ANSWERS, 7 Maps, 7 Eras in Ukraine’s Shifting Borders
8th Century to 13th Century
1. The Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire existed from 330 to 1453. Byzantium was a Christian state with Greek as its official language and Constantinople as its capital. This longest-lasting medieval power stretched at times into Italy, Greece, the Balkans, Levant, Asia Minor and North Africa. Its influence is still seen in religion, art, architecture and law.
2. Greek city-states began establishing colonies along the Black Sea coast of Crimea in the 8th to 6th century BC. These colonies traded with various ancient nations around the Black Sea, including Scythians, Maeotae, Cimmerians, Goths and predecessors of the Slavs.
3. In 988, Vladimir, a prince of the Kievan Rus, was baptized by a Byzantine priest. His conversion marked the beginning of Orthodox Christianity among the Rus and remains a moment of great nationalist symbolism for Russians. Putin invoked this older Vladimir in a speech in December 2014 when justifying his annexation of Crimea.
4. Known for warfare, but celebrated for productive peace by uniting disparate people. Led by humble steppe dwellers of Mongolia, but successful due to a mastery of the era’s most advanced technology. The Mongol Empire was the second-largest kingdom of all time. At its peak, the Mongol Empire covered the most contiguous territory in history. Led at first by Genghis Khan, the empire lasted from 1206 until 1368. Researchers believe they were drawn to the fertile land with abundant grasses for their horses and better conditions for livestock breeding.
5. Kiev was established in the 9th century by the Rus, Scandinavian traders and settlers. Moscow was settled later in 1147; rose in influence beginning in 13th century with Mongol Golden Horde invasions.
1650 to 1812
1. The Ottoman Empire, spanning more than 600 years, was created by Turkish tribes and grew to be one of the most powerful states in the world reaching its peak of power between 1481-1566. At its height the empire encompassed most of southeastern Europe and the Middle East including present-day Hungary, Greece, the Balkans and parts of Ukraine.
2. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was at first a dynastic (till 1569) and then a federal multiethnic and multireligious union of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, lasting from 1386 to 1795. At its height, in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, it became one of the largest (territorially), most populous, and politically most powerful of early modern European states, exhibiting , democratic, and religiously tolerant tendencies. in 1410, turned back the Baltic ambitions of Russia’s Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible) in the Livonian Wars (1558–1582), and took a leading role capping the march of the Ottoman Empire with the famous victory at Vienna in 1683. Culturally, the Commonwealth became a border region and a bridge between the Latin civilization of central and western Europe (Poland-Lithuania boasted the second oldest central European university, in Kraków, and was the birthplace of Nicolas Copernicus, the father of modern astronomy) and the Orthodox and even Islamist leanings of the eastern and southern European periphery, creating fascinating mixes of Byzantine and baroque influences in artistic and folk expressions
The Truce of Andrusova in 1667 brought an end to over 13 years of war between Tsarist Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth who clashed over the territories between them — territories in modern Ukraine and Belarus. The West of Ukraine was handed to Poland, while Russia was given Kyiv. Russia agreed to rule Kyiv for only two years, but in 1686 the deal became permanent when Russia paid the Poles 146,000 roubles.
The truce continues to resonate in geopolitics. Ukrainians see it as the devouring of their state by their two larger neighbors. Russian nationalists regard it as a blueprint and justification for future expansion, as evidenced by the annexation of Crimea.
3. Catherine the Great dreamed of ending the Ottoman Empire and extending her rule to Constantinople and Jerusalem
4. Interference in trade routes and religious tensions sparked the Crimean War (1853-1856) during which the Ottoman Empire lost Crimea. The Ottoman Empire and Russia fought against Britain, France, Turkey and Sardinia.
5. Lviv was a center of Jewish culture in Eastern Europe. In the late 18th century it was under rule of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Ukrainian nationalism took hold in mid-19th century, rooted in the traditions and dialects of the region’s peasants and the aspirations of intellectuals who had fled the rule of Russia.
1914 to 1918
1. Bolsheviks were Russian socialists led by Lenin in the early 20th century. In London in exile, he and other Marxists established the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party. Their goals were to create a workers state with all the power going to the “soviets” as the ruling political party. They promised peace, bread and land.
2. The Great War had Axis Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire) fighting against the Allied Powers (Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan and the United States).
3. Under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed in March 1918 ceded some of Russia’s domains to the Central powers and recognized the independence of others, including Ukraine.
4. WWI ended at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11the month of 1918 when Germany surrendered. If formally ended with the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919. The treaty the Bolsheviks had signed was nullified. Ukrainian land reverted to Russia. However, independence was tasted and movements in cities like Lviv, Kiev and Kharkiv sought the return to independence.
5. Russia had most control of this eastern area.
1919 to 1930s
1. The U.S.S.R. was created after the Russian Revolution of 1917 that ended centuries of czarist (Romanov) rule. The Red Terror, a bloody civil war followed until the 1922 treaty between Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Transcaucasia (modern Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan) formed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Communist Party was established led by Vladimir Lenin who took control of the government.
a. It grew to 15 republics. Other Soviet Socialist Republics created were Estonia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
b. Moldova
c. The U.S.S.R. was formed in 1922. Its first leader was Lenin. Upon his death Georgian-born Joseph Stalin rose to power (1924-1953).
