Bloody Legacy: Deciphering Ukraine’s Tumultuous History with Russia

Ukraine

The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine that has been going on since 2022 consists of a historic trail that eventually leads to the circumstances that we see today. Before jumping onto the other factors and results of the war, let’s take a glance at this. 

History of Ukraine

Ukraine by area is the 2nd largest country in Europe where most of the people are more or less bilingual by nature the older generation spoke Russian because it was the state language of the USSR and hence it got transferred to the younger generations. Prehistoric Ukraine played a vital role in Eurasian cultural events with examples such as the spread of chalcolithic bronze ages and the Indo-European migrations. During the migration period, the area was settled by the Greuthungis, Getae, Goths and Huns. Previously it was colonized by the Greeks and then the Romans. Early middle age saw Slavic Expansion.

Around the 14th-15th century, present-day Ukraine’s territory consisted of 4 External powers namely, the Golden Horde, the Crimean Khanate, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Crown Kingdom of Poland. A treaty of perpetual peace was carried out in 1686 as a result of the Russian-Polish War of 1654-1657 where the Eastern portion of the present day Ukraine came under Russian rule.

A total of 146,000 Rubles were to be paid to Poland as compensation for the loss of the right bank part of Ukraine. Between 1772 and 1795, the Partition of Poland and the Russian conquest of the Crimean Khanate took place which resulted in the controlled rule of the present-day Ukrainian territory by the Russian Empire and the Habsburg Austria for around 100 years. In 1917, Ukraine remained an independent nation temporarily for a short period.

By 1914-1918 which marked the period of WW1, the war was fought between the allied and the central powers with the UK, France, Russian Empire, Italy, US and Japan from the allied powers and Germany, Austrian-Hungary, Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria sided with the central powers. To destabilize the power of the Russian Empire, it is believed that it was Germany who caused a series of internal conflicts in the Russian Empire.

WW1

In 1917, when Tzar Nicholas II was the emperor, a communist revolution started in Petrograd which was believed to be having the involvement of Vladimir Lenin. Lenin had exiled himself in Switzerland and was a follower of Karl Marx who’s books influenced him a lot. Due to this, Lenin was motivated to introduce communism in Russia and wanted to overthrow the Russian Empire while his motive for the same remained to solve the socio, economic and other issues in Russia through communism.

This revolution is marked as one of the most influential revolutions throughout history due to which the Russian Empire had to withdraw itself from the WW1 due to internalised conflicts. After the downfall of the last emperor of the Russian Empire. After the overthrow of Tzar in Feb 1917, Ukraine set up a provincial government and proclaimed itself a republic within the federated structure of Russia where the nation was named the Ukrainian People’s Republic.

Around that time, Lenin came to Russia and started with the backing of the Bolshevik revolution with the Red Army but faced the White Army against him. This led to 17-2 million casualties and 1-2 million refugees outside the USSR. White army were a diversified alliance of groups where some wanted political monarchism, some wanted capitalism and some stood with social democracy. Red Army won the war which gave birth to the USSR in 1922. 

Before this, when the Bolsheviks rose to power in November 1917, on the other hand, Ukraine declared complete independence in January 1918. Ukraine led by the Rada government was unable to administer Ukraine due to the Bolshevik aggression. During that time, Germany and Austria brought their troops to Ukraine as they saw it as a food and resource hub for their citizens who were suffering due to the war.

When Germany and Austria came to Ukraine, Russian troops had to leave Ukraine under the Brest-Litvosk treaty terms in March 1918 while recognising Ukrainian independence but after the fall of central powers in WW1, Germany and Austria-Hungarian forces had to leave Ukraine which Ukraine started facing aggression from Poland and Russia to which Ukraine allied with Poland but couldn’t withstand Soviet assault. Thus, Ukraine became part of the USSR in 1922.

One of the leaders who led this Bolshevik invasion of Ukraine was Joseph Stalin who came into power later when Vladimir Lenin died just 2 years after he laid the foundation of communism in Russia and established the USSR. Joseph Stalin is seen as a cruel leader who was pro-communism and would go to the extent of putting people in Gulags who stood against him.

When he took Ukraine under the USSR, he wanted to crush the Ukranian culture by eliminating their language and cultural practices. Two of the most brutal techniques against the Ukrainians that he executed were namely Holodomor and Forced deportation. During 1932 and 1933, around 3.9 million Ukrainians died of famine.

This was caused by the technique called Holodomor where Stalin snatched agricultural produce from Ukrainian farmers and sent them to the industries or in the market while the Ukrainians starved to death. His reason for doing this was to crush any kind of freedom mutiny against the Ukrainian rebels. While also carrying forward the forced deportation, masses of Ukrainian people were killed while a lot of them were put in the prison camps in Siberia.

When the Soviet Union broke up in 1991 into 15 countries, Ukraine held a referendum where 92% voted for an independent country of Ukraine after which Ukraine gained independence and is a globally recognised independent nation to date. While the fall of the USSR is another topic, it’s interesting to note that while Americans were quite happy with the disintegration, where the New York Times published a headline quote “Declaring death of the Soviet Union”, India was widely affected as USSR stood one of India’s strongest allies across the time.

(To be continued….)

Also read: India-Africa Partnership: Charting a Course for Mutual Prosperity in 2024

By Harsh Kumar Singh
(The Pravah India)

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