The scenes streaming in from the historic city of Kiev, capital of Ukraine these days are very reminiscent of November, 2004. People thronging the lit-up Independence Square and other parts of town, standing in the notorious, freezing cold of Ukraine, shouting slogans against the government; protesting, protesting and protesting more.
As in November 2004, when the protests were termed as ‘the Orange Revolution’ by the Ukrainian and international media, the reasons this time too are similar: The domination of Ukraine by its bigger neighbour Russia and Russian interference in Ukrainian affairs.
The bone of contention this time is a trade agreement that Ukraine was expected to sign with the European Union. But Ukraine’s pro-Moscow president, Viktor Yanukovych stonewalled it in favour of one of the Kremlin’s new, ambitious schemes - The Eurasian Customs Union.
So, another chapter has been added in the book of Ukraine’s pro-Russian tilt, which began all the way back in 1654 and according to some historians, even earlier, during Dark Age and Viking Age Europe.
In ancient times, Ukraine played host to various tribal and ethnic groups. Scythians lived in the country while Greeks established ports and coastal towns on the Black Sea coast before the birth of Christ. During the Great Migration Period (400 to 800 AD), Goths and Huns invaded and settled, before giving way to Bulgars and Khazars.
But the founding event in Ukraine’s history was the migration of East Slavic tribes into the area that is today modern Ukraine between 500 and 900 AD. To cut a long story short, these tribes at first paid tribute to the Khazars and later, the Rus Khaganate, which most historians agree was a polity formed by Norsemen (mostly Swede adventurers who had spread across the region by travelling through portages).
Out of the Rus Khagantae emerged the Kievan Rus (882-1283), the earliest, most powerful Slavic state and mother of all Slav polities to come. Ironically, those at the helm of the Kievan Rus initially were not Slavs but Norsemen: the Rurikid Dynasty formed by descendants of Rurik of the north, a semi-mythical Varangian (Viking) adventurer.
In 882, Prince Oleg of Novogorod, a kinsman of Rurik conquered the area that is Ukraine, mostly the basin of the mighty Dnieper river. He was the first historical ruler of the Rus. He was followed by more illustrious descendants: Igor, Olga, Sviatoslav, Yaropolk.
Yaropolk was followed by Vladimir (a Slavic version of the western European ‘Waldemar’), known to history as Vladimir the Great. His most important achievement was bringing the Orthdox Christian faith to his pagan subjects. In 988, Vladimir converted to Orthdox Christianity followed by the neighbouring Byzantine Empire to the south. His subjects followed suit. His action’s effects are seen to this day: The Russian, Byelorussian and Ukranian people (all East Slavic) are overwhelmingly Orthdox Christian in sharp contrast to their West Slavic cousins like the Poles and the Slovaks (who follow Catholicism) or South Slavic ones like the Croats & Slovenes (Catholic) and Bosniaks (Sunni Muslim).
In the centuries that followed, the Rus weakened and began to break into smaller kingdoms. The beginning of its end started in 1223, when the Mongol hordes of Batu Khan, grandson of Genghis swept the area, destroying everything in their path. From 1223 to 1240, the Mongols raped, pillaged and slaughtered their way through eastern Europe, conquering Russia, Ukraine, Hungary and reached the very gates of Vienna. Batu only retreated when news reached that his uncle Ogedei had died in Mongolia and there was a succession crisis. The entire region would henceforth be vassal to the suzerainity of the Golden Horde, one of the four ‘Khanates’ formed on the demise of Genghis Khan (the other three being the Chagatai, the Ilkhanate and the Yuan Dynasty).
But the sorrow of Ukraine did not stop here. Beginning in the 14th century, its lands came under foreign domination, which in one form or the other continued till the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and as the current crisis shows, still continues at a psychological level.
