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Historical background of the 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine

From Wikipedia, in a visual modern way

A variety of social, economical, cultural, ethnic, and linguistic factors contributed to the sparking of unrest in eastern and southern Ukraine in 2014, and the subsequent eruption of the Russo-Ukrainian War, in the aftermath of the early 2014 Revolution of Dignity. Following Ukrainian independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, resurfacing historical and cultural divisions and a weak state structure hampered the development of a unified Ukrainian national identity.[1]

In eastern and southern Ukraine, Russification and ethnic Russian settlement during centuries of Russian rule caused the Russian language to attain primacy, even amongst ethnic Ukrainians. In Crimea, ethnic Russians have comprised the majority of the population since the deportation of the indigenous Crimean Tatars by Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin during the Second World War. This contrasts with western and central Ukraine, which were historically ruled by a variety of powers, such as the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Austrian Empire.[2] In these areas, the Ukrainian ethnic, national, and linguistic identity remained intact. After the Orange Revolution in 2004, Russia launched a decade-long effort to restore its political influence in Ukraine, by playing on existing domestic fault lines and undermining the central government.[3]

The tensions between these two competing historical and cultural traditions erupted into political and social conflict during the Euromaidan, which began when then Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign an association agreement with the European Union in November 2013.[4] Support for closer ties with Europe was strong in western and central Ukraine, whilst many in eastern and southern Ukraine traditionally favoured stronger relations with Russia. President Yanukovych, who drew most of his support from eastern regions, was forced out of office in February 2014. His ouster was followed by protests in eastern and southern Ukraine that placed a strong emphasis on the importance of historical ties to Russia, the Russian language, and antipathy towards the Euromaidan movement.[5]

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2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine

2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine

From the end of February 2014, demonstrations by pro-Russian and anti-government groups took place in major cities across the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine in the aftermath of the Revolution of Dignity, which resulted in the success of Euromaidan in ousting then-President Viktor Yanukovych. The unrest, supported by Russia in the early stages of the Russo-Ukrainian War, has been referred to in Russia as the "Russian Spring".

History of Ukrainian nationality

History of Ukrainian nationality

The history of Ukrainian nationality can be traced back to the kingdom of Kievan Rus' of the 9th to 12th centuries. It was the predecessor state to what would eventually become the Eastern Slavic nations of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. During this time, Eastern Orthodoxy, a defining feature of Ukrainian nationalism, was incorporated into everyday life.

Eastern Ukraine

Eastern Ukraine

Eastern Ukraine or east Ukraine is primarily the territory of Ukraine east of the Dnipro river, particularly Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts (provinces). Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts are often also regarded as "eastern Ukraine". In regard to traditional territories, the area encompasses portions of the southern Sloboda Ukraine, Donbas, the eastern Azov Littoral (Pryazovia).

Crimea

Crimea

Crimea is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukraine. To the east, the Crimean Bridge, constructed in 2018, spans the Strait of Kerch, linking the peninsula with Krasnodar Krai in Russia. The Arabat Spit, located to the northeast, is a narrow strip of land that separates the Syvash lagoons from the Sea of Azov. Across the Black Sea to the west lies Romania and to the south is Turkey. The largest city is Sevastopol. The region has a population of 2.4 million, and has been under Russian occupation since 2014.

Deportation of the Crimean Tatars

Deportation of the Crimean Tatars

The deportation of the Crimean Tatars or the Sürgünlik ('exile') was the ethnic cleansing and cultural genocide of at least 191,044 Crimean Tatars carried out by the Soviet authorities from 18 to 20 May 1944, which was supervised by Lavrentiy Beria, head of Soviet state security and the secret police, and which was ordered by the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Within those three days, the NKVD used cattle trains to deport mostly women, children, and the elderly, even Communist Party members and Red Army members, to mostly the Uzbek SSR, several thousand kilometres away. They were one of the several ethnicities who were subjected to Stalin's policy of population transfer in the Soviet Union.

General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). From 1929 until the union's dissolution in 1991, the officeholder was the recognized leader of the Soviet Union. Officially, the General Secretary solely controlled the Communist Party directly. However, since the party had a monopoly on political power, the General Secretary had executive control of the Soviet government. Because of the office's ability to direct both the foreign and domestic policies of the state and preeminence over the Soviet Communist Party, it was the de facto highest office of the Soviet Union.

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was a revolutionary in the Russian Empire and political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922–1952) and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (1941–1953). Initially governing the country as part of a collective leadership, he consolidated power to become a dictator by 1928. Ideologically adhering to the Leninist interpretation of Marxism, he formalised these ideas as Marxism–Leninism, while his own policies are called Stalinism.

Central Ukraine

Central Ukraine

Central Ukraine consists of historical regions of left-bank Ukraine and right-bank Ukraine that reference to the Dnieper River. It is situated away from the Black Sea Littoral North and a midstream of the Dnieper River and its basin.

Austrian Empire

Austrian Empire

The Austrian Empire was a Central-Eastern European and multinational great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the realms of the Habsburgs. During its existence, it was the third most populous monarchy in Europe after the Russian Empire and the United Kingdom. Along with Prussia, it was one of the two major powers of the German Confederation. Geographically, it was the third-largest empire in Europe after the Russian Empire and the First French Empire.

