In 1919, amid great fanfare, the Ukrainian People's Republic, led by journalist Simon Petliura, formally united with the West Ukrainian People's Republic (which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) based in Lviv. This union of Ukraine's lands proved to be short lived as the West Ukrainian National Government's Army lost the war against Polish expansionists, while the Kiev- based Ukrainian Army was forced out of Ukraine by the Red Army. Soon after, Ukraine was officially incorporated into the Soviet Union.
Under Stalin, tile Ukrainian political, social, economic and cultural
fabric was atomized through totalitarian terror, involving massive
purges, executions, and the exile of millions to the infamous labor
camps of Siberia's "Gulag". During World War II, Kiev again was heavily
damaged. For 72 days the city was defended by its citizens and Soviet
troops against the invading Nazis. On September 19, 1941, Nazi troops
entered Kiev. The Nazis also built two concentration camps for
civilians and Paw's near Kiev. During this period, over 200,000 people
were killed and over 100,000 were deported to Germany for forced labor.
Kiev was liberated on November 6,1943, by Soviet troops. Soon after
celebrating the defeat of Hitler's Germany, Ukraine learned that
"liberation" by the Soviet Army meant a different kind of dictatorship.
The post war years in Kiev were marked by intensive restoration of the
damage caused during the war. The city began to dress its wounds.
Politically, however, new waves of Stalinist terror again tore at the
Ukrainian social fabric, with more purges, executions, and mass exiles
to the Gulag. As the worst features of the Stalinist police state began
to dissipate during Khrushchev's and Brezhnev's leadership, the Kremlin
intensified its policy of "Russification", barring the Ukrainian
language from government, education, courts and so on, pursuant to the
theory that the "Soviet peoples" would become better unified if they
adopted the Russian language and culture. With so many economic and
social disincentives at work, the policy itself worked amazingly well,
and new habity, especially in Kiev and other large cities of central
and eastern Ukraine.
Nowdays
The 1980's were marked by increasing political impotence of Soviet
leadership. The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident of April
26,1986, brings back painful memories for all Ukrainians. This disaster
caused tens of thousands of deaths and health related problems, and
inflicted enormous ecological and economic damage. Chernobyl served to
rock the Communist Party establishment with political fallout as the
facts behind bureaucratic ineptitude, negligence, disregard for the
ordinary citizens, and cover-up emerged and began to stir the minds of
the people.
On July 6, 1990, the legislature proclaimed Uktaine's sovereignty. In
August 1991, a failed three-day military coup of the Kremlin's would-be
dictators led to the Declaration of Independence by the Verkhovna Rada
(Parliament) on August 24. On December 1, in a nationwide referendum,
93% of Ukraine's citizens voted for an independent Ukraine and chose
Leonid Makatovich Kravchuk, former communist ideologist, as their first
democratically elected President. On July 10, 1994, Leonid Kuchma,
former director of the world's biggest rocket plant, defeated Leonid
Kravchuk to become the second President of independent Ukraine.
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