Alongside the Golden Horde, two rising European powers laid claim to Ukraine: The Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Golden Horde was later replaced by the Crimean Khanate, a Tatar polity based around the Crimean peninsula. In later years, Poland and Lithuania joined together in a union known to history as the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Another power was on the rise just to the north of Ukraine, which would one day defeat all other claimants. This was the Grand Duchy of Muscovy (Moscow), which would later metamorphose into the Tsardom of Russia and later into the Russian Empire.
Within Ukraine itself, a power rose at this time: The Cossacks, or more specifically, the Zaporizhian Host.
In 1648, their leader Bohdan Khmelnytsky, led an uprising against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, considered one of the first struggles for Ukrainian independence.
For a while, the uprising seemed to be succeeding. But then, Khmelnytsky’s Tartar allies deserted him and he had to face some humilitaing defeats. It was then that he made a decision that has been decried by Ukrainian nationalists ever since.
In 1654, Khmelnytsky signed the Treaty of Pereyaslav with the Tsardom of Russia. The Russians, an advancing power, now engaged the Poles in the Russo-Polish War (1654-1657). Finally, in 1667, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Tsardom of Russia signed the Treaty of Andrusovo, as per which the land of Ukrained was partitioned. The lands on the left (east) bank of the Dnieper were taken by Moscow, while the right (west) bank remained Polish-Lithuanian.
These events put Ukraine under perpetual Russian domination, something we still see today. In the following decades, Russia gained control of the right bank and conquered the Black Sea coast. Ukraine was now fully under Russian control. Ukraine is one of only two European nations (the other being Poland) to have suffered the shame of being wiped of the map, its territory being consumed by the countries around it.
In the following centuries, the Ukrainian people played a key role in Russian society, first under the Russian Empire and then, the Soviet Union. Author Nikolai Gogol, composer Pyotr Chaikovsky, Soviet leader Leonid brezhnev, they were all ethnic Ukrainians. Hundreds of Cossack soldiers and officers carried the standard of the Russian Tsar far into the Caucusus, Central Asia and Siberia.
But if there was one thing that many (if not most) Ukrainians longed for, it was an independent identity of their own. When the Bolsheviks overthrew the Tsar, the Ukrainians tried to gain independence. But the uprising was brutally quelled.
Ukraine had to bear the brunt of Soviet atrocities. The ‘Holodomor’, the great famine brought about by Josef Stalin’s repressive policies in 1932-33, ocurred in Ukraine. Today, it is termed as genocide by many countries.
In the 1980s, the worst nuclear disaster in modern history took place in Chernobyl near the now-ghost town of Pripyat, again in Ukraine.
Ukrainians were the foremost proponents of independence at the time of the demise of the USSR in 1991. The collapse of the union brought about what nationalists had dreamed for centuries: an independent nation.
But is it really independent? First, the Orange Revolution and now the current demonstrations prove that Ukraine or at least its rulers are still slaves of the Kremlin mentally. Even the people are cleaved right down to the middle. Indeed, in a throwback to the days when it was partitioned between Poland-Lithuania and Russia, the people of the left bank are still staunch Russophiles. The Russian language predominates here and Russian Orthodox Christianity is the majority faith. On the right bank, the opposite is true. Due to its long association with Poland and the Austro-Hungarian Hapsburgs, the region is the strongest supporter of increasing Ukraine’s relations with Europe. The Ukrainian language dominates and many of the people are Catholics, though of the Eastern Rite.
Other than the Ukrainians themselves, Russia too plays its part. Since 1654, Russia has regarded Ukraine as its own; a different ‘region’ perhaps but still part of Russia. Many pan-Slavists in Russia (and Ukraine too) still dream of one nation consisting of all the former lands of the Kievan Rus: Russia, Ukraine and Byelorussia.
As the latest developments show, Ukraine has once again preferred Russia over Europe, east over west. But that may not be the case always. As a new generation takes over, one that was born after the USSR died, the demand for further integration with Europe will come up again. And one day, sooner or later, the rulers of Ukraine will have to bow to that demand.