Euromaidan

Euromaidan

Euromaidan, or the Maidan Uprising, was a wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine, which began on 21 November 2013 with large protests in Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv. The protests were sparked by President Viktor Yanukovych's sudden decision not to sign the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement, instead choosing closer ties to Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union. Ukraine's parliament had overwhelmingly approved of finalizing the Agreement with the EU, but Russia had put pressure on Ukraine to reject it. The scope of the protests widened, with calls for the resignation of Yanukovych and the Azarov government. Protesters opposed what they saw as widespread government corruption, abuse of power, human rights violations, and the influence of oligarchs. Transparency International named Yanukovych as the top example of corruption in the world. The violent dispersal of protesters on 30 November caused further anger. Euromaidan led to the 2014 Revolution of Dignity.

European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement

European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement

The European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement is a European Union Association Agreement between the European Union (EU), the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), Ukraine and the EU's 28 member states at the time. It establishes a political and economic association between the parties. The agreement entered into force on 1 September 2017; previously parts had been provisionally applied. The parties committed to co-operate and converge economic policy, legislation, as well as regulation across a broad range of areas, including equal rights for workers, steps towards visa-free movement of people, the exchange of information and staff in the area of justice, the modernisation of Ukraine's energy infrastructure and access to the European Investment Bank (EIB). The parties committed to regular summit meetings and meetings among ministers, other officials and experts. The agreement furthermore establishes a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area between the parties.

European Union

European Union

The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of 27 member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of 4,233,255.3 km2 (1,634,469.0 sq mi) and an estimated total population of nearly 447 million. The EU has often been described as a sui generis political entity combining the characteristics of both a federation and a confederation.

Crimea

Imperial period

After the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774, the Crimean Khanate, a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, formed in 1441, was made nominally independent by the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774.[6] It was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1783 as the "Taurida Governorate".[7] The demographics of Crimea underwent dramatic changes in the centuries following the annexation. Prior to its incorporation into Russia, Crimea had been inhabited primarily by Crimean Tatars, a Turkic people who were predominately Muslim. The peninsula was also populated by Pontic Greeks (Urums), Crimean Goths, and Armenians, who were mostly Christian. In the run up to the annexation and immediately after it, Russia encouraged, and later ordered, the removal of all Christians from Crimea, and resettled them on the northern shore of the Sea of Azov, between Mariupol and Nakhichevan-on-Don.[8][9] Empress Catherine the Great gave many of the lands she annexed to her advisors and friends. Native inhabitants of these lands were frequently forced out, spawning a large exodus of Tatars to Ottoman-controlled Anatolia.[10] Russian settlers were brought in to colonise the lands once occupied by the fleeing Tatars. By 1903, 39.7% of the population of Crimea, excluding the cities of Sevastopol and Yeni-Kale, were members of the Russian Orthodox religion.[11] 44.6% were Muslim.[11] In the context of this survey, the identifier "Muslim" was synonymous with ethnic Crimean Tatars. Russians constituted the majority of the population in the two excluded and separately-administered cities.[11] During and directly prior to this time, Crimea was considered the "heart of Russian Romanticism".[12] It was popular with Russians on holiday because of its warm climate and seaside. This association continued into the Soviet period.[12]

Soviet period

Crimea had autonomy within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR) as the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) from 1921 until 1944. According to the Soviet Census of 1926, 42.2% of the population of the Crimean ASSR was ethnic Russian, 25% was Crimean Tatar, 10.8% was ethnic Ukrainian, 7% was Jewish, and 15% was from other ethnic groups.[13] Germans invaded the Ukrainian SSR and invaded Crimea itself with the launch of the Crimean Campaign that lasted from October 18th, 1941 to July 4th, 1942. The Soviets took back Crimea in 1944 with their Crimean Offensive. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin deported the entire population of Crimean Tatars from Crimea and abolished Crimean autonomy in 1944.[14][15] At that time, the Crimean Tatars made up about one-fifth of the population of Crimea, and numbered about 183,155 people.[16] Most were sent to the deserts of Soviet-controlled Central Asia.[15] Around 45% of the deportees died during the deportation process.[17] Crimea was made the "Crimean Oblast" of the Russian SFSR. Following these events, for the first time in history, ethnic Russians comprised the majority of the population of Crimea.

