Ukraine: A History QUOTES

1 " To celebrate the Russian/Ukrainian partnership, in 1954 the 300th anniversary of the Pereiaslav Treaty was marked throughout the Soviet Union in an unusually grandiose manner. In addition to numerous festivities, myriad publications, and countless speeches, the Central Committee of the all-union party even issued thirteen "thesis", which argued the irreversibility of the "everlasting union" of the Ukrainians and the Russians: "The experience of history has shown that the way of fraternal union and alliance chosen by the Russians and Ukrainians was the only true way. The union of two great Slavic peoples multiplied their strength in the common struggle against all external foes, against serf owners and the bourgeoisie, again tsarism and capitalist slavery. The unshakeable friendship of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples has grown and strengthened in this struggle." To emphasize the point that the union with Moscow brought the Ukrainians great benefits, the Pereiaslav anniversary was crowned by the Russian republic's ceding of Crimea to Ukraine "as a token of friendship of the Russian people."
But the "gift" of the Crimea was far less altruistic than it seemed. First, because the peninsula was the historic homeland of the Crimean Tatars whom Stalin had expelled during the Second World War, the Russians did not have the moral right to give it away nor did the Ukrainians have the right to accept it. Second, because of its proximity and economic dependence on Ukraine, the Crimea's links with Ukraine were naturally greater than with Russia. Finally, the annexation of the Crimea saddled Ukraine with economic and political problems. The deportation of the Tatars in 1944 had created economic chaos in the region and it was Kiev's budget that had to make up loses. More important was the fact that, according to the 1959 census, about 860,000 Russians and only 260,000 Ukrainians lived in the Crimea. Although Kiev attempted to bring more Ukrainians into the region after 1954, the Russians, many of whom were especially adamant in rejecting any form of Ukrainization, remained the overwhelming majority. As a result, the Crimean "gift" increased considerably the number of Russians in the Ukrainian republic. In this regard, it certainly was an appropriate way of marking the Pereiaslav Treaty. "

― Orest Subtelny , Ukraine: A History

3 " Both Ukrainian and Russian historians treat Kievan Rus' as an integral part of their respective national histories. As might be expected, the question of who has the greater right to claim its heritage often arises. Traditional Russian historians, especially those influenced by the 19th-century Juridical School, argued that because Russians were the only East Slavs to create a state in modern times (the evolution of statehood was viewed by them as the pinnacle of the historical process), the Muscovite-Russian state's link with the earliest East Slavic state was the most consistent and significant. By implication, because Ukrainians and Belorussians had no modern state of their own, their histories had no institutional bonds with the Kievan period. The influential 19th-century Russian historian Mikhail Pogodin went even further and claimed that Russian ties with Kiev were not only institutional, but also ethnic.3 According to his theory, after the Mongol destruction of Kiev in 1240, much of the surviving populace migrated from the south to the northeast, the heartland of modern Russia. Although this theory has long since been discredited, it still enjoys support among many Russian and non-Russian historians.

As the national consciousness of Ukrainians grew in the 19th century, so too did their resentment of Russian monopolization of the "glory that was Kiev." The most forceful argument against the "traditional scheme of Russian history" was advanced in 1906 by Hrushevsky, Ukraine's most eminent historian. Thoroughgoing populist that he was, Hrushevsky questioned the study of history primarily in terms of the state-building process… Just as Gaul, once a Roman province and now modern-day France, borrowed much of its sociopolitical organization, laws, and culture from Rome, so too did Moscow with regard to Kiev. But Moscow was not a continuation, or a second stage in the historical process begun in Kiev…

Soviet historians take what appears to be a compromise position on the issue of the Kievan legacy. They argue that Kiev was the creation of all three East Slavic peoples - the Ukrainians, Russians, and Belorussians. "

― Orest Subtelny , Ukraine: A History

5 " In terms of its political organization, it is simpler to establish what Kievan Rus was not rather than what it was. Kievan Rus' was not a state in the modern sense of the word. To view it as such would be to ascribe to it a
much higher degree of political organization than it actually possessed. There was no centralized government, no encompassing specialized bureaucracy. The only contact that existed between rulers and ruled, especially as far as the nonurban population was concerned, was the revenue-collecting process.

