Ukrainians

Neolithic migrations c. 5000–4000 BC. The people of the Proto-Indo-European Sredny Stog culture were the result of a genetic admixture between the Eastern European hunter-gatherers and Caucasus hunter-gatherers.

Ukrainians, like most Europeans, largely descend from three distinct lineages:[95] Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, descended from populations associated with the Paleolithic Epigravettian culture;[96] Neolithic Early European Farmers who migrated from Anatolia during the Neolithic Revolution 9,000 years ago;[97] and Yamnaya Steppe pastoralists who expanded into Europe from the Pontic–Caspian steppe of Ukraine and southern Russia in the context of Indo-European migrations 5,000 years ago.[95]

In a survey of 97 genomes for diversity in full genome sequences among self-identified Ukrainians from Ukraine, a study identified more than 13 million genetic variants, representing about a quarter of the total genetic diversity discovered in Europe.[98] Among these nearly 500,000 are previously undocumented and likely to be unique for this population. Medically relevant mutations whose prevalence in the Ukrainian genomes differed significantly compared to other European genome sequences, particularly from Western Europe and Russia. Ukrainian genomes form a single cluster positioned between the Northern on one side, and Western European populations on the other.

Principal Component Analysis of European populations from the Genome Ukraine Project

There was a significant overlap with Central European populations as well as with people from the Balkans.

Structure plot of European populations from the Genome Ukraine Project

In addition to the close geographic distance between these populations, this may also reflect the insufficient representation of samples from the surrounding populations.

The Ukrainian gene-pool includes the following Y-haplogroups, in order from the most prevalent:[99]

• R1a (43%)
• I2a (23%)
• R1b (8%)
• E1b1b (7%)
• I1 (5%)
• N1 (5%)
• J2 (4%)
• G (3%)
• T (1%)

Roughly all R1a Ukrainians carry R1a-Z282; R1a-Z282 has been found significantly only in Eastern Europe.[100] Chernivtsi Oblast is the only region in Ukraine where Haplogroup I2a occurs more frequently than R1a, much less frequent even in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast.[101] In comparison to their northern and eastern neighbors, Ukrainians have a similar percentage of Haplogroup R1a-Z280 (43%) in their population—compare Belarusians, Russians, and Lithuanians and (55%, 46%, and 42% respectively). Populations in Eastern Europe which have never been Slavic do as well. Ukrainians in Chernivtsi Oblast (near the Romanian border) have a higher percentage of I2a as opposed to R1a, which is typical of the Balkan region, but a smaller percentage than Russians of the N1c1 lineage found among Finnic, Baltic, and Siberian populations, and also less R1b than West Slavs.[102][103][104] In terms of haplogroup distribution, the genetic pattern of Ukrainians most closely resembles that of Belarusians. The presence of the N1c lineage is explained by a contribution of the assimilated Finnic tribes.[105]

Kostiantyn Ostrozkyi (prince, upper left), Kyrylo Rozumovskyi (hetman, upper right), Ivan Mazepa (hetman, lower left), Ivan Paskevych (serene prince, field marshal, lower right)

Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of Turkey. Painted by Ilya Repin from 1880 to 1891. Two pikes on the left are wrapped in the traditional colors of Ukraine – blue/yellow and red/black.

Ivan Franko, Ukrainian writer and poet

Taras Shevchenko, national bard of Ukraine

Ukraine has had a very turbulent history, a fact explained by its geographical position. In the 9th century the Varangians from Scandinavia conquered the proto-Slavic tribes on the territory of today's Ukraine, Belarus, and western Russia and laid the groundwork for the Kyivan Rus state. The ancestors of the Ukrainian nation such as Polianians had an important role in the development and culturalization of Kyivan Rus state. The internecine wars between Rus princes, which began after the death of Yaroslav the Wise,[108] led to the political fragmentation of the state into a number of principalities. The quarreling between the princes left Kyivan Rus vulnerable to foreign attacks, and the invasion of the Mongols in 1236. and 1240. finally destroyed the state. Another important state in the history of the Ukrainians is the Kingdom of Ruthenia (1199–1349).[109][110]

The third important state for Ukrainians is the Cossack Hetmanate. The Cossacks of Zaporizhzhia since the late 15th century controlled the lower bends of the river Dnieper, between Russia, Poland and the Tatars of Crimea, with the fortified capital, Zaporozhian Sich. Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky is one of the most celebrated and at the same time most controversial political figures in Ukraine's early-modern history. A brilliant military leader, his greatest achievement in the process of national revolution was the formation of the Cossack Hetmanate state of the Zaporozhian Host (1648–1782). The period of the Ruin in the late 17th century in the history of Ukraine is characterized by the disintegration of Ukrainian statehood and general decline. During the Ruin Ukraine became divided along the Dnieper River into Left-Bank Ukraine and Right-Bank Ukraine, and the two-halves became hostile to each other. Ukrainian leaders during the period are considered to have been largely opportunists and men of little vision who could not muster broad popular support for their policies.[111] There were roughly 4 million Ukrainians at the end of the 17th century.[112]