Soviet first secretary Nikita Khrushchev transferred Crimea from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954. This event passed with little fanfare, and was viewed as an insignificant "symbolic gesture", as both republics were part of the Soviet Union and answerable to the government in Moscow.[18][19][20] Crimean autonomy was re-established in 1991 after a referendum, just prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.[21]

Ukrainian period

Ukrainian independence was confirmed by a referendum held on 1 December 1991.[22][23] In this referendum, 54% of Crimean voters supported independence from the Soviet Union.[24] This was followed by a 1992 vote by the Crimean parliament to hold a referendum on independence from Ukraine, which spawned a two-year crisis over the status of Crimea.[22] At the same time, the Supreme Soviet of Russia voted to void the cession of Crimea to Ukraine. In June of the same year, the Ukrainian government in Kyiv voted to give Crimea a large amount of autonomy as the Autonomous Republic of Crimea within Ukraine. Despite this, fighting between the Crimean government, Russian government, and Ukrainian government continued. In 1994, Russian nationalist Yuriy Meshkov won the 1994 Crimean presidential election, and implemented the earlier approved referendum on the status of Crimea.[25][26] 1.3 million people voted in this referendum, 78.4% of whom supported greater autonomy from Ukraine, whilst 82.8% supported allowing dual Russian-Ukrainian citizenship.[27] Later in that same year, the status of Crimea as part of Ukraine was recognised by Russia, which pledged to uphold the territorial integrity of Ukraine in the Budapest Memorandum. This treaty was also signed by the United States, United Kingdom, and France.[28][29] Ukraine revoked the Constitution of Crimea and abolished the office of President of Crimea in 1995.[30] Crimea was granted a new constitution in 1998, which granted lesser autonomy than the previous one.[21][31] Crimean officials would later seek to restore the powers of the previous constitution.[31] Throughout the 1990s, many Crimean Tatar deportees and their descendants returned to Crimea.[32]

One of the main tensions in Russia–Ukraine relations in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union was the status of the Black Sea Fleet, which was and is based in Sevastopol.[28] Under the 1997 Russo-Ukrainian Partition Treaty, which determined the ownership of military bases and vessels in Crimea, Russia was allowed to have up to 25,000 troops, 24 artillery systems (with a calibre smaller than 100 mm), 132 armoured vehicles, and 22 military aeroplanes in Crimea. This treaty was extended in 2010 by Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. Under this new agreement, Russia was granted rights to garrison the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea until 2042.[33] Residents of the Crimean city of Feodosia protested against the docking of the US Navy ship "Advantage" in June 2006.[34] The protesters carried signs with anti-NATO slogans, and considered the presence of NATO-affiliated troops an "intrusion". Some commentators in Ukraine viewed the protests as being driven by a "Russian hand".[34]

In the 2010 elections to the Crimean parliament, the Party of Regions received the largest share of votes, whilst the second-placed Communist Party of Ukraine received a much smaller share.[35] Both of these political parties would later be targets of the Euromaidan movement.[36][37][38] Former president of Crimea Yuriy Olexandrovich Meshkov called for a referendum on restoring the 1992 Constitution of Crimea in July 2011. As a consequence of this, a local court in Crimea deported Meshkov from Ukraine for five years.[39]

Contemporary demographics

Main article: Demographics of Crimea

According to the Ukrainian Census of 2001, ethnic Russians comprised 58.5% of the population of Crimea.[40] The next two largest ethnic groups were Ukrainians, who comprised 24% of the population, and Crimean Tatars, who comprised 10.2%. Other minority ethnic groups recorded as present in Crimea include Belarusians and Armenians. 77% of the population of Crimea reported their native language as Russian, 11.4% indicated Crimean Tatar, and 10.1% indicated Ukrainian.[41]

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Crimean Khanate

Crimean Khanate

The Crimean Khanate, self defined as the Throne of Crimea and Desht-i Kipchak, and in old European historiography and geography known as Little Tartary, was a Crimean Tatar state existing from 1441 to 1783, the longest-lived of the Turkic khanates that succeeded the empire of the Golden Horde. Established by Hacı I Giray in 1441, it was regarded as the direct heir to the Golden Horde and to Desht-i-Kipchak.

Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire, historically and colloquially the Turkish Empire, was an empire that controlled much of Southeast Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa between the 14th and early 20th centuries. It was founded at the end of the 13th century in northwestern Anatolia in the town of Söğüt by the Turkoman tribal leader Osman I. After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe and, with the conquest of the Balkans, the Ottoman beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by Mehmed the Conqueror.

Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. The rise of the Russian Empire coincided with the decline of neighbouring rival powers: the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Qajar Iran, the Ottoman Empire, and Qing China. It also held colonies in North America between 1799 and 1867. Covering an area of approximately 22,800,000 square kilometres (8,800,000 sq mi), it remains the third-largest empire in history, surpassed only by the British Empire and the Mongol Empire; it ruled over a population of 125.6 million people per the 1897 Russian census, the only census carried out during the entire imperial period. Owing to its geographic extent across three continents at its peak, it featured great ethnic, linguistic, religious, and economic diversity.

Demographics of Crimea

Demographics of Crimea

As of January 2021, the estimated total population of the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol was at 2,416,856. This is up from the 2001 Ukrainian Census figure, which was 2,376,000, and the local census conducted by Russia in December 2014, which found 2,248,400 people.

Deportation of the Crimean Tatars

Deportation of the Crimean Tatars

The deportation of the Crimean Tatars or the Sürgünlik ('exile') was the ethnic cleansing and cultural genocide of at least 191,044 Crimean Tatars carried out by the Soviet authorities from 18 to 20 May 1944, which was supervised by Lavrentiy Beria, head of Soviet state security and the secret police, and which was ordered by the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Within those three days, the NKVD used cattle trains to deport mostly women, children, and the elderly, even Communist Party members and Red Army members, to mostly the Uzbek SSR, several thousand kilometres away. They were one of the several ethnicities who were subjected to Stalin's policy of population transfer in the Soviet Union.

