Geography
The population of Ukraine is about 50 million, which represents about 18% of the population of the former Soviet Union. Ukrainians make up about 73% of the total; ethnic Russians number about 22%. The industrial regions in the east and southeast are the most heavily populated, and the urban population makes up about 70% of the population. Ukrainian and Russian are the principal languages, but about 88% of the population consider Ukrainian their native language. The dominant religions are the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, much of which retains its links to the Russian Orthodox Church, and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kiev Patriarchate) is independent of Moscow.
A defining feature of Ukraine’s national structure is the existence of a regional divide. Soviet era propaganda had labeled western Ukrainians [ and the Ukrainian diaspora] collectively as "bourgeois nationalists" and "fascist collaborators." The opposition's failure to acknowledge the results of the second round of the presidential elections in November 2004 resulted in the country's disintegration. Such disintegration divided the country into two parts along the river Dnieper, the historically well-known border.
Travelling east from the Polish border in the foothills of the Carpathian mountains, through to the capital, Kyiv, and on to the city of Luhansk on the Russian border, the internal variation becomes particularly apparent. In the west, the population is predominantly ethnic Ukrainian and Catholic (Uniate). As one moves eastward, Ukrainian language gradually gives way to Russian, Catholism (Roman and Greek) to Orthodoxy. Throughout Ukraine, however (except in Lviv), Russian is the language predominantly spoken in the cities. The regions of Kharkiv, Luhansk and their neighbours to the south, such as Donetsk, Zaporizhya, Odesa and Crimea are home to Ukraine’s 11 million ethnic Russians, who make up 20% of Ukraine’s total population. This ethnic distribution, and the different history of the two parts of Ukraine, have created the east-west divide which continues to tug at the center and the allegiances of politicians in Kyiv today.
The east generates much of Ukraine's wealth with its coal, chemical and steel industries. Russian-speaking Crimea, which in the 1990s railed against rule by Ukrainian authorities, has its own parliament and government [Avtonomna Respublika Krym the Autonomous Republic of Crimea] and enjoys more powers than Ukraine's 26 other regions.
Ukraine's history has been defined by its own internal divisions between east and west. Most of eastern Ukraine has been under Russian control since the 17th century, and the Russian state today traces its roots to medieval Kiev (which it emphatically calls Kievan Rus).
Western Ukraine was for many years part of Poland-Lithuania. In 1648 an uprising of Ukrainian Cossacks persisted in spite of Warsaw's efforts to subdue it by force. After the rebels won the intervention of Muscovy on their behalf, Tsar Aleksei conquered most of the eastern half of Poland-Lithuania by 1655. Russia was defeated by a new Polish-Ukrainian alliance in 1662.
In 1663 Ukraine was divided into two parts: Left-bank and Right-bank of the Dnieper, where people elected their Hetmans. Pavel Teterya was the first governor on the Right-bank and Ivan Bryukhovetskiy – on the Left-bank. Moreover, the former was disposed to Poland and the latter - to Russia. Petr Doroshenko, the Hetman, tried to put an end to chaos in Ukraine and to unite the country. Poles did not like this and they claimed Mikhail Khanenko to be the governor of the Right-bank. Doroshenko was forced to fight against him and acknowledged the protection of Turkey. The struggle over control of Ukraine ended in the Truce of Andrusovo in 1667, in which Russia gained eastern Ukraine.
Catherine the Great (1729 - 1796) proclaimed herself the Empress of Russia upon ousting her unpopular husband (Peter III) from power soon after his succession to the throne. Exercising superlative political and military leadership, she waged two successful wars with Turkey. These wars resulted in annexing large parts of Poland and gaining the Crimea and access to the Black Sea. In 1792 Polish conservative factions appealed for Russian assistance in restoring the status quo. Catherine invaded Poland under the pretext of defending Poland's ancient liberties. Russia and Prussia carried out a second partition of Poland in 1793. Russia received a vast area of eastern Poland, extending southward from its gains in the first partition nearly to the Black Sea. In the wake of the insurrection of 1794, Russia, Prussia, and Austria carried out the third and final partition of Poland-Lithuania in 1795, erasing the Commonwealth of Two Nations from the map and pledging never to let it return.
The western quarter of Ukraine (including areas traditionally known as Galicia), with between one-fifth and one-sixth of the total population, was not linked to Russia or the Soviet Union until 1939. These areas were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1920, when a large portion of this territory was incorporated into interwar Poland; it did not become part of the USSR until the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact ceded this part of Poland to the USSR.
This divisive and well-remembered history is largely responsible for two complicated political problems today. First, Ukrainian society is divided into two parts with largely different histories, different experiences with democracy and the free market, and different attitudes toward those institutions. The population in the western part tends to identify with the models being provided by its neighbors to the west-the former Hapsburg territories of Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary. In eastern Ukraine, ties with Russia are much stronger, and there is greater identification with and affinity for traditionally Russian political culture and institutions.