Personal or dynastic interests motivated princely politics, while institutional or societal concerns were often ignored. Political relationships were loose, fluid, and ill defined. And political problems were often dealt with by means of force. Nonetheless, there was a growing degree of political, social, and economic order and cultural achievement in the society of Kievan Rus' and the goal of this chapter is to survey its major features. "

― Orest Subtelny , Ukraine: A History

7 " Since the fall of Kiev in 1240, the western lands of Galicia and Volhynia had served as the stage for major developments in Ukrainian history. However, by the end of the i6th century, the focus of events shifted back to the east, to the lands of the Dnieper basin that had long been partially depopulated. In that vast frontier, which at that time was specifically referred to as Ukraina - the land on the periphery of the civilized world - the age-old struggle of the sedentary population against the nomads flared up with renewed intensity, fueled by the bitter confrontation between Christianity and Islam. The oppressive conditions that obtained in the settled western areas provided numerous recruits who preferred the dangers of frontier life to serfdom. As a result, a new class of Cossack-frontiersmen emerged. Initially, the Cossacks concentrated on pushing back the Tatars, thereby opening up the frontier to colonization.

But as they honed their military and organizational skills and won ever more impressive victories against the Tatars and their Ottoman Turkish over lords, Ukrainian society came to perceive the Cossacks not only as champions against the Muslim threat, but also as defenders against the religion, national and socioeconomic oppression of the Polish szlachta. Gradually, moving to the forefront of Ukrainian society, the Cossacks became heavily involved in the resolution of these central issues in Ukrainian life and, for the next several centuries, provided Ukrainian society with the leadership it had lost as a result of the Polonization of the Ukrainian nobility. "

― Orest Subtelny , Ukraine: A History

9 " To the modern mind, which views national sovereignty as a natural condition (although the concept did not gain wide currency until after the French Revolution of 1789), the question arises of why Khmelnytsky did not declare independence for Ukraine. During the uprising there were, in fact, rumors to the effect that he wished to reestablish the "old Rus' principality," and even that he planned to form a separate "Cossack principality." Although such ideas may have been considered, it would have been impossible under the circumstances to realize them.

As the interminable wars demonstrated, the Cossacks, although able to administer severe defeats to the Poles, were incapable of permanently preventing the szlachta from launching repeated efforts to regain Ukraine. To assure themselves of a lasting victory over the Poles, Khmelnytsky needed the continuing and reliable support of a major foreign power. The usual price of such aid was acceptance of the overlordship of the ruler who provided it. In the view of the masses, the main thrust of the uprising was to redress socioeconomic ills, and to many in Ukraine the question of whether these problems were to be resolved under their own or under foreign rule was of secondary importance.

Finally, in 17th-century Eastern Europe, sovereignty rested not in the people, but in the person of a legitimate (that is, generally recognized) monarch. Because Khmelnytsky, despite his popularity and power, did not possess such legitimacy, he had to find for Ukraine an overlord who did. At issue was not self-rule for Ukraine, for Ukrainians already had gained it. Their goal was to find a monarch who could provide their newly formed autonomous society with legitimacy and protection. "

― Orest Subtelny , Ukraine: A History

11 " For millennia Ukraine had been the crucible of mighty political conglomerates such as the Scythian, Sarmatian, and Kievan realms. Its inhabitants controlled their own destinies and influenced, sometimes decisively, those of their neighbors. The civilizations that were based in Ukraine stood in the forefront of the cultural and socioeconomic developments in all of Eastern Europe. But after the decline of Galicia-Volhynia, an epochal transformation occurred. Henceforth, Ukrainian lands would no longer form the core of important
political entities and, except for a few brief moments of self-assertion, the fate of Ukraine's inhabitants would be decided in far-off capitals such as Warsaw, Moscow, or Vienna.*

In cultural and economic terms as well, the status of Ukraine would decline to that of an important but peripheral province whose elites identified with foreign cultures and political systems. No longer dominant but dominated, the natives of Ukraine would have to struggle not only for their political selfdetermination but also for their existence as a separate ethnic and national entity. This effort became - and remains to this day - one of the major themes of Ukrainian history.

* During the Polish-Lithuanian period, Ukrainians called themselves Ruthenians (Rusyny), a name derived from Rus'. Belorussians were also called by this name. At this time, Russians were generally called Muscovites. "

― Orest Subtelny , Ukraine: A History