Crimea

Crimea

Crimea is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukraine. To the east, the Crimean Bridge, constructed in 2018, spans the Strait of Kerch, linking the peninsula with Krasnodar Krai in Russia. The Arabat Spit, located to the northeast, is a narrow strip of land that separates the Syvash lagoons from the Sea of Azov. Across the Black Sea to the west lies Romania and to the south is Turkey. The largest city is Sevastopol. The region has a population of 2.4 million, and has been under Russian occupation since 2014.

Crimean Tatars

Crimean Tatars

Crimean Tatars or Crimeans are a Turkic ethnic group and nation who are an indigenous people of Crimea. The formation and ethnogenesis of Crimean Tatars occurred during the 13th–17th centuries, uniting Cumans, who appeared in Crimea in the 10th century, with other peoples who had inhabited Crimea since ancient times and gradually underwent Tatarization, including Greeks, Italians, Armenians, Goths, Sarmatians, and others.

Crimean Goths

Crimean Goths

The Crimean Goths were Greuthungi-Gothic tribes who remained in the lands around the Black Sea, especially in Crimea. They were the longest-lasting of the Gothic communities. Their existence is well attested through the ages, though the exact period when they ceased to exist as a distinct culture is unknown; as with the Goths in general, they may have become diffused among the surrounding peoples. In his Fourth Turkish letter, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq (1522-1592) describes them as "a warlike people, who to this day inhabit many villages". However, in the 5th century, the Ostrogothic ruler Theodoric the Great failed to rouse Crimean Goths to support his 488-493 war in Italy. In medieval times it was customary to refer to a wide range of Germanic tribes as "Goths", so the exact ethnic nature of the Germanic peoples in Crimea is a subject of debate.

Armenians in Crimea

Armenians in Crimea

Armenians have maintained a presence in the Crimea since the Middle Ages. The first wave of Armenian immigration into this area began during the mid-eleventh century and, over time, as political, economic and social conditions in Armenia proper failed to improve, newer waves followed them. Today, between 10 and 20 thousand Armenians live in the peninsula.

Sea of Azov

Sea of Azov

The Sea of Azov is an inland shelf sea in Eastern Europe connected to the Black Sea by the narrow Strait of Kerch, and is sometimes regarded as a northern extension of the Black Sea. The sea is bounded by Russia on the east, and by Ukraine on the northwest and southwest, currently under Russian occupation. It is an important access route for Central Asia, from the Caspian Sea via the Volga-Don Canal.

Mariupol

Mariupol

Mariupol is a city in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. Since May 2022, Mariupol has been occupied by Russian forces. It is situated on the northern coast (Pryazovia) of the Sea of Azov, at the mouth of the Kalmius River. Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was the tenth-largest city in the country and the second-largest city in Donetsk Oblast, with an estimated population of 425,681 people in January 2022, however Ukrainian authorities estimate its current population to be approximately 100,000.

Nakhichevan-on-Don

Nakhichevan-on-Don

Nakhichevan-on-Don, also known as New Nakhichevan, was an Armenian-populated town near Rostov-on-Don, in southern Russia founded in 1779 by Armenians from Crimea. It retained the status of a city until 1928 when it was merged with Rostov.

Donbas

A Soviet-era poster depicting the Donbas, which reads "Donbas is the heart of Russia".
A Soviet-era poster depicting the Donbas, which reads "Donbas is the heart of Russia".

Imperial period

Donbas (Ukrainian: Донбас; Russian: Донба́сс), or the Donets Basin, is a region that is today composed of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine.[42][43] Previously known for being "Wild Fields" (Ukrainian: дике поле, dyke pole), the area that is now called the Donbas was largely under control of the Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate and the Turkic Crimean Khanate until the mid-late 18th century, when the Russian Empire, led by Empress Catherine II, conquered the Hetmanate and annexed the Khanate.[44] It named the conquered territories "New Russia" (Russian: Новоро́ссия, Novorossiya). As the Industrial Revolution took hold across Europe, the vast coal resources of the Donbas began to be exploited in the mid-late 19th century. This led to a population boom in the region, largely driven by Russian settlers.[45] In 1858, the population of the region was 700,767. By 1897, it had reached 1,453,109. According to the Russian Imperial Census of 1897, ethnic Ukrainians comprised 52.4% of the population of region, whilst ethnic Russians comprised 28.7%.[46] Ethnic Greeks, Germans, Jews and Tatars also had a significant presence in the Donbas, particularly in the district of Mariupol, where they comprised 36.7% of the population.[47] Despite this, Russians constituted the majority of the industrial work-force. Ukrainians dominated rural areas, but cities were often inhabited solely by Russians who had come seeking work in the region's heavy industries.[48] Those ethnic Ukrainians who did move to the cities for work were quickly assimilated into the Russian-speaking worker class.[49]

