and Kireev.
From the very beginning, the West did not like this process, but since everyone expected that it would come down to a suspended sentence for Tymoshenko in the worst case, they did not particularly worry about this.
However, in August, things suddenly took a hard turn. After another skirmish with Tymoshenko, Kireev decided to take her into custody. This caused a shock. Never before has a former prime minister been thrown into a Ukrainian prison.
And if the street unrest turned out to be surprisingly sluggish, the reaction of the West was extremely harsh. They demanded that Tymoshenko be released immediately. And the real crisis erupted in October, when Kireev announced the verdict: seven years in prison.
The EU has stopped negotiations on the Association Agreement. The United States threatened sanctions for the first time.
Yanukovych out of habit tried to play the Russian card, restoring relations with Moscow, but did not achieve much success. Russia set the previous condition - the Customs Union.
Thus, by the end of 2011, Yanukovych faced the threat of a serious crisis. Moreover, it was largely due to a change in the geopolitical balance in Eastern Europe.
Russia, thanks to rising oil prices, quickly recovered from the effects of the crisis. Its economy grew along with the standard of living of the population. At that time, the EU was still in a fever, and the Eastern European members of the European Union, with rare exceptions, plunged into a long stagnation, surviving only through the export of labor.
Against this background, Russia felt the strength to create an association in the post-Soviet space in order to conduct a conversation with the West from a stronger position. And just the neutrality of Ukraine (which Yanukovych was ready to guarantee) did not suit her anymore.
In turn, the attitude of Western countries towards Russia has deteriorated significantly after the announcement of Putin's nomination for the presidency in the 2012 elections. Earlier, the US and the EU hoped that Medvedev, who was more convenient to them, would remain president, but he preferred to give way to GDP.
It has also upped the stakes on Ukraine, which has once again been seen as an important prize in the geopolitical struggle for influence in Eastern Europe.
Therefore, the West increased pressure on Yanukovych, from which he demanded to release Tymoshenko and not agree to join the Customs Union, but, on the contrary, to complete the work on signing the Association Agreement with the EU.
And if Yanukovych agreed to comply with the second point, he did not want to back down on the first. Apparently, believing that, having eliminated Tymoshenko from the political arena, he will be able to breathe easy.
The economy, meanwhile, dictated the need to make the final geopolitical choice. Hopes that long-term economic growth will resume after the crisis by the end of 2011 have faded. The economy grew, but not at the pace that would allow us to talk about a serious increase in living standards.
This was mainly due to the fact that one of the main sources of growth, the flow of cheap Western loans, never recovered after the crisis. And without it, it was difficult to expect a resumption of the consumer boom. Growth was observed only in certain areas - agriculture, metallurgy, the chemical industry, and some branches of engineering.
The people are tired of waiting for the promised "reduction", especially against the backdrop of constant corruption scandals and rumors about the pace at which the Yanukovych family, headed by his son Alexander, is accumulating their wealth. The gap with Russia in the standard of living began to grow rapidly.
In order to give impetus to the development of the country, it was necessary to decide which source of funding to join - Russian or Western. But Yanukovych did not want to make this choice.
He wanted to get everything and to the maximum, but not to give anything in return - neither Europe nor Russia.
Year twenty-two. European Football Championship
The entire first half of the year was marked by Euro 2012. The European Football Championship has become the brightest and brightest event in the history of Ukraine. Despite a lot of problems at the preparation stage, the tournament itself was held almost perfectly.
This allowed the country to forget about the existing problems for a while, surrendering to the festive mood.
The atmosphere in Kyiv on the eve of the Euro 2012 final
But the holiday ended, and immediately after it, the election campaign began. Rada was elected. By that time, for the reasons described above, Yanukovych had lost his rating, and the opposition, albeit without Tymoshenko, began to strengthen its position.
Basically, the claims of the population (and in all regions of the country) against Yanukovych were of a socio-economic nature. People were tired of waiting for their incomes to start growing again, everyone was outraged by the indecent luxury of Yanukovych's life, total and systemic corruption, the widespread suppression of business by the Family and other people close to the president.
In terms of humanitarian policy, Yanukovych, unlike Yushchenko, behaved very cautiously. I tried not to disturb the society with topics that were splitting the country, and even decided to adopt the law on giving the Russian language official status in the Russian-speaking regions (one of the main election promises) only on the eve of the start of the election campaign to the Rada.
Although the law was rather mild and in no way infringed on the rights of the Ukrainian-speaking population, its adoption led to violent protests by the opposition, which decided to raise nationalist slogans to mobilize its electorate in the elections.
Under such conditions, the elections did not end very well for the Party of Regions. The opposition, according to the party lists, won the majority of votes, having entered the Rada in three columns, consisting of Batkivshchyna (in the absence of Tymoshenko it was led by Yatsenyuk), Klitschko's BLOW and Tyahnybok's Svoboda. The appearance of the last party in the parliament was a complete surprise, especially with a result of more than 10%. They said that the Regionals specifically gave her the green light in order to promote the project of entering the second round of the presidential elections against Yanukovych Oleg Tyagnibok.
Opinion polls showed that this was the only candidate Yanukovych could have won. But, nevertheless, the very fact that this force entered the parliament greatly radicalized the atmosphere in the country.
Xenophobia, provocations on ethnic grounds, readiness for violence, intolerance for other people's opinions entered political life. Soon all this will play a role during the events on the Maidan.
The regionals still managed to create a majority thanks to majoritarian deputies. The President changed the Cabinet. The prime minister remained the same - Mykola Azarov. But the composition of the government has fundamentally changed. The old guard of the Party of Regions, associated with the country's largest financial and industrial groups, was pushed into the shadows.
And representatives of the so-called Family took the first roles: Sergei Arbuzov was appointed First Deputy Prime Minister, the Ministry of Revenue and Duties was given to Alexander Klimenko, the Ministry of Fuel and Energy was given to Eduard Stavitsky.