At the final stages of the First World War, a powerful struggle for an independent Ukrainian state developed in the central Ukrainian territories, which, until 1917, were part of the Russian Empire. The newly established Ukrainian government, the Central Rada, headed by Mykhailo Hrushevsky, issued four universals, the Fourth of which, dated 22 January 1918, declared the independence and sovereignty of the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR) on 25 January 1918. The session of the Central Rada on 29 April 1918 ratified the Constitution of the UNR and elected Hrushevsky president.[73]

A girl in Kharkiv during the Holodomor

Valentin Glushko, designer of rocket engines in the Soviet space program during the heights of the Space Race between United States and the former Soviet Union.

During the 1920s, under the Ukrainisation policy pursued by the national Communist leadership of Mykola Skrypnyk, Soviet leadership encouraged a national renaissance in the Ukrainian culture and language. Ukrainisation was part of the Soviet-wide policy of Korenisation (literally indigenisation).

During 1932–1933, millions of Ukrainians were starved to death by the Soviet regime which led to a famine, known as the Holodomor.[113] The Soviet regime remained silent about the Holodomor and provided no aid to the victims or the survivors. But news and information about what was going on reached the West and evoked public responses in Polish-ruled Western Ukraine and in the Ukrainian diaspora. Since the 1990s the independent Ukrainian state, particularly under President Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian mass media and academic institutions, many foreign governments, most Ukrainian scholars, and many foreign scholars have viewed and written about the Holodomor as genocide and issued official declarations and publications to that effect. Modern scholarly estimates of the direct loss of human life due to the famine range between 2.6 million[114][115] (3–3.5 million)[116] and 12 million[117] although much higher numbers are usually published in the media and cited in political debates.[118] As of March 2008, the parliament of Ukraine and the governments of several countries, including the United States have recognized the Holodomor as an act of genocide.[nb 3]

Following the Invasion of Poland in September 1939, German and Soviet troops divided the territory of Poland. Thus, Eastern Galicia and Volhynia with their Ukrainian population became part of Soviet Ukraine. When the German armies invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, those regions temporarily became part of the Nazi-controlled Reichskommissariat Ukraine. In total, the number of ethnic Ukrainians who fought in the ranks of the Soviet Army is estimated from 4.5 million to 7 million. The pro-Soviet partisan guerrilla resistance in Ukraine is estimated to number at 47,800 from the start of occupation to 500,000 at its peak in 1944, with about 50% being ethnic Ukrainians. Of the estimated 8.6 million Soviet troop losses, 1.4 million were ethnic Ukrainians.

The Ukrainian state has occupied a number of territories since its initial foundation. Most of these territories have been located within Eastern Europe, however, as depicted in the maps in the gallery below, has also at times extended well into Eurasia and South-Eastern Europe. At times there has also been a distinct lack of a Ukrainian state, as its territories were on a number of occasions, annexed by its more powerful neighbours.

Spread of Ukrainian language in the beginning of 20th century

Population of those whose mother tongue is Ukrainian in Ukraine (2001)

Ukrainian (украї́нська мо́ва, ukraі́nska móva) is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the only official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses the Ukrainian alphabet, one of many based on the Cyrillic alphabet.

The Ukrainian language traces its origins to the Old East Slavic language of the medieval state of Kyivan Rus. In its earlier stages it was called Ruthenian in Latin. Ukrainian, along with all other East Slavic languages, is a lineal descendant of the colloquial language used in Kyivan Rus (10th–13th century).[126]

While the Golden Horde placed officials in key Kyivan Rus areas, practised forced resettlement, and even renamed urban centers to suit their own language, the Mongols did not attempt to annihilate Kyivan Rus society and culture. The second onslaught began with the destruction of Kyiv by the Golden Horde in 1240. This khanate formed the western part of a great Mongol Empire that had been founded by Genghis Khan in the early 13th century. After the Mongol destruction of Kyivan Rus in the 13th century, literary activity in Ukraine declined. A revival began in the late 18th century in eastern Ukraine with overlapping literary and academic phases at a time when nostalgia for the Cossack past and resentment at the loss of autonomy still lingered on.

The language has persisted despite several periods of bans and/or discouragement throughout centuries as it has always nevertheless maintained a sufficient base among the people of Ukraine, its folklore songs, itinerant musicians, and prominent authors.