Soviet period

Ukrainians in the Donbas were greatly affected by the 1932–33 Holodomor famine and the Russification policy of Joseph Stalin. As most ethnic Ukrainians were rural peasant farmers (called "kulaks" by the Soviet regime), they bore the brunt of the famine.[50][51] According to the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain, the population of the area that is now Luhansk Oblast declined by 25% as a result of the famine, whereas it declined by 15–20% in the area that is now Donetsk Oblast.[52] According to one estimate, 81.3% of those who died during the famine in the Ukrainian SSR were ethnic Ukrainians, whilst only 4.5% were ethnic Russians.[53] During the reconstruction of the Donbas after the Second World War, many Russian workers arrived to repopulate the region, further altering the population balance. In 1926, 639,000 ethnic Russians resided in the Donbas.[54] By 1959, the ethnic Russian population had more than doubled to 2.55 million. Russification was further advanced by the 1958–59 Soviet educational reforms, which led to the nigh elimination of all Ukrainian language schooling in the Donbas.[55][56] By the time of the Soviet Census of 1989, 45% of the population of the Donbas reported their ethnicity as Russian.[57]

Ukrainian period

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, residents of the Donbas were generally in favour of stronger ties with Russia, in contrast to the rest of Ukraine. A 1993 strike by miners in the region called for a federal Ukraine and economic autonomy for Donbas.[57] This was followed by a 1994 consultative referendum on various constitutional questions in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, held concurrently with the first parliamentary elections in independent Ukraine.[58] These questions included whether Russian should be enshrined as an official language of Ukraine, whether Russian should be the language of administration in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, whether Ukraine should federalise, and whether Ukraine should have closer ties with the Commonwealth of Independent States.[59] Close to 90% of voters voted in favour of these propositions.[60] None of them were adopted: Ukraine remained a unitary state, Ukrainian was retained as the sole official language, and the Donbas gained no autonomy.[57]

Donbas voters and politicians had wide influence over Ukrainian politics until the 2004 Orange Revolution.[61] Then Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, who was the target of that revolution, is from the Donbas, and also found most of his support there. At the revolution's height, pro-Yanukovych regional politicians in the Donbas called for a referendum on the establishment of a "South-East Ukrainian Autonomous Republic", or for secession from Ukraine.[61][62][63][64] This did not happen, and Yanukovych's Party of Regions went on to win the 2006 Ukrainian parliamentary election. He was later elected president in 2010. His government, led by Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, implemented a controversial regional language law in 2012. This law granted a language the status of "regional language" where the percentage of representatives of its ethnic group exceeded 10% of the total population of a defined administrative district.[65] Regional language status allowed use of minority languages in courts, schools and other government institutions in these areas of Ukraine. This meant that the Russian language received recognition in the Donbas for the first time since Ukrainian independence.[65] This law was declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine on 28 February 2018 and replaced by a new one in 2019, aimed at strengthening the use of Ukrainian language.[66][67]

Contemporary demographics

According to the Ukrainian Census of 2001, 57.2% of the population of the Donbas was ethnic Ukrainian, 38.5% was ethnic Russian, and 4.3% belonged to other ethnic groups, mainly Greeks (1.1%) and Belarusians (0.9%).[68] 72.8% of the population reported that their native language was Russian, whilst 26.1% reported that it was Ukrainian.[69] Other languages, spoken mainly by minority ethnic groups, accounted for 1.1% of the population. Amongst these groups, only the Roma were reported as not using Russian in daily life, citing Romani instead.[69]

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Donbas

Donbas

The Donbas or Donbass is a historical, cultural, and economic region in eastern Ukraine. Parts of the Donbas are occupied by Russia as a result of the Russo-Ukrainian War.

Russian language

Russian language

Russian is an East Slavic language mainly spoken in Russia. It is the native language of the Russians and belongs to the Indo-European language family. It is one of four living East Slavic languages, and is also a part of the larger Balto-Slavic languages. Besides Russia itself, Russian is an official language in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, and is used widely as a lingua franca throughout Ukraine, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and to some extent in the Baltic states. It was the de facto language of the former Soviet Union.

Donetsk Oblast

Donetsk Oblast

Donetsk Oblast, also referred to as Donechchyna (Донеччина), is an oblast in eastern Ukraine. It is Ukraine's most populous province, with around 4.1 million residents. Its administrative centre is Donetsk, though due to the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War, the regional administration was moved to Kramatorsk. Historically, the region has been an important part of the Donbas region. From its creation in 1938 until November 1961, it bore the name Stalino Oblast as Donetsk was then named "Stalino", in honour of Joseph Stalin. As part of the de-Stalinization process, it was renamed after the Siversky Donets river, the main artery of Eastern Ukraine. Its population is estimated as 4,100,280

Luhansk Oblast

Luhansk Oblast

Luhansk Oblast, also referred to as Luhanshchyna (Луга́нщина), is the easternmost oblast (province) of Ukraine. The oblast's administrative center is Luhansk. The oblast was established in 1938 and bore the name Voroshilovgrad Oblast in honor of Kliment Voroshilov. Its population is estimated as 2,102,921

Cossack Hetmanate

Cossack Hetmanate

The Cossack Hetmanate, officially the Zaporizhian Host or Army of Zaporizhia, was a Ukrainian Cossack state in the region of what is today Central Ukraine between 1648 and 1764.