It became clear that Yanukovych intended to seriously limit the political and economic influence of those people who brought him to power, relying on the creation of his own financial and industrial group.
Including by cutting the "hunting field" for other players. The situation became more and more tense.
Year twenty-three. Beginning of the Maidan
The end of 2012 was marked by a strange story with Yanukovych's visit to Moscow canceled at the last moment. According to the version circulated in the media, the President of Ukraine wanted to finally strike hands with Putin and, in exchange for a discount on gas and financial support, agree to move towards the Customs Union.
However, this plan was allegedly interrupted by representatives of the European Commission, who called Yanukovych and promised him full support if he signed the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU.
It is difficult to say how much one can believe this version.
But the fact remains that since the beginning of 2013, the previously almost frozen process of preparing for the signing of the Agreement suddenly intensified.
At the same time, Yanukovych's contacts with the Russian side have declined. Already in the summer it became clear that Ukraine and the EU are close to concluding an Agreement.
Why did the Europeans need it - the answer is obvious. In addition to the economic benefits of a free trade zone (its terms were more loyal to the EU than to Ukraine), the issue of winning the geopolitical rivalry with Russia was also at stake. After the conclusion of the Agreement, the path to the Customs Union for Ukraine would be closed.
It is still less clear why Yanukovych needed this.
According to one version, in the package with the Agreement, the West unofficially promised the president large-scale financial support, with the help of which Yanukovych hoped to overwhelm voters with "golden loaves" and win the election.
According to another version, Yanukovych initially did not intend to conclude the Agreement, but wanted to blackmail Russia with it, knocking out concessions from it.
One way or another, but the reaction of the Russian Federation to the prospect of signing the document turned out to be extremely tough.
Since August, for several days, the Russian Federation introduced a new regime for the passage of Ukrainian goods at customs, which actually paralyzed all Ukrainian exports to Russia. In the comments, Russian officials said that this would be the regime if Ukraine signed the Association Agreement.
Russia also made it clear that it would withdraw from the free trade zone with Ukraine. This caused a shock among Yanukovych's entourage, but they decided not to slow down the launched mechanism for signing the Agreement.
Since autumn, a total propaganda campaign of the authorities in support of the Association has begun. Propaganda portrayed it as almost a panacea for solving all Ukrainian problems, creating clearly inflated expectations among citizens.
But there was another process going on at the same time. When the Ukrainian authorities decided to probe the West about what kind of assistance it was ready to provide to Ukraine to compensate for the losses from the loss of the Russian market and to transfer the Ukrainian economy to European standards, no intelligible answer was received.
It was only said that the IMF could help with loans. True, the latter has already put forward his conditions - to freeze salaries, increase gas and utility tariffs, let the hryvnia float freely.
Meanwhile, economists and industrialists, who have finally read the Agreement itself, are increasingly saying that it is unprofitable for Ukraine.
Against such a sad background, Yanukovych resumed contacts with Putin. Several meetings passed, after which the tone of statements by Ukrainian government officials suddenly began to change dramatically. They suddenly noticed the shortcomings of the Agreement and loudly asked the Europeans if they would give billions of dollars to compensate for the losses.
In mid-November, there were first leaks of information that Putin agreed with Yanukovych, which gives a discount on gas, gives a large loan and at the same time removes the condition for Ukraine's entry into the Customs Union! All this - "only" for the rejection of the Agreement with the EU.
November 21, Mykola Azarov announced the suspension of preparations for the signing of the Agreement with the EU. Almost a month later, in the Kremlin, the presidents of Ukraine and Russia signed an agreement on $268 gas and a $15 billion loan.
Yanukovych could consider himself a brilliant strategist. He achieved everything he wanted. Russia made colossal concessions, and at the same time, the Ukrainian authorities did not give up one iota of sovereignty. The issue of joining the Customs Union has been removed.
Ukraine now has cheap gas, a colossal financial resource that could be used in the pre-election year to increase wages and pensions (without raising the cost of a communal apartment).
Yanukovych could indeed be celebrating a triumphant geopolitical victory. If not for one thing - Maidan ...
The opposition, inspired by the success in the elections, since the beginning of 2013, began to promote rally activity, launching the "Arise, Ukraino!" campaign in the cities of Ukraine. The rallies were not numerous, but created a feeling of the constant presence of the opposition in the information field.
Every high-profile case in the country, the opposition tried to work to the maximum (a typical example is Vradiyevka).
Preparations for the decisive battle were in full swing, but many thought that it would begin no earlier than the calendar dates for the elections - in March 2015. Moreover, during the negotiations on association with the EU, the opposition slowed down and practically did not touch the authorities.
But the country's unexpected refusal to sign the Agreement gave the oppositionists an unexpected trump card. A huge number of people, under the influence of the very same pro-government propaganda, were waiting for this Agreement, and then it suddenly turned out that it was being canceled, and without much explanation.
This caused strong discontent, superimposed on all past claims against Yanukovych - corruption, poverty, the extraction of business.
Already in the evening of November 21, people came to the Maidan at the call of journalist Mustafa Nayem, spread through social networks on the Internet. Soon the actions became massive.
On November 29, Yanukovych traveled to Vilnius for an EU summit where the Association Agreement was to be ratified, and publicly refused to do so. The protesters immediately branded the president, saying that he sold out to Moscow and wants to turn the country into a Russian colony.
On the night of November 30, Berkut dispersed the Maidan participants by force, which caused mass indignation. Together with extreme annoyance at the refusal to sign the Agreement, it led to a huge protest on 1 December.
Then behind the scenes (and some openly) many big businessmen and oligarchs went over to the side of the protesters, which immediately became clear from the image loyal to the Maidan, shown by the largest TV channels. By that time, Yanukovych and his family had already "gotten" quite a few influential people, and they decided that the time had come to get even with him.
Mass action on the Maidan
But already on December 1, the action turned into violence - the radicals stormed the Presidential Administration. The attack was repulsed. Many were detained. Many are beaten. Opposition leaders and Petro Poroshenko personally called the attackers provocateurs.