A large portion of citizens of Ukraine speaks Russian.[127][128] According to the 2001 Ukrainian census, 67.5% of Ukrainians (citizens of Ukraine) and 85.2% of ethnic Ukrainians named Ukrainian as their mother-tongue, and 14.8% named Russian as their mother-tongue.[129] This census does not cover Ukrainians living in other countries.[130]

The historic Saint Sophia's Cathedral, Kyiv.

Ukraine was inhabited by pagan tribes until Byzantine rite Christianity was introduced by the turn of the first millennium. It was imagined by later writers who sought to put Kyivan Christianity on the same level of primacy as Byzantine Christianity that Apostle Andrew himself had visited the site where the city of Kyiv would be later built.

However, it was only by the 10th century that the emerging state, the Kyivan Rus, became influenced by the Byzantine Empire; the first known conversion was by the Princess Saint Olga who came to Constantinople in 945 or 957. Several years later, her grandson, Prince Vladimir baptised his people in the Dnieper River. This began a long history of the dominance of the Eastern Orthodoxy in Ruthenia (Ukraine).

Ukrainians are majority Eastern Orthodox Christians, and they form the second largest ethno-linguistic group among Eastern Orthodox in the world.[131][132] Ukrainians have their own autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine headed by Metropolitan Epiphanius where its the most common church and in the small areas of Ukraine the Ukrainian Orthodox Church who were under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate is the smaller common. Due of the Russian invasion of Ukraine impacted the religious identity of Ukrainians.

Ukrainian Greek Catholic procession

In the Western region known as Halychyna, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, one of the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches has a strong membership. Since the fall of the Soviet Union there has been a growth of Protestant churches[nb 4] and Rodnovery, a contemporary Slavic modern pagan religion.[133] There are also ethnic minorities that practice other religions, i.e. Crimean Tatars (Islam), and Jews and Karaim (Judaism).

A 2020 survey conducted by the Razumkov Centre found that majority of Ukrainian populations was adhering to Christianity (81.9%). Of these Christians, 75.4% are Eastern Orthodox (34% of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and 13.8% of the Moscow Patriarchate, and 27.6% are simply Orthodox), 8.2% are Greek Catholics, 7.1% are simply Christians, a further 1.9% are Protestants and 0.4% are Latin Catholics.[134] As of 2016, 16.3% of the population does not claim a religious affiliation, and 1.7% adheres to other religions.[135] According to the same survey, 70% of the population of Ukraine declared to be believers, but do not belong to any church. 8.8% do not identify themselves with any of the denominations, and another 5.6% identified themselves as non-believers.[135]

Odesa Opera House

Ukrainian music incorporates a diversity of external cultural influences. It also has a very strong indigenous Slavic and Christian uniqueness whose elements were used among many neighboring nations.[136][137]

Ukrainian folk oral literature, poetry, and songs (such as the dumas) are among the most distinctive ethnocultural features of Ukrainians as a people. Religious music existed in Ukraine before the official adoption of Christianity, in the form of plainsong "obychnyi spiv" or "musica practica". Traditional Ukrainian music is easily recognized by its somewhat melancholy tone. It first became known outside of Ukraine during the 15th century as musicians from Ukraine would perform before the royal courts in Poland (latter in Russia).

A large number of famous musicians around the world was educated or born in Ukraine, among them are famous names like Dmitry Bortniansky, Sergei Prokofiev, Myroslav Skoryk, etc. Ukraine is also the rarely acknowledged musical heartland of the former Russian Empire, home to its first professional music academy, which opened in the mid-18th century and produced numerous early musicians and composers.[138]

Ukrainian dance Hopak.

Ukrainian dance refers to the traditional folk dances of the peoples of Ukraine. Today, Ukrainian dance is primarily represented by what ethnographers, folklorists and dance historians refer to as "Ukrainian Folk-Stage Dances", which are stylized representations of traditional dances and their characteristic movements that have been choreographed for concert dance performances. This stylized art form has so permeated the culture of Ukraine, that very few purely traditional forms of Ukrainian dance remain today.

Ukrainian dance is often described as energetic, fast-paced, and entertaining, and along with traditional Easter eggs (pysanky), it is a characteristic example of Ukrainian culture recognized and appreciated throughout the world.

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  Coat of arms of Ukraine
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  Flag of Ukraine

Ukraine's national symbols include its flag and its coat of arms.

The national flag of Ukraine is a blue and yellow bicolour rectangle. The colour fields are of same form and equal size. The colours of the flag represent a blue sky above yellow fields of wheat.[139][140][141] The flag was designed for the convention of the Supreme Ruthenian Council, meeting in Lviv in October 1848. Its colours were based on the coat-of-arms of the Kingdom of Ruthenia.[142]

The Coat of arms of Ukraine features the same colours found on the Ukrainian flag: a blue shield with yellow trident—the symbol of ancient East Slavic tribes that once lived in Ukraine, later adopted by Ruthenian and Kievan Rus rulers.