Crimean Khanate

Crimean Khanate

The Crimean Khanate, self defined as the Throne of Crimea and Desht-i Kipchak, and in old European historiography and geography known as Little Tartary, was a Crimean Tatar state existing from 1441 to 1783, the longest-lived of the Turkic khanates that succeeded the empire of the Golden Horde. Established by Hacı I Giray in 1441, it was regarded as the direct heir to the Golden Horde and to Desht-i-Kipchak.

Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. The rise of the Russian Empire coincided with the decline of neighbouring rival powers: the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Qajar Iran, the Ottoman Empire, and Qing China. It also held colonies in North America between 1799 and 1867. Covering an area of approximately 22,800,000 square kilometres (8,800,000 sq mi), it remains the third-largest empire in history, surpassed only by the British Empire and the Mongol Empire; it ruled over a population of 125.6 million people per the 1897 Russian census, the only census carried out during the entire imperial period. Owing to its geographic extent across three continents at its peak, it featured great ethnic, linguistic, religious, and economic diversity.

Catherine the Great

Catherine the Great

Catherine II, most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power after overthrowing her husband, Peter III. Under her long reign, inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment, Russia experienced a renaissance of culture and sciences, which led to the founding of many new cities, universities, and theatres, along with large-scale immigration from the rest of Europe and the recognition of Russia as one of the great powers of Europe.

Industrial Revolution

Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines; new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes; the increasing use of water power and steam power; the development of machine tools; and the rise of the mechanized factory system. Output greatly increased, and a result was an unprecedented rise in population and in the rate of population growth. The textile industry was the first to use modern production methods, and textiles became the dominant industry in terms of employment, value of output, and capital invested.

Coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is a type of fossil fuel, formed when dead plant matter decays into peat and is converted into coal by the heat and pressure of deep burial over millions of years. Vast deposits of coal originate in former wetlands called coal forests that covered much of the Earth's tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) and Permian times. Many significant coal deposits are younger than this and originate from the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras.

Black Sea Germans

Black Sea Germans

The Black Sea Germans are ethnic Germans who left their homelands, and settled in territories off the north coast of the Black Sea, mostly in the territories of the southern Russian Empire.

History of the Jews in Ukraine

History of the Jews in Ukraine

The history of the Jews in Ukraine dates back over a thousand years; Jewish communities have existed in the modern territory of Ukraine from the time of the Kievan Rus'. Important Jewish religious and cultural movements, from Hasidism to Zionism, arose there. According to the World Jewish Congress, the Jewish community in Ukraine constitutes Europe's third-largest and the world's fifth-largest.

Kharkiv Oblast

Corpse on pavement in Kharkiv during the Holodomor
Corpse on pavement in Kharkiv during the Holodomor

Large numbers of ethnic Ukrainian settlers first came to the land that is now Kharkiv Oblast, previously a sparsely populated region, around the time of the 1648–57 Khmelnytsky uprising. These settlers had fled fighting between Ukrainian Cossacks and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth near the Dnieper River. The area that they settled in was named "Sloboda Ukraine" (Ukrainian: Слобiдська Україна, Slobidska Ukraina).[70] Over the following centuries, multiple waves of immigration to Sloboda Ukraine brought both ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians. Prior to the 19th century, only small numbers of Russians settled in the area. They tended to live in cities, whilst rural areas were dominated by ethnic Ukrainians. The region had an autonomous Cossack government until it was abolished by Catherine the Great in 1765.[71] By 1832, the urban-rural divide became firmly entrenched: 50% of merchants were ethnic Russians, as were 45% of factory owners.[70] In line with this increasing Russification, the name Sloboda Ukraine was replaced by Kharkov Governorate in 1835. Ethnic Russians in agriculture-dominated Kharkiv were never as numerous as in industrial Donbas, and the region always retained a distinct Ukrainian culture.[70] The Imperial Census of 1897 recorded the native language of 80.6% of the population of Kharkov Governorate as Ukrainian, whereas Russian was recorded as the native language of only 17.7% of the population.[72]

The city of Kharkiv became the capital of the Ukrainian SSR in 1922. During the 1932–33 Holodomor famine, the ethnic Ukrainian-populated countryside of Kharkiv Oblast was devastated.[73] At the same time, the city of Kharkiv became heavily industrialised, and its ethnic Russian population boomed. By the time of the Soviet Census of 1989, 33.2% of the population of Kharkiv Oblast identified as ethnic Russian, and 48.1% of the population reported that their native language was Russian.[74][75]

Contemporary demographics

According to the Ukrainian Census of 2001, ethnic Ukrainians comprised 70.7% of the population of Kharkiv Oblast, whilst ethnic Russians comprised 25.6%.[76] Other minority ethnic groups recorded as present in Kharkiv Oblast include Armenians, Jews, and Belarusians. 53.8% of the population reported that their native language was Ukrainian, whilst 44.3% reported that it was Russian.[75]

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Holodomor

Holodomor

The Holodomor, also known as the Terror-Famine or the Great Famine, was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. The Holodomor was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1932–1933 which affected the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union.