Although, as the radicals themselves later stated, their attack was coordinated with the leadership of the opposition parties. But when it became clear that it was not possible to take the Presidential Administration by storm, the politicians hastened to disown the action.
All this caused bad forebodings that this time the protest would not end peacefully.
In December, the government, contrary to forecasts, held on. An outbreak of violence on December 1 scared the oligarchs around Yanukovych, while Russia's gas rebate and huge loan gave temporary confidence that the economy would be all right.
Maidan passed into a sluggish stage, and by the New Year, even among its activists, forecasts were spreading that it would soon come to naught.
Year twenty-four. Maidan victory and war
Events reached a new level in January 2014. The day before, the parliament passed and the president signed the so-called "dictatorial" laws designed to bring protesters under the articles of the Criminal Code.
On Epiphany Sunday, January 19, radicals from the still little-known Right Sector attacked the positions of internal troops on Hrushevsky Street. Street fighting ensued. Opposition leaders feared that Yanukovych would use this as a pretext to clean up the Maidan, and therefore again declared the radicals provocateurs.
Clashes on Hrushevsky Street in January 2014
Vitali Klitschko, who persuaded the radicals not to attack the Internal Troops on Hrushevsky, was doused with a fire extinguisher
But time passed, the president did not give the order to clean up. And gradually the opposition leaders switched to supporting radical actions.
On January 22, under strange circumstances, three people were killed at Hrushevsky Street. The protesters immediately blamed the authorities for this.
Demoralized by the loss of life, Yanukovych went to talks with opposition leaders.
The next day, the seizures of regional administrations began in all regional centers of Western and - partially - Central Ukraine. Feeling that the president had given up slack, big business openly began to go over to the side of the opposition, a split began even within the Party of Regions faction.
The confrontation grew in general and in society, which was more and more clearly divided into "us" and "them". Pantheons of enemies and heroes directly opposed to each other were created.
If for Maidan and its supporters the "Berkutites" were a fiend, then for many in the southeast they were heroes fighting against the "Nazis".
Yanukovych tried to find the possibility of a compromise, persuaded Prime Minister Azarov to resign and even offered the post of head of government to Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Western diplomats joined the talks.
And by mid-February, it began to seem that a compromise was about to be found, as it had happened more than once in the past.
But all hopes collapsed on February 18, when the situation escalated to the limit. The self-defense of the Maidan tried to break through to the Verkhovna Rada, but the attack was repulsed by the Berkut, which, together with the titushki, went on the offensive and captured a significant part of the Maidan. To prevent its further advance, the protesters set fire to the tires.
Everyone was waiting for the final sweep, but the order was not followed. Instead, Yanukovych entered into negotiations with the opposition, and on February 20, the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland were supposed to fly to Kyiv.
But on the morning of that day, bloody events began. Shooting was opened at the Berkut and explosives from the positions of the protesters. Killed and wounded appeared among the security forces, after which the government troops hastily retreated. Maidanovites rushed after them, who were met with fire at Institutskaya Street, and several dozen people were killed.
Who shot - is still not clear. Now Berkut fighters are officially accused of this (they can be seen on numerous videos with weapons and yellow armbands). But they deny shooting at the protesters, saying that some provocateurs fired to kill.
The massacres played a fatal role. And before that, the search for a compromise was extremely difficult. Too much hatred has accumulated between the opposing sides, the external players have bitten the bit too much.
After dozens of deaths on the Maidan, the situation escalated sharply.
Although Yanukovych and the opposition leaders signed a certain document on February 21 through the mediation of the heads of the Foreign Ministries of Germany, France and Poland.
Formally, it was the very Great Compromise that could save the country from slipping into war. It provided for a return to the 2004 Constitution (to a parliamentary republic) and a presidential election in autumn 2014. Until then, Yanukovych was to remain the head of state.
It was similar to compromise agreements concluded by Ukrainian politicians in previous years. Apparently, this document was perceived in this way by Western partners as well. Victoria Syumar recalled the words that Polish Foreign Minister Sikorsky said to the opposition on February 21: "If you do not sign this agreement, there will be war."
However, the compromise was only in form, but not in essence. The agreement included a clause on the withdrawal of government troops from the center of Kyiv. After that, Maidan remained the only organized and already armed force in the capital. From the podium, the centurion Parasiuk said that the protesters would not recognize any compromises and Yanukovych should be overthrown.
The President panicked. Realizing that there would be no one to protect him, in which case, he urgently left for Kharkov, where the congress of the southeastern regions was to be held on February 22.
According to some reports, there he planned to announce the transfer of the center of power to Kharkov, including the Cabinet of Ministers and the State Treasury (that is, taxes would be paid from all over the country to Kharkov, and not to Kyiv).
However, he did not find understanding in any of his associates. Kernes and Dobkin, as well as Akhmetov's people, refused to support this idea. Even the regionals close to Yanukovych were tired of his throwing and were already preparing to negotiate with the new government.
The congress on February 22 ended in nothing, Yanukovych did not appear at it. But he recorded a video message in which he accused the Maidanites of not fulfilling their part of the agreement.
At this time, the Verkhovna Rada in Kyiv actually took power into its own hands. A new speaker was appointed - Oleksandr Turchinov. The new head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is Arsen Avakov.
But the key decision taken by the parliament that day was to deprive Yanukovych of the powers of the president in connection with his self-removal from his duties. There is no such wording in the Constitution. Therefore, this decision was a direct violation of the agreements of 21 February.
However, the West did not pay any attention to this, recognizing in fact the changes that had taken place.
Yanukovych did not resist. Faced with the unwillingness to fight for him on the part of his comrades-in-arms, he simply fled to the Crimea with the help of the Russian military. And from there he was sent to the Russian Federation.