2. Before 1922, Ukraine was claimed by Poland and U.S.S.R.
3. In the Russian Civil War, Bolshevik forces fought against armies led by loyalists to the old czarist regime and new political opportunists. The Bolsheviks won and officially declared the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic in 1922.
4. Under Stalin’s policy of collectivization a vast segment of Ukraine’s rural population was displaced and dispossessed. In 1932-33 a man-made famine led to the death of some three million people.
5. Into the depleted villages and cities, Russian-speaking people were encouraged to settle. This demographic shift is seen in today’s divisive politics.
1945 to 1954
1. It would be the breadbasket for the empire he would build.
2. He justified part of his invasion by saying Russian troops would “denazify” western Ukraine.
3. It was mainly the eastern side of Ukraine that had been annexed or “given” to Russia in agreements.
4. In an attempt to reconcile the relationship with the Ukrainian SSR, Nikita Khrushchev, along with the other leadership of the Soviet Union, transferred the Crimean peninsula from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR.
5. .a. The original members to the Warsaw Pact were the Soviet Union, Albania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, and the German Democratic Republic.
b. Provisions: The Soviet Union formed this alliance as a counterbalance to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Although the members of the Warsaw Pact pledged to defend each other if one or more of them came under attack, emphasized non-interference in the internal affairs of its members, and supposedly organized itself around collective decision-making.
Cold War — The Warsaw Pact was dominated by the USSR. This allowed the Soviets to force their foreign policy on the rest of the Eastern Bloc. It put the Soviets in command of the armed forces of the member states. From 1955, Europe was divided into two armed camps. It was called the Cold War because neither the Soviet Union nor the United States officially declared war on each other.
After the fall of the U.S.S.R
1. Europe was divided into a two regions: a US-led Western Bloc and a Soviet-led Eastern Bloc. Since Russia had been part of the allied forces defeating Germany, they took leadership and control over states such as Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Germany. In Western Europe was the American, British and French sphere of influence. This influence included security and aid during the recovery.
2. In September 1990, East Germany left the Pact in preparation for reunification with West Germany. By October, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland had withdrawn from all Warsaw Pact military exercises. The Warsaw Pact officially disbanded in March and July of 1991 following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
3. Several possible factors led to the break up of the U.S.S.R: Failing post-World War II economy, weakened military, public dissatisfaction with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's loosened economic and political policies of perestroika and glasnost. Rather than sparking a renaissance in Communist thought, glasnost opened the floodgates to criticism of the entire USSR.
4. Ukraine became an independent country in 1991.
5 a. Byzantine Empire, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Ukraine, U.S.S.R.; b. Romania is directly to its west. And the Ukraine to its east. The two languages reflect the geographic, political and cultural influences.
Present Day | 2015
1. a. In the Crimean War, Russia fought France, the Ottoman Empire, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. The immediate cause of the war involved the rights of Christian minorities in Palestine, which was part of the Ottoman Empire.
b. “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” poem written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson in 1855, retells the British cavalry charge against heavily defended Russian troops at the Battle of Balaklava (1854) during the Crimean War (1853-56). It was a loss by the British because of a supposed miscommunication of instructions and has remained an important lesson in military history/strategy/tactics.
c. Florence Nightingale made several contributions to the health industry. She organized a corps of nurses to tend to the sick and fallen soldiers in the Crimea. Her work reduced the hospital’s death rate by two-thirds. Her work and book impacted a total restructuring of the War Office’s administrative department, including the establishment of a Royal Commission for the Health of the Army in 1857, inspiring new standards for sanitation in the army and beyond.
d. The Treaty of Paris, signed on March 30, 1856, at the Congress of Paris, made the Black Sea neutral territory, closing it to all warships and prohibiting fortifications and the presence of armaments on its shores. The treaty diminished Russian influence in the region.
e. In 1870 Russia repudiated the demilitarization of the Black Sea and began to rebuild its naval fleet there.
2. Due to its strategic location and the navigability of the city's harbors, Sevastopol has been an important port and naval base throughout its history. Since the city's founding in 1783 it has been a major base for Russia's Black Sea Fleet, and it was previously a closed city during the Cold War. The siege was the culminating struggle for the strategic Russian port in 1854–55 and was the final episode in the Crimean War.
3. This is the area that has been under Russian influence.
4. Volodymyr Zelenskyy was inaugurated as the sixth and current president of Ukraine on 20 May 2019. Before him, Petro Poroshenko was president for June 2014 to May 2019.
a. Poroshenko replaced Viktor Yanukovich, a pro-Russian president. Although Poroshenko was pro-West, his military-bent antagonized the Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
b. Zelenskyy is a pro-West leader who has worked to rid Ukraine of corruption to gain NATO membership.
5. Answers will vary. Control of Ukrainian lands is still an issue for Russian President Putin. Based upon the resistance, most Ukrainians want independence. Some in eastern Ukraine believe Putin and remain pro-Russian.
The name "Ukraine" literally translates as “on the edge.” It is a country on the edge of other countries, sometimes part of one, sometimes part of another and more frequently divided. In the 17th and 18th centuries, it was divided between Russia, Poland and the Ottoman Empire.