Kharkiv Oblast

Kharkiv Oblast

Kharkiv Oblast, also referred to as Kharkivshchyna, is an oblast (province) of eastern Ukraine. The oblast borders Russia to the north, Luhansk Oblast to the east, Donetsk Oblast to the south-east, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast to the south-west, Poltava Oblast to the west and Sumy Oblast to the north-west. The area of the oblast is 31,400 km², corresponding to 5.2% of the total territory of Ukraine.

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth

The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, was a bi-confederal state, sometimes called a federation, of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch in real union, who was both King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. It was one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th- to 17th-century Europe. At its largest territorial extent, in the early 17th century, the Commonwealth covered almost 1,000,000 km2 (400,000 sq mi) and as of 1618 sustained a multi-ethnic population of almost 12 million. Polish and Latin were the two co-official languages.

Sloboda Ukraine

Sloboda Ukraine

Sloboda Ukraine, or Slobozhanshchyna, is a historical region, now located in Northeastern Ukraine and Southwestern Russia. It developed and flourished in the 17th and 18th centuries on the southwestern frontier of the Tsardom of Russia. In 1765, it was converted into the Sloboda Ukraine Governorate.

Kharkov Governorate

Kharkov Governorate

The Kharkov Governorate was a governorate of the Russian Empire founded in 1835. It embraced the historical region of Sloboda Ukraine. From 1765 to 1780 and from 1796 to 1835 the governorate was called the Sloboda Ukraine Governorate. In 1780-1796 there existed the Kharkov Viceroyalty.

Kharkiv

Kharkiv

Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest city and municipality in Ukraine. Located in the northeast of the country, it is the largest city of the historic Slobozhanshchyna region. Kharkiv is the administrative centre of Kharkiv Oblast and of the surrounding Kharkiv Raion. It has a population of 1,421,125.

Soviet Census (1989)

Soviet Census (1989)

The 1989 Soviet census, conducted between 12 and 19 January of that year, was the last one that took place in the Soviet Union. The census found the total population to be 286,730,819 inhabitants. In 1989, the Soviet Union ranked as the third most populous in the world, above the United States, although it was well below China and India.

Ukrainian Census (2001)

Ukrainian Census (2001)

The Ukrainian Census of 2001 was the first census of the population of independent Ukraine. It was conducted by the State Statistics Committee of Ukraine on 5 December 2001, twelve years after the last Soviet Union census in 1989. The next Ukrainian census was planned to be held in 2011 but has been repeatedly postponed and is now planned for 2023.

Russians in Ukraine

Russians in Ukraine

Russians are the largest ethnic minority in Ukraine. This community forms the largest single Russian community outside of Russia in the world. In the 2001 Ukrainian census, 8,334,100 identified as ethnic Russians ; this is the combined figure for persons originating from outside of Ukraine and the Ukrainian-born population declaring Russian ethnicity.

Armenians in Ukraine

Armenians in Ukraine

Armenians in Ukraine are ethnic Armenians who live in Ukraine. They number 99,894 according to the 2001 Ukrainian census. However, the country is also host to a number of Armenian guest workers which has yet to be ascertained. The Armenian population in Ukraine has nearly doubled since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1989, largely due to instability in the Caucasus. Ukraine is currently home to the 5th largest Armenian community in the world.

Belarusians in Ukraine

Belarusians in Ukraine

Belarusians in Ukraine are the third biggest minority after Russians. Unlike many other ethnic groups, Belarusians do not have any particular concentration in the country, but spread out more-less evenly across all regions.

Russian language

Russian language

Russian is an East Slavic language mainly spoken in Russia. It is the native language of the Russians and belongs to the Indo-European language family. It is one of four living East Slavic languages, and is also a part of the larger Balto-Slavic languages. Besides Russia itself, Russian is an official language in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, and is used widely as a lingua franca throughout Ukraine, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and to some extent in the Baltic states. It was the de facto language of the former Soviet Union.

Odesa Oblast

In 1593, the Ottoman Empire conquered the area that is now Odesa Oblast, and incorporated it as the Özü Eyalet, unofficially known as the Khan Ukraine.[77] In the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War of 1787–92, Yedisan, roughly corresponding to the modern city of Odesa, was recognised by the Ottoman Empire in the Treaty of Jassy as part of the Russian Empire.[78] According to the first Russian Empire census of the Yedisan region, conducted in 1793 after the expulsion of the Nogai Tatars, forty-nine villages of the sixty-seven between the Dniester River and the Southern Bug River were ethnically Romanian (also called Moldavians).[79] Subsequently, ethnic Russians colonised the area, and established many new cities and ports. In 1819, the city of Odessa became a free port. It was home to a very diverse population, and was frequented by Black Sea traders. In less than a century, the city of Odessa grew from a small fortress to the biggest city in the region of New Russia.[80]

At the time of the Imperial Census of 1897, the population of the approximate area of modern Odessa Oblast was 1,115,949.[81] According to that census, 33.9% of the population was ethnic Ukrainian, 26.7% was ethnic Russian, 16.1% was ethnic Jewish, 9.2% was ethnic Moldavian, 8.6% was ethnic German, 2% was ethnic Polish, and 1.6% was ethnic Bulgarian. These numbers show that there was a high level of ethnic diversity in the region, and that no group had an outright majority.[81]

In the early period of the Ukrainian SSR, Odessa Governorate was formed out of parts of the former Kherson Governorate.[82] This new area formed the basis for modern Odessa Oblast. Throughout the interwar period, Budjak was part of the Kingdom of Romania. The 1932–33 Holodomor famine had a profound demographic effect on the region.[83] Its population declined by 15–20%.[52] About a decade later, the Nazi occupation of Ukraine during the Second World War had a devastating impact on the region's previously large Jewish population.[84] Also during the war, the ethnically-diverse Budjak was annexed to the Ukrainian SSR as Izmail Oblast. It was merged into Odessa Oblast in 1954.