On February 23, Alexander Efremov made a statement on behalf of the Party of Regions, in which he accused Yanukovych of betrayal. Regionals and oligarchs have already fled to negotiate with the new government.
For the first time in the history of Ukraine, a situation has developed when the change of power took place not through a preliminary compromise, but through the defeat of one part of the country by another. In another part, after the flight of Yanukovych and the capitulation of the Party of Regions, there was no organized force left that would represent the interests of millions of people dissatisfied with the Maidan and its victory.
And this circumstance had a fatal effect on the entire course of subsequent events.
Who knows, if the Regionals had not been so cowardly, if they had turned the Kharkiv congress into a new headquarters for the organization of forces opposing the Maidan already without Yanukovych, then perhaps there would have been no annexation of Crimea, no separatism, no war.
The West, having seen the presence of resistance, would not recognize Turchinov as acting. president, would force the Maidanites to compromise, preventing the subsequent catastrophe with the loss of Crimea and the massacre in the Donbass. But history, as you know, does not know the subjunctive mood.
The Party of Regions has removed itself from the political scene.
In its place came a new government - those people who stood on the Maidan. Their backbone was a contingent of flesh from the flesh of the former system. Poroshenko, Yatsenyuk, Martynenko, Avakov and most of the other leaders of the Maidan did not differ much in their moral and political characteristics from Yanukovych and his entourage. They also came to power, mainly to solve their business issues, to saddle corruption flows.
But there was one significant difference. Having come to power on the blood of people who died on the Maidan, and having received a shattered vertical of power, with the state losing its monopoly on violence, they became dependent on the "collective political consciousness" of the Maidan, which was broadcast through hundreds and thousands of activists with influence on tens and hundreds of thousands of people.
And this "collective consciousness" has long developed a common vision of the situation in the country.
He perceived the compromises of the past not as saving steps that saved the state, but as acts of cowardice and betrayal that hindered the country's movement into a brighter future.
A bright future was seen as joining the EU and NATO, moving away from Russia at any cost. People who did not support the Maidan were perceived not as compatriots with a different point of view on political issues, but as "non-Ukrainians", whose opinion does not need to be taken into account.
Those who resisted the Maidan actively were considered an enemy of the people, against whom it was not a sin to apply measures of influence of any degree of rigidity.
Ukrainians must become a unified nation with one language and one idea of the past and future. There were discrepancies in the methods - how and how quickly this should be achieved, but no one questioned the strategic goal.
It was considered correct to impose on the whole country their vision of the path of development of Ukraine and to force them to follow it at any cost.
In the first days after Yanukovych's flight, it seemed that the roll-up of the Maidan would meet no resistance. But this impression turned out to be deceptive.
The place of the disappeared Party of Regions as a guide for Ukrainians dissatisfied with the change of power was taken by Russia and the structures controlled by it. The removal of Yanukovych, contrary to the agreements signed on February 21, was perceived by Russia as extremely painful.
Moscow considered this an impudent treachery on the part of the West, which undermined the authority of the Kremlin - they say, it turns out that right under the nose of the Russian Federation its allies are being overthrown, and it cannot do anything about it.
Such, from the point of view of the Russian Federation, deceit required an answer. And he followed immediately.
As early as February 23, mass protests began in Sevastopol. On their wave, a group of pro-Russian activists, led by a well-known businessman and philanthropist Alexei Chaly, seized power in the city. The police, "Berkut" and most of the local officials went over to their side.
This was the signal for Russia to act.
Pro-Russian forces were activated in Simferopol with the aim of raising the local Supreme Soviet to revolt against Kyiv. However, on their own they could not achieve their goal - the deputies were afraid to speak openly against the central government. In addition, they faced organized resistance from the Crimean Tatars.
Therefore, on February 27, Russia had to intervene openly - its special forces (according to other sources - Wagner PMC fighters) captured the Supreme Council. Only after that did the deputies find the courage to get together, elect the leader of Russian Unity, Sergei Aksyonov, as prime minister, and announce a referendum on expanding the rights of autonomy. Aksyonov and Speaker of the Parliament Konstantinov announced that they would recognize Viktor Yanukovych as the legitimate president.
The next day, Russian troops, unmarked and wearing balaclavas, took control of all key facilities on the peninsula and blocked Ukrainian military units. A week later, the new Crimean authorities announced a referendum on joining Russia.
"Green men" in Crimea
On March 1, the Federation Council gave Putin permission to send troops to Ukraine, and pro-Russian speeches swept through all the major cities in the southeast.
As the Regionals withdrew from active politics, a key role in the organization was assumed by various marginal pro-Russian organizations, which were helped financially from Moscow.
That is why, despite the widespread anti-Maidan sentiment in the southeast, the protests there were chaotic and of little meaning. In addition, against the backdrop of the events in Crimea, they immediately took on a separatist character (“we also want to go to Russia!”), thereby removing themselves from the legal field of Ukraine.
Russian curators tried to give them the form of a "fight for federalization", but it turned out badly, because people came out to rallies "to be like in Crimea", "for joining Russia." This seemed to the pro-Russian residents of the southeast a simple and understandable way to solve all problems at once.
Probably, there was an idea in Moscow that it was necessary to create a new movement, instead of the Party of Regions, which would set conditions for the central government and force it to compromise, but this did not work out.
First, the aforementioned factor of Crimea had a powerful influence. And not only in the sense that one way or another set the separatist vector in the protests, but also in the fact that from now on any protest speeches of the anti-Maidan persuasion were interpreted by the Ukrainian authorities unambiguously as separatist and treasonous. And what kind of dialogue can you have with them?
Secondly, the Russian curators simply did not have the ability and managerial skills to build some kind of unified line with a single leader who could become the personification of the protest movement and who, theoretically, could impose a dialogue between Kiev and the West. The bet was made on absolutely insignificant personalities, with whom no one wanted to deal with even at the level of their regions.
This was also superimposed on the beginning disagreements on the Ukrainian issue in the Kremlin. There, according to media reports, there was an influential group of people who urged Putin to limit himself to Crimea and leave the rest of Ukraine alone.