Till then though, the tug of war in the country will continue.
As in November 2004, when the protests were termed as ‘the Orange Revolution’ by the Ukrainian and international media, the reasons this time too are similar: The domination of Ukraine by its bigger neighbour Russia and Russian interference in Ukrainian affairs.
The bone of contention this time is a trade agreement that Ukraine was expected to sign with the European Union. But Ukraine’s pro-Moscow president, Viktor Yanukovych stonewalled it in favour of one of the Kremlin’s new, ambitious schemes - The Eurasian Customs Union.
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The latest development is that an exasperated EU has halted work on the trade agreement at the centre of the matter even as Ukraine and Russia plan to approve a road map to improved trade relations.
So, another chapter has been added in the book of Ukraine’s pro-Russian tilt, which began all the way back in 1654 and according to some historians, even earlier, during Dark Age and Viking Age Europe.
In ancient times, Ukraine played host to various tribal and ethnic groups. Scythians lived in the country while Greeks established ports and coastal towns on the Black Sea coast before the birth of Christ. During the Great Migration Period (400 to 800 AD), Goths and Huns invaded and settled, before giving way to Bulgars and Khazars.
But the founding event in Ukraine’s history was the migration of East Slavic tribes into the area that is today modern Ukraine between 500 and 900 AD. To cut a long story short, these tribes at first paid tribute to the Khazars and later, the Rus Khaganate, which most historians agree was a polity formed by Norsemen (mostly Swede adventurers who had spread across the region by travelling through portages).
Out of the Rus Khagantae emerged the Kievan Rus (882-1283), the earliest, most powerful Slavic state and mother of all Slav polities to come. Ironically, those at the helm of the Kievan Rus initially were not Slavs but Norsemen: the Rurikid Dynasty formed by descendants of Rurik of the north, a semi-mythical Varangian (Viking) adventurer.
In 882, Prince Oleg of Novogorod, a kinsman of Rurik conquered the area that is Ukraine, mostly the basin of the mighty Dnieper river. He was the first historical ruler of the Rus. He was followed by more illustrious descendants: Igor, Olga, Sviatoslav, Yaropolk.
Yaropolk was followed by Vladimir (a Slavic version of the western European ‘Waldemar’), known to history as Vladimir the Great. His most important achievement was bringing the Orthdox Christian faith to his pagan subjects. In 988, Vladimir converted to Orthdox Christianity followed by the neighbouring Byzantine Empire to the south. His subjects followed suit. His action’s effects are seen to this day: The Russian, Byelorussian and Ukranian people (all East Slavic) are overwhelmingly Orthdox Christian in sharp contrast to their West Slavic cousins like the Poles and the Slovaks (who follow Catholicism) or South Slavic ones like the Croats & Slovenes (Catholic) and Bosniaks (Sunni Muslim).
In the centuries that followed, the Rus weakened and began to break into smaller kingdoms. The beginning of its end started in 1223, when the Mongol hordes of Batu Khan, grandson of Genghis swept the area, destroying everything in their path. From 1223 to 1240, the Mongols raped, pillaged and slaughtered their way through eastern Europe, conquering Russia, Ukraine, Hungary and reached the very gates of Vienna. Batu only retreated when news reached that his uncle Ogedei had died in Mongolia and there was a succession crisis. The entire region would henceforth be vassal to the suzerainity of the Golden Horde, one of the four ‘Khanates’ formed on the demise of Genghis Khan (the other three being the Chagatai, the Ilkhanate and the Yuan Dynasty).
But the sorrow of Ukraine did not stop here. Beginning in the 14th century, its lands came under foreign domination, which in one form or the other continued till the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and as the current crisis shows, still continues at a psychological level.