Second, Ukraine has a very complex relationship with Russia, with its citizens' attitudes toward Russia tending to follow Ukraine's regional divisions. For Ukrainian nationalists, Russia is the historical enemy of the Ukrainian people, having subjugated Ukraine in the 17th and 18th centuries and then causing the deaths of millions of Ukrainians during the Great Famine of 1932 and 1933. Other Ukrainians identify closely with Russia because of their shared history, language, and culture and a high rate of intermarriage between ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians, who make up 22 percent of the population of Ukraine.
Some pro-Russian organizations in eastern Ukraine complained about the increased use of Ukrainian in schools and in the media. They claim that their children are disadvantaged when taking academic entrance examinations, since all applicants are required to take a Ukrainian language test. Regional councils in Kharkiv and Donetsk again decided in 1997 to give the Russian language official status alongside Ukrainian. The local prosecutors suspended these decisions as violating the law on the Ukrainian state language.
During her long history, Ukraine’s peoples have alternated between independence and dependence. In the process, church identification -- a critical source of identity and national culture -- became politicized. Church politics became national politics. Church buildings/lands became secular buildings/lands, administered by local civil authorities. Thus, church identity aroused highly inflamed, passionately held loyalties in both secular and religious spheres.
On 9 Oct 1596, the Union of Brest declaration was signed by the metropolitan of Kiev and many Orthodox bishops. As part of the agreement, Eastern Orthodox practice -- liturgy, Slavonic rite, married clergy, administrative autonomy, Julian calendar -- would remain. Orthodox signatories would recognize the Pope in Rome and submit to his authority. This Uniate Church (YOO-nee-at), alternately called the Greek Catholic, Ukrainian Catholic Church, or Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, became a unique religious body within Roman Catholic and Orthodox practice.
In the 1770s, as a result of increasing Russian presence in Ukraine, some 1,200 Kiev region Uniate churches forcibly or voluntarily became Orthodox. Uniate churches, as symbols of Ukraine independent identity, were suppressed. Russian expansion under Catherine the Great forced over 2,300 Uniate churches to become Orthodox after 1793-1795. By 1796, the Uniate Metropolitanate of Kiev ceased to exist. In 1839, permanent abolishment of the Uniate Church occurred under Bishop Semashko.
Soviet religious policy was particularly harsh toward the Ukrainian Catholic Church. Ukrainian Catholics fell under Soviet rule in 1939 when western Ukraine was incorporated into the Soviet Union as part of the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact. Although the Ukrainian Catholic Church was permitted to function, it was almost immediately subjected to intense harassment. Retreating before the German army in 1941, Soviet authorities arrested large numbers of Ukrainian Catholic priests, who were either killed or deported to Siberia.
In the glasnost atmosphere beginning in 1987, underground Ukrainian Catholic Church leaders began to reemerge. In 1989, Gorbachev’s government allowed the Ukrainian (Greek) Catholic Church to register its parishes. The Uniate leader exiled in Rome -- Metropolitan Myroslav Cardinal Liubachivs’kyi -- returned in 1991.
Estimates of those who consider themselves believers have varied widely. A nationwide survey conducted in October 2003 by the Razumkov Center found that 75.2 percent considered themselves believers, 37.4 percent said they attended church, and 21.9 percent of the respondents did not believe in God. As of January 1, there were 29,785 religious organizations, including 28,614 religious communities. Religious practice is strongest in the western part of the country.
More than 90 percent of religiously active citizens are Christian, with the majority being Orthodox. The poll conducted by the Razumkov Center in April 2003 shows that most citizens identify themselves as Orthodox Christians of one of three Orthodox Churches. Of the respondents, 10.7 percent belonged to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC)-Moscow Patriarchate, 14.8 percent to the UOC-Kiev Patriarchate, 1.0 percent to the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.
Of respondents, 6.4 percent said they were members of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, sometimes known as the Uniate, Byzantine, or Eastern Rite Church. Roman Catholics claim approximately 1 million adherents, or approximately 2 percent of the total population. However, according to the April 2003 Razumkov Center survey, Roman Catholics comprised 0.8 percent of respondents, while Protestant Christian comprised 0.9 percent, other religious denominations 2.1 percent, and undecided 1.8 percent. There are small but significant populations of Jews and Muslims, as well as growing communities of Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists, Evangelical Christians, adherents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), and Jehovah's Witnesses.
The Government has been unable to stop disagreements between the Orthodox believers and Greek
Catholics in western Ukraine, where the two communities are contentious and often engage in bitter disputes over church buildings and property in over 600 localities. The Kiev Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church complains of harassment by local authorities in predominantly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, while the Moscow Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church complains that local governments turn a blind eye to the appropriation of their churches in Ukrainian-speaking western Ukraine by Ukrainian nationalists.