At the same time, a group of "Orthodox oligarch" Malofeev, with the support of Aksenov and some representatives of the Russian special services, insisted on spreading the "Russian Spring" to the entire southeast.
Taken together, this led to the fact that by the beginning of May, pro-Russian speeches in all regions of Ukraine, except for the Donbass, came to naught.
The Ukrainian authorities easily defeated them. True, they had to make several concessions. Thus, the law on languages was not repealed (although the Rada voted for it in one of the very first days after the Maidan), non-aggression agreements were concluded with local elites in the regions of the southeast.
Dobkin and Kernes remained in Kharkov, Akhmetov established close communication with Yatsenyuk and installed Taruta, who was close to him, as governor of the Donetsk region. No one organized a purge of the "family overseer" of the Odessa region, Avramenko. Finally, the Dnepropetrovsk region was headed by Igor Kolomoisky, who, with his team (Gennady Korban and others), turned Dnepropetrovsk into a center of resistance to the Russian Spring.
However, if the authorities made concessions, they were only superficial.
In strategic terms - cooperation with the IMF and a course towards the West (EU and NATO), suppression of any attempts to challenge the legitimacy of the Maidan and hint at federalization or the need for dialogue with Russia - nothing has changed. Fortunately, the annexation of Crimea gave justification for such a policy.
Back in early April, Kyiv announced the collapse of the "Russian spring". And it seemed that everything was going to this. But then Donbass exploded...
There were three factors that distinguished the situation in this region from other areas of the southeast.
First, anti-government sentiment was particularly strong here. Moreover, initially they were not so much pro-Russian as anti-Maidan and regional-autonomist (“No one forced the Donbass to its knees”).
Secondly, if in other regions almost all influential people swore allegiance to the new government, then in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions the situation was different. Part of the elite, headed by Akhmetov, agreed to cooperate with Kiev. But the other part - associated with the fugitive President Yanukovych and his associates - decided to resist. And there were quite a few of their proteges in the authorities and in law enforcement agencies at all levels.
Thirdly, the Donbass became the only region where a significant part of the law enforcement agencies refused to comply with Kyiv's order to clean up the pro-Russian forces, and as soon as the clashes began, they openly went over to their side.
We are talking about the commander of the Donetsk "Alpha" Khodakovsky and the former "Berkut".
Akhmetov, who, along with his associates after the flight of Yanukovych, took control of the Party of Regions, was the first to sound the alarm, anticipating the threat of losing control over the Donbass.
At the end of March, his people (Boris Kolesnikov, Nikolai Levchenko) raised the issue of the need to expand the rights of the regions, to transfer part of the powers from the center to the localities. Lugansk elites made similar statements. Thus, the regionals expected to intercept the autonomist and, in part, the anti-Maidan agenda from the pro-Russian forces.
As of the end of March and the beginning of April, this plan could still work and due to relatively small concessions ("small compromise") from the central government, bring down the separatist wave in the Donbass.
But these proposals met with profound misunderstanding in Kyiv. They believed that the "Russian spring" had begun to decline, and therefore there was no need to make any concessions. Anyone who offered them was immediately labeled a traitor and separatist.
Further events were not long in coming. On April 7, Donetsk and Kharkov "people's republics" were proclaimed by pro-Russian figures. "KhNR" lasted less than one day - the building of the regional administration seized by them was cleared out by special forces.
In Donetsk, everything was more complicated. Local "Alpha" refused to carry out the order to clean up and at a meeting of the security forces with the participation of Deputy Prime Minister Yarema, she made it clear that if someone tries to take the Donetsk Regional State Administration by force, then the local security forces will defend it.
Rinat Akhmetov also spoke out against the assault, fearing that the situation would then get out of control altogether. He, along with Nikolai Levchenko, came to the square in front of the Donetsk Regional State Administration and tried to convince the protesters to transfer the action to a legal course, to withdraw the demands for the separation of Donbass from Ukraine, promising to prevent tough actions by the security forces.
The assault was postponed, Yarema left for Kyiv.
And on April 12, a detachment of participants in the "Crimean self-defense" led by the former head of the security service Malofeev, Igor Strelkov-Girkin, captured Slavyansk.
Girkin in Slavyansk
Akhmetov and the Regionals once again turned to Kiev with a proposal to urgently expand the rights of Donbass in order to stop the conflict in the bud. But the answer was the decision to start the Antiterrorist Operation.
For many in Kyiv, Strelkov's raid was a real gift. They have long been waiting for a reason to rehabilitate themselves for the shameful surrender of Crimea and they wanted to "give a fight to Russia" at least somewhere, and at the same time to clean up the "anti-Maidan" harshly.
The capture of Slavyansk (officially interpreted by Ukraine as an invasion of the Donbass by Russian troops) provided an excellent excuse for this. The country began to slide towards war.
Subsequently, judging by unofficial media leaks, the Kremlin said that, they say, Strelkov's march was Malofeev's amateur performance, not coordinated with anyone and dragging Russia into the conflict in Donbas against her will. Although this is hard to believe. Especially, given the powerful informational support provided to the “strelkovites” by state-owned Russian television channels.
Rather, it can be assumed that Russia, perhaps not striving for a large-scale war in the Donbass, nevertheless decided to radicalize the situation in order to still force Kyiv and the West to make concessions and force them to compromise. In particular, to agree on a neutral status for Ukraine and on autonomy for a number of Ukrainian regions, putting the question of Crimea out of the brackets.
Indeed, five days after the capture of Slovyansk, an international group consisting of representatives of Ukraine, Russia, the United States, the EU and the OSCE met for the first time in Geneva, at which the first "peace plan" was written to resolve the situation in Ukraine. It carried the traces of that same Great Compromise - it spelled out, in particular, the expansion of the rights of the regions.