Alongside the Golden Horde, two rising European powers laid claim to Ukraine: The Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Golden Horde was later replaced by the Crimean Khanate, a Tatar polity based around the Crimean peninsula. In later years, Poland and Lithuania joined together in a union known to history as the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Another power was on the rise just to the north of Ukraine, which would one day defeat all other claimants. This was the Grand Duchy of Muscovy (Moscow), which would later metamorphose into the Tsardom of Russia and later into the Russian Empire.
Within Ukraine itself, a power rose at this time: The Cossacks, or more specifically, the Zaporizhian Host.
In 1648, their leader Bohdan Khmelnytsky, led an uprising against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, considered one of the first struggles for Ukrainian independence.
For a while, the uprising seemed to be succeeding. But then, Khmelnytsky’s Tartar allies deserted him and he had to face some humilitaing defeats. It was then that he made a decision that has been decried by Ukrainian nationalists ever since.
In 1654, Khmelnytsky signed the Treaty of Pereyaslav with the Tsardom of Russia. The Russians, an advancing power, now engaged the Poles in the Russo-Polish War (1654-1657). Finally, in 1667, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Tsardom of Russia signed the Treaty of Andrusovo, as per which the land of Ukrained was partitioned. The lands on the left (east) bank of the Dnieper were taken by Moscow, while the right (west) bank remained Polish-Lithuanian.
These events put Ukraine under perpetual Russian domination, something we still see today. In the following decades, Russia gained control of the right bank and conquered the Black Sea coast. Ukraine was now fully under Russian control. Ukraine is one of only two European nations (the other being Poland) to have suffered the shame of being wiped of the map, its territory being consumed by the countries around it.
In the following centuries, the Ukrainian people played a key role in Russian society, first under the Russian Empire and then, the Soviet Union. Author Nikolai Gogol, composer Pyotr Chaikovsky, Soviet leader Leonid brezhnev, they were all ethnic Ukrainians. Hundreds of Cossack soldiers and officers carried the standard of the Russian Tsar far into the Caucusus, Central Asia and Siberia.
But if there was one thing that many (if not most) Ukrainians longed for, it was an independent identity of their own. When the Bolsheviks overthrew the Tsar, the Ukrainians tried to gain independence. But the uprising was brutally quelled.
Ukraine had to bear the brunt of Soviet atrocities. The ‘Holodomor’, the great famine brought about by Josef Stalin’s repressive policies in 1932-33, ocurred in Ukraine. Today, it is termed as genocide by many countries.
In the 1980s, the worst nuclear disaster in modern history took place in Chernobyl near the now-ghost town of Pripyat, again in Ukraine.
Ukrainians were the foremost proponents of independence at the time of the demise of the USSR in 1991. The collapse of the union brought about what nationalists had dreamed for centuries: an independent nation.
But is it really independent? First, the Orange Revolution and now the current demonstrations prove that Ukraine or at least its rulers are still slaves of the Kremlin mentally. Even the people are cleaved right down to the middle. Indeed, in a throwback to the days when it was partitioned between Poland-Lithuania and Russia, the people of the left bank are still staunch Russophiles. The Russian language predominates here and Russian Orthodox Christianity is the majority faith. On the right bank, the opposite is true. Due to its long association with Poland and the Austro-Hungarian Hapsburgs, the region is the strongest supporter of increasing Ukraine’s relations with Europe. The Ukrainian language dominates and many of the people are Catholics, though of the Eastern Rite.
Other than the Ukrainians themselves, Russia too plays its part. Since 1654, Russia has regarded Ukraine as its own; a different ‘region’ perhaps but still part of Russia. Many pan-Slavists in Russia (and Ukraine too) still dream of one nation consisting of all the former lands of the Kievan Rus: Russia, Ukraine and Byelorussia.
As the latest developments show, Ukraine has once again preferred Russia over Europe, east over west. But that may not be the case always. As a new generation takes over, one that was born after the USSR died, the demand for further integration with Europe will come up again. And one day, sooner or later, the rulers of Ukraine will have to bow to that demand.
Till then though, the tug of war in the country will continue.