A History of Ukraine

811 Pages·1996·73.094 MB·English

by  Paul Robert Magocsi

A History of Ukraine
Although the new state of Ukraine came into being only in 1991 as one of many
states formed in the wake of the Revolution of 1989, it was hardly a new country. Yet
what the world generally knows of Ukraine is often associated with relatively recent
tragedies - Chernobyl' in 1986, Babi Yar in 1941, the Great Famine of 1933, and the
pogroms of 1919. But there is more to Ukrainian history than tragedy in the mod-
ern era and, indeed, more to Ukraine than Ukrainians.
Until now, most histories of Ukraine have been histories of the Ukrainian
people. While this book too traces in detail the evolution of the Ukrainians, Paul
Robert Magocsi attempts to give judicious treatment also to the other peoples and
cultures that developed within the borders of Ukraine, including the Crimean
Tatars, Poles, Russians, Germans, Jews, Mennonites, Greeks, and Romanians, all of
whom form an essential part of Ukrainian history.
A History of Ukraine has been designed as a textbook for use by teachers and stu-
dents in areas such as history, political science, religious history, geography, and
Slavic and East European Studies. Presented in ten sections of roughly five chap-
ters each, it proceeds chronologically from the first millennium before the com-
mon era to the declaration of Ukrainian independence in 1991. Each section pro-
vides a balanced discussion of political, economic, and cultural developments;
each chapter ends with a summary of the significant issues discussed. The whole is
complemented by forty-two maps, nineteen tables, and sixty-six 'text inserts' that
feature excerpts from important documents and contemporary descriptions, and
vivid explanations of specific events, concepts, and historiographic problems. Stu-
dents will also benefit from the extensive essay on further reading that provides
bibliographic direction for each of the sections in the book.
PAUL ROBERT MAGOCSI, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is a professor of
history and political science at the University of Toronto and director of the
Multicultural History Society of Ontario. He is the author of several books, includ-
ing the Historical Atlas of East Central Europe, Ukraine: A Historical Atlas, and Galicia: A
Historical Survey and Bibliographic Guide.
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A History of
Ukraine
Paul Robert Magocsi
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 1996
Toronto Buffalo London
Printed and bound in Canada
ISBN 0-8020-0830-5 (cloth)
ISBN 0-8020-7820-6 (paper)
Printed on acid-free paper
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Magocsi, Paul R.
A history of Ukraine
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8020-08305 (bound) ISBN 0-8020-7820-6 (pbk.)
l. Ukraine - History. I. title.
0x508.51.M34 1996 947'-?i C96-930233-9
This book has been published with the financial assistance of the H.U.M.E. Foundation.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing
program of the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council.
For Tinka
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Preface
In 1991, a new state came into being - Ukraine. It was one of many new states
formed in the wake of the Revolution of 1989, perhaps the most influential event in
Europe's political evolution since the French Revolution two centuries before.
Ukraine may have achieved independence only in 1991, but it was hardly a new
country. For thousands of years, prehistoric and historical civilizations had flour-
ished on Ukrainian territory. Even the idea and realization of Ukrainian statehood
was nothing new: it had existed, albeit briefly, during the second decade of the
twentieth century.
Despite these realities, the world has generally known little of Ukraine. And
what it has learned and remembered seems to be associated only with tragedy,
whether the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl' in 1986, the Nazi massacre of civilians
at Babi Yar in 1941, the death of millions of Ukrainian peasants in the Great
Famine of 1933, or the pogroms against Jews in 1919. Yet there is certainly more to
Ukraine than tragedy, and there is as well more to Ukraine than Ukrainians.
Ukraine is, after all, a land of many peoples and many cultures. It is the place
where much of the treasure of Scythian gold was created during the half millen-
nium before the common era; where Borodin's imagined Polovtsian dances were
performed before the twelfth-century Kievan Rus' prince Ihor; where Gogol's
Cossack, Taras Bul'ba, and the darling of the Romantic era, Ivan Mazepa, carried
out their exploits; where Florence Nightingale did her early nursing work and
Lord Tennyson found the subject for one of his most famous poems; where the
Nobel Prize laureate and Polish novelist Henryk Sienkiewicz set his trilogy about
the decline of Poland in the second half of the seventeenth century; where life in
the Galician countryside provided Leopold von Sacher-Masoch with lurid tales
that became the source for the concept of masochism; where the Jewish Hasidic
movement was born; and where the writer Shalom Aleichem re-created late nine-
teenth-century life in a Jewish shtetl, in a work that North Americans later came to