However, everything as a whole was formulated very indistinctly, and in sharp contrast with the mood in Kyiv. There, on the contrary, the escalation in the Donbass was used as proof of Russia's perfidy and the impossibility of making any compromises ("With whom? With terrorists seizing cities and killing Ukrainians?").
The West, after the Crimea, saw no reason to put pressure on Ukraine in order to force it to make any concessions to Moscow.
The conflict continued to develop according to its own laws. Since the 20th of April, fighting has become regular in the Donbass. A significant part of the region was already controlled by the separatists.
On May 11, the so-called "referendum" on the independence of the "DPR" and "LPR" was held. After him, the "government of the DPR" was formed, headed by a political strategist and citizen of the Russian Federation Boroday (a person close to Malofeev), which gave even more reason for Ukraine to talk about Russian aggression.
The Ukrainian authorities brought large military units to the Donbass, battles began, which went on with varying success for both sides. Losses grew, bitterness grew. Volunteers from all over Ukraine and from Russia went to Donbass. The flywheel of war spun more and more.
Ukrainian military in the ATO zone
In such conditions, on May 25, presidential elections were held, in which Petro Poroshenko won in the first round. Many were surprised that Russia did not ignore this fact, but, on the contrary, recognized it. Ambassador Zurabov (an old acquaintance of Poroshenko) returned to Kyiv and there were persistent rumors that the Great Compromise was about to be concluded, which would end the war in Donbass.
Allegedly, even before his election, Poroshenko promised the Kremlin that he would put the issue of Crimea out of the brackets, and give the Donbass some special status. And in response, Russia will recall Strelkov and Co. from there.
Immediately after the inauguration of Poroshenko, these rumors seem to have begun to be justified. The president announced a truce and then met with Putin, Merkel and Hollande in Normandy (hence the expression "Norman Four").
Poroshenko even appointed a special representative for the settlement of the Donbass - Leonid Kuchma. Soon he, together with Viktor Medvedchuk, Nestor Shufrich, Russian Ambassador Zurabov and OSCE representatives, went to Donetsk, where he met with Borodai and other representatives of the "DPR".
Leaks of information from the negotiating group indicated that the issue of some kind of autonomy for Donbass and a ceasefire was being discussed. Then the chances for this were, of course, lower than in March, but still they were.
At least in all the cities of Donbass occupied by the separatists, dual power was maintained. In fact, the former management structures were operating, the police were subordinate to Ukraine. But in parallel, indignation at these negotiations grew in Kyiv. There were rallies of volunteer battalions, at which Poroshenko was demanded a war to a victorious end.
The President hesitated for a long time, but, in the end, he decided to go to war. On the night of July 1, he gave the order to end the truce and start the offensive. At the headquarters of the ATO, as Strana has already written, they proceeded from the fact that the separatists are poorly trained gangs, and Russia will not dare to intervene.
What follows is well known.
After the successes of July (the north of the Donetsk region and the west of the Luhansk region were liberated), a series of defeats began. With the active participation of Russian troops, the separatists defeated the Ukrainian units on the border with Russia. Then the battalion-tactical groups of the Russian army entered the Donbass and hit the rear of the ATO group advancing on Ilovaisk. Ukrainian troops fell into the pocket, suffered heavy losses, a significant part of the equipment was destroyed, the entire southern flank of the Ukrainian troops fell apart.
Stunned by this turn of events, Poroshenko agreed to a truce.
On September 5, an agreement was signed in Minsk on a ceasefire, as well as on a peaceful settlement of the situation in the Donbass. It spelled out the same special status, local elections and amnesty. The situation seemed to have returned to the state of July 1, 2014.
At first it seemed that there was a chance for the implementation of the agreements.
At least the Ukrainian leadership began to do their part in a disciplined manner. So, the president and the then speaker Turchynov pushed through the parliament a law on a special status for the Donbass with the argument "otherwise there will be a war, and there will be no one to fight after Ilovaisk."
Judging by friendly dialogue Governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region Kolomoisky with a Russian prankster who introduced himself as Pavel Gubarev, the Ukrainian elite was really in the mood for a compromise in September 2014.
The moral and military-political consequences of Ilovaisk were still strong. And the West, frightened by the prospect of a military defeat of its Ukrainian allies, demanded the implementation of the Minsk road map.
But since October the situation began to change. The threat of another military defeat receded. The holes in the front were patched up with new units. Oil was falling in price, and obviously Russia was no longer up to the war with Ukraine. Fights for the Donetsk airport began. The image of cyborgs defending it has become a moral compensation for Ilovaisk for the Ukrainian society, the mood "we need peace at any cost" began to weaken.
But the main thing is that in the parliamentary elections of 2014, the Popular Front unexpectedly took a lot of votes, which positioned itself as a "party of war." The Rada also included many representatives of volunteer battalions and people with radical views. The general mood of the deputies became quite unambiguous: "no compromises with Russia and separatist terrorists."
In such an environment, Poroshenko, even if he was initially determined to implement the political part of Minsk, could not follow this path, as he risked running into accusations of betrayal.
Note that Russia did not contribute to the mood for compromise. In November, she held "elections" for the heads of the "DPR/LPR", which were not provided for by the Minsk agreements, which gave Kiev a reason to accuse Moscow of completely ignoring them.
By December 2014, the Minsk Compromise had died without being implemented.
Since the new year, fighting in the Donbass has resumed. The separatists were the initiators this time. Russia did not like the fact that Ukraine was ignoring the agreements, and therefore it wanted to force Kyiv to sit down at the negotiating table again.
The battles, unlike in 2014, were local in nature - the Donetsk airport and Debaltseve. But shelling went along the entire front line, leading to numerous casualties among the civilian population (well-known examples are Volnovakha and Mariupol).
In military terms, events unfolded unsuccessfully for the Ukrainian side. Control over the Donetsk airport was lost. In February, with the support of the Russians, the city of Debaltseve was taken into the cauldron, from which, with heavy losses and abandoning military equipment, troops had to be withdrawn.