By the time of the Soviet Census of 1989, 27.4% of the population of Odessa Oblast identified themselves as ethnic Russian, whilst 55.2% identified themselves as ethnic Ukrainians.[85][86] The remainder was made up mostly of Moldavians, Bulgarians and Gagauz.

Contemporary demographics

According to the Ukrainian Census of 2001, ethnic Ukrainians comprised 62.8% of the population of Odesa Oblast, whilst ethnic Russians comprised 20.7%.[86] Significant Bulgarian and Moldavian communities are present, centred on the historical region of Budjak. These comprised 6.1% and 5% of the population of Odessa Oblast respectively. 46.3% of the population reported that their native language was Ukrainian, whilst 41.9% reported that it was Russian.[87] 11.8% specified other languages, mainly Bulgarian and Moldavian.

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Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire, historically and colloquially the Turkish Empire, was an empire that controlled much of Southeast Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa between the 14th and early 20th centuries. It was founded at the end of the 13th century in northwestern Anatolia in the town of Söğüt by the Turkoman tribal leader Osman I. After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe and, with the conquest of the Balkans, the Ottoman beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by Mehmed the Conqueror.

Odesa Oblast

Odesa Oblast

Odesa Oblast, also referred to as Odeshchyna is an oblast (province) of southwestern Ukraine, located along the northern coast of the Black Sea. Its administrative centre is the city of Odesa. Population: 2,351,382.

Yedisan

Yedisan

Yedisan was a conditional name for Özi [Pașa] Sancağı of Silistra Eyalet, a territory located in today's Southern Ukraine between the Dniester and the Southern Bug (Boh), which was placed by the Ottomans under the control of the Nogai Horde in the 17th and 18th centuries and was named after one of the Nogai Hordes. In the Russian Empire, it was referred to as Ochakov Oblast, while the Ottoman Turks called it simply Özü after the city of Ochakiv which served as its administrative center. Another name used was Western Nogai.

Odesa

Odesa

Odesa is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrative centre of the Odesa Raion and Odesa Oblast, as well as a multiethnic cultural centre. As of January 2021, Odesa's population was approximately 1,010,537. On January 25, 2023, its historic city centre was declared a World Heritage Site and added to the List of World Heritage in Danger by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in recognition of its influence on cinema, literature, and the arts. The declaration was made in response to the bombing of Odesa during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has damaged or destroyed buildings across the city.

Treaty of Jassy

Treaty of Jassy

The Treaty of Jassy, signed at Jassy (Iași) in Moldavia, was a pact between the Russian and Ottoman Empires ending the Russo-Turkish War of 1787–92 and confirming Russia's increasing dominance in the Black Sea.

Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. The rise of the Russian Empire coincided with the decline of neighbouring rival powers: the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Qajar Iran, the Ottoman Empire, and Qing China. It also held colonies in North America between 1799 and 1867. Covering an area of approximately 22,800,000 square kilometres (8,800,000 sq mi), it remains the third-largest empire in history, surpassed only by the British Empire and the Mongol Empire; it ruled over a population of 125.6 million people per the 1897 Russian census, the only census carried out during the entire imperial period. Owing to its geographic extent across three continents at its peak, it featured great ethnic, linguistic, religious, and economic diversity.

Dniester

Dniester

The Dniester is a transboundary river in Eastern Europe. It runs first through Ukraine and then through Moldova, finally discharging into the Black Sea on Ukrainian territory again.

Southern Bug

Southern Bug

The Southern Bug, also called Southern Buh, and sometimes Boh River, is a navigable river located in Ukraine. It is the second-longest river in Ukraine.

Moldovans

Moldovans

Moldovans, sometimes referred to as Moldavians, is a term used to describe the Romanian-speaking indigenous people of the Republic of Moldova and the largest self-declared ethnic group of the Republic of Moldova as well as a significant minority in Ukraine and Russia. There is an ongoing controversy, in part involving the linguisitic definition of ethnicity, over whether Moldovans' self-identification constitutes an ethnic group distinct and apart from Romanians, or a subset.

Black Sea

Black Sea

The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. The Black Sea is supplied by major rivers, principally the Danube, Dnieper, and Don. Consequently, while six countries have a coastline on the sea, its drainage basin includes parts of 24 countries in Europe.

Russians in Ukraine

Russians in Ukraine

Russians are the largest ethnic minority in Ukraine. This community forms the largest single Russian