know as Fiddler on the Roof. The contexts for these and many other stories are what
is to be found on the pages of this book.
Until now, most histories of Ukraine have been histories of the Ukrainian peo-
ple. While this book also traces the evolution of Ukrainians, it tries as well to give
viii Preface
judicious treatment to the many other peoples who developed within the borders
of Ukraine, including the Greeks, the Crimean Tatars, the Poles, the Russians, the
Jews, the Germans, and the Romanians. Only through an understanding of all
their cultures can one hope to gain an adequate introduction to Ukrainian history.
In other words, this book is not simply a history of Ukrainians, but a survey of a
wide variety of developments that have taken place during the past two and a half
millennia on the territory encompassed by the boundaries of the contemporary
state of Ukraine.
This book began as long ago as 1980-1981, in the form of a lecture course, at the
University of Toronto, on Ukraine from earliest times to the present. The work has
retained the structure of a textbook that can be used in a university survey course,
whether a full-year course or two half-year courses. There are ten sections of
roughly five chapters each, for a total of fifty chapters. The arrangement is essen-
tially chronological, from the first millennium before the common era to the dec-
laration of Ukrainian independence and its confirmation by national referendum
during the second half of 1991. Within each of the ten sections, there has been an
attempt to provide an equally balanced discussion of political, economic, and cul-
tural developments. Dispersed throughout the narrative are sixty-six textual inserts
that contain the texts of important documents, contemporary descriptions, or
explanations of specific events, concepts, and historiographic problems. Unless
otherwise indicated, the texts of documents and other cited material have been
translated by the author. Interspersed as well are nineteen statistical tables and
forty-two maps depicting the historical evolution of all or part of Ukraine.
In works about multicultural countries like Ukraine, it is impossible to avoid the
problem of which linguistic form to use for personal names and place-names. For
personal names, spellings are in the language of the nationality with which the
person generally identified. In the case of individuals in the medieval period who
were of East Slavic background, the modern Ukrainian spelling of their names is
used. Transliterations from languages using the Cyrillic alphabet follow the
Library of Congress system; names of Jewish figures follow the spellings used in the
Encyclopedia Judaica. For towns, cities, provinces, and regions, the language used is
determined by present-day international boundaries - thus, the Ukrainian form
for L'viv, in Ukraine; the Belarusan form for Polatsk, in Belarus; and the Polish
form for Przemysl, in Poland. In general, historic names are used on maps cover-
ing earlier periods: for example, Akkerman (today Bilhorod), Theodosia/Caffa/
Kefe (today Feodosiia), luzivka/Stalino (today Donets'k), and Katerynoslav (today
Dnipropetrovs'k). A few Ukrainian geographic names and place-names are ren-
dered in their commonly accepted English forms, such as Bukovina, Dnieper,
Galicia, Podolia, Pripet, Volhynia, and Zaporozhia (for the historic region, but
Zaporizhzhia for the modern city). Since the writing of this book, the government
of Ukraine has adopted the form Kyiv as its official transliteration for the country's
capital city. The more traditional English form, Kiev, is used here.
No individual could hope to be fully informed about the entire range of Ukrain-
Preface ix
ian history, which is vast in chronological and thematic scope. I am, therefore,
deeply indebted to many colleagues who at different times during the past decade
have read all or parts of the various drafts of this work: Henry Abramson (Univer-
sity of Toronto), Karel C. Berkhoff (University of Toronto), Bohdan Budurowycz
(University of Toronto), John-Paul Himka (University of Alberta), Stella Hryniuk
(University of Manitoba), laroslav Isaievych (Shevchenko Scientific Society, L'viv),
Ivan S. Koropeckyj (Temple University), Lubomir Luciuk (Royal Military College
of Ontario), James Mace (University of Illinois), Alexander Motyl (Columbia Uni-
versity) , and Stephen Velychenko (University of Toronto).
I am also grateful to the many persons who contributed to preparing the manu-
script for publication, including, at the first stage, the typists Maureen Harris,
Nadia Diakun, Florence Pasquier, and Cindy Magocsi; and, at the latter stage,
Darlene Zeleney of the University of Toronto Press and, in particular, Tessie Grif-
fin, who did an outstanding editorial job. Special appreciation as well to Karel
Berkhoff for his accuracy in preparing the index, and to Byron Moldofsky and his
staff at the Cartographic Office of the University of Toronto for their elegant draft-
ing of the maps. While the counsel and constructive criticism of all these persons
have helped greatly to improve the text, I alone am responsible for the interpreta-
tions and for whatever factual errors may remain.
Paul Robert Magocsi
Toronto, Ontario
December 1995