Against this background, new negotiations started in Minsk with the participation of Merkel, Hollande, Putin and Poroshenko. But there was an important difference from the situation on the eve of the first Minsk talks. At that time, the Ukrainian army faced the prospect of defeat, and therefore Kyiv had a motive to speed up peace negotiations in order to avoid this defeat.
In February 2015, despite heavy losses, there was no prospect of defeat. It was clear that, except for Debaltseve, the separatists would hardly have been able to win new victories. Unless, if large-scale support for Russian troops is provided, which Kyiv no longer believed in.
Therefore, Poroshenko was seated at the negotiating table in Minsk by the leaders of the West, who by that time were determined to put up with Moscow.
Negotiations in Minsk in February 2015. Photo sputniknews.com
It was for their sake (or rather, for the sake of receiving financial assistance from the IMF, which was critically important for a country where the hryvnia exchange rate exceeded 30 at that moment) that the president signed the second Minsk agreements. They worsened the negotiating position for the Ukrainian authorities. There, the logistics of the reconciliation process were described more specifically.
In particular, it was written that the transfer of control over the border to Ukraine will begin after the local elections and will end only after the amendments to the Constitution come into force. That is, the political process was put in the first place before the transfer of control over the border to Ukraine.
That is why, literally from the very first days, the Ukrainian authorities began to sabotage the implementation of the political part.
First of all, because they did not see any sense in it. Poroshenko and his allies from the Popular Front were quite tired of maintaining the status quo. When active hostilities (which could lead to new defeats and heavy losses) are not conducted, but local battles continue (and you can constantly talk about them in the media, mobilizing the people against the aggressor country and recording all your political opponents as agents of the Kremlin ).
Around the line of demarcation, its own corrupt infrastructure for smuggling and control over commodity flows has developed, from which the entire power vertical was fed.
The billions of dollars allocated for the war were also used by structures close to power.
In general, there was no reason for the ruling elite to stop this celebration of life of their own free will.
However, there were two factors that for some time forced the authorities to move towards a political settlement.
First, it is the pressure of the West. Ukraine assumed international obligations under the Minsk agreements, under which a large complex of relations between the EU and the US and Russia was tied up, and therefore Western partners believed that Kyiv should still follow the path of implementing Minsk-2. Mainly - to prevent the threat of a new war.
Secondly, a significant part of Ukrainian big business was in favor of an early pacification in the east and the normalization of relations with Russia. And not only associated with the Opposition Bloc, but also focused on Poroshenko. While the war is going on and the issue of borders and relations with the largest neighbor has not been fully resolved, naturally, one should not count on an influx of investments and an increase in the capitalization of one's own assets.
The lack of credit resources bled Ukrainian business and made the country more and more dependent on the support of the West. The national capital was determined to return to a multi-vector approach. Cautious thoughts on this subject were expressed at the end of 2016, but were in the air much earlier.
Throughout 2015 and 2016, consultations continued between the Russian, Ukrainian and Western sides, during which a preliminary scheme was even developed. After the local elections, the former elite (Akhmetov and representatives of the Opposition Bloc) returned to power in the Donbass, the region received a special status, the border was transferred under the control of Ukraine. Russia is leaving.
However, this plan aroused strong opposition from the "party of war" in Kyiv. In addition, he was dissatisfied with the separatists and their curators in Moscow. They did not want to lose power in their "republics".
Therefore, by joint efforts, they did everything to ensure that this plan remained only on paper.
On August 31, 2015, when the parliament adopted in the first reading amendments to the Constitution on a special status, clashes took place near the Verkhovna Rada. Opponents of the changes threw a grenade at the National Guardsmen. Several people died.
Representatives of the authorities began to express fears that pedaling the topic of "special status for Donbass" could lead to mass riots (especially since the radicals constantly threatened this).
At the beginning of 2016, when the time came to adopt amendments to the Constitution in the second reading, the Popular Front strongly opposed this, without which there would hardly have been votes.
The question was shelved.
Throughout 2016, there were sluggish negotiations on how to implement Minsk-2. The West demanded that Ukraine fulfill the political part of the agreements, but at the same time, the position of the Ukrainian authorities became tougher - it insisted: first control over the border and only then elections.
And for starters - a complete ceasefire (which was impossible to achieve).
After Trump's election victory, many believed that now, finally, there would be a breakthrough in relations. But this turned out to be an illusion. The American establishment has tied the American president hand and foot in relations with Russia, and therefore no global changes are taking place.
In the Donbas itself, meanwhile, the base for the Great Compromise was gradually being destroyed by the efforts of both sides.
This process accelerated sharply after the blockade of uncontrolled territories. The blockade was initiated by Ukrainian radicals, but at the same time the separatists clearly played along with them, squeezing out enterprises of Ukrainian owners under this pretext.
The basis for compromise was also destroyed by the humanitarian policy of the Ukrainian authorities. After a tactical retreat in the spring of 2014, massive Ukrainization began in 2016. The process of decommunization was launched, cities are renamed without the consent of their inhabitants.
People with a different point of view are actively hinted that it is better for them to leave Ukraine or accept a new concept.
In general, everything is being done to show that there will be no compromise. The question is closed. Ukraine will be a mono-country, with common ideas about the past and the future.
So, at least, the ideologists of the current government think. And how will it really be?
Three scenarios for Ukraine
The current situation is obviously transitional. Its meaning is that the former class that has ruled Ukraine since Kuchma's time - the class of national capital and the politicians and officials associated with it - wants to continue to live according to the principle "Texas must be robbed by Texans." That is, not to let competitors from either the East or the West reach the commanding heights.
It should be noted that it is much more difficult to carry out such a policy now than in the days of the multi-vector policy of Kuchma and Yanukovych.
The Eastern vector has been broken, relations with Russia, if not completely terminated, have moved into the category of semi-legal and it is no longer possible to rely on them in order to prevent the increase in the influence of the West.
Dependence on the latter has dramatically increased. And financial, and military-political, and personal. With one call from Washington, Panama can arrest Poroshenko's offshore companies, turning him from a billionaire into a beggar. Moreover, a beggar who, unlike Yanukovych, has nowhere to run.
The same can be said about most of the other representatives of the current elite. The zeroing of the Russian vector has made them totally dependent on relations with the West.
True, the current Ukrainian elite, headed by Poroshenko, has shown considerable ingenuity and resourcefulness in order to continue to follow the “Texas” principle, even with a mere minuscule in their hands.
Two factors contribute to this.
The first is the rather low commercial interest of transnational corporations in Ukraine. Yes, they are interested in our country as a sales market. We have assets that can be taken under control (land, energy and transport infrastructure, mining). But all this does not promise such a big profit that someone in the West would decide to make real efforts to clean up the political space in Ukraine for the entry of their capital.
If we suddenly discovered huge and easily recoverable oil and gas reserves, then the conversation would be completely different.
The second factor is war. It performs a dual function. On the one hand, the unresolved conflict in the east deters Western competitors who would like to compete for a place under the Ukrainian sun.
On the other hand, the war allows the Ukrainian elite to "sell" to the West their necessity and irreplaceability. Kyiv opposes Russia, which is beneficial to the West, and therefore why destabilize the situation in Ukraine, starting to scrap an already established system, risking playing into the hands of the Russians. Like, let the Texans continue to plunder Texas, because they are protecting the Mexican border at the same time.
So far, this story works. Despite the constant criticism of the Ukrainian authorities from the West, neither the EU nor the US are taking any tough measures against Poroshenko and Co.
But Ukraine does not exist on a separate planet. And so the changes are coming and will go.
The main factor is that due to political and military instability, as well as incomprehensible rules of the game, there is no access to large investments and cheap money in Ukraine.
Including the development of national business.
Some of its representatives can compensate for this through corrupt rent (development of budgetary funds or making super profits through tariff regulation), but this path is far from accessible to everyone. And because of the need to coordinate fiscal policy with the IMF and the West, it will become more and more difficult to do this every year.
Therefore, one way or another, but the national business will weaken, and its ability to withstand pressure from outside will decline. Especially after the introduction of the land market, which will deal a blow to the largest agricultural holdings.
Gradually, with the help of anti-corruption structures created with the participation of the West, key representatives of the Ukrainian political and business elite will be purged, who will resist the course of events.
And if everything goes as it goes, then in ten or fifteen years Ukraine will turn into an ordinary Eastern European country, from which millions of people will leave to work - some to Russia, some to Europe, and the rest will have a standard of living slightly lower than now in Bulgaria.
At the same time, the remnants of industry, as well as the agricultural business, will be controlled by Western European, Chinese and Middle Eastern companies. A significant part of the current oligarchs will either be forced to leave the country or go to jail. Those who survive will lose influence and recede into secondary roles in politics and business.
At the same time, the geopolitical future of such Ukraine is rather uncertain. Whether the country will join the EU and NATO, what kind of relations it will have with Russia is unclear. Just as it is not clear what NATO, the EU and Russia will be like in 10-15 years.
But this is, shall we say, an inertial scenario.
The Ukrainian elite can break it in two ways.
The first is the radicalization of the nationalist vector, the final rejection of most democratic freedoms, the cleansing of the political space from any competition, the dispossession of part of the oligarchy and the redistribution of its assets among the remaining players. Possibly a declaration of martial law.
This will allow for some time to extend the existence of the current clan-corruption model of power.
True, such a scheme carries obvious risks. The most important is the risk of running into obstruction from the West, and hence the entire international community. This will be a strong blow to power.
Moreover, at the same time, both separatist and pro-Russian sentiments in the southeast and radical nationalist movements can intensify. The latter will try to take advantage of the turmoil to seize power, just as the Bolsheviks did in October 1917.
As a result, the country will be on the verge of collapse, and the current Ukrainian elite will be under the threat of complete annihilation.
The second way is just the opposite. Return to multi-vector. That is, the restoration of relations with Russia at one level or another, the reintegration of Donbass with a special status, amnesty, the rejection of nationalist excesses and the pedaling of socially divisive topics in domestic politics, the refusal to join NATO, the declaration of the neutral status of Ukraine.
Given the West's fatigue from the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, the United States and the EU can theoretically agree with this option (at least for the first time).
This path has economic advantages - the end of the war and reconciliation with the largest neighbor will open the way for investments, Ukraine can count on donor assistance from both the West and Russia to eliminate the consequences of the war. This will ensure a rapid recovery of the economy and an increase in the standard of living of the population. National business will receive the necessary impetus for development.
At the same time, this scenario currently looks difficult to implement.
It will certainly try to torpedo the nationalist forces. They are already talking about a "night of long knives" if "pro-Russian" forces win the elections. It is very likely that they will try to carry out their threats.
Therefore, in order for the country to take the "third way", much more needs to be done. Starting from the consolidation of forces advocating the implementation of this scenario, and ending with a radical change in the information policy of the largest media owned by national capital.
In general, any variant of the country's future development is a difficult path, fraught with a complete breakdown of the existing system in the country, demolition of all its current players from the chessboard.
The realization of this should, in theory, encourage the Ukrainian elite to be extremely cautious and avoid abrupt and ill-considered steps. Moreover, relations with Russia are teetering "on the brink", and war is smoldering in the east. The "DPR" and "LPR" are listed with the sword of Damocles. Millions of citizens of Ukraine do not accept the current government.
In the event of a major upheaval, all this can again begin to move.
The conversation about the future of Ukraine, which began on the first Maidan and came to blood on the second, has not yet been completed. Moreover, more and more firewood is thrown into the fire of contradictions from all sides.
Will the Ukrainian elite and people have the courage and intelligence to end this curse and follow the path of national reconciliation, refusing to be a tool in the hands of external forces, is the main question on which the future of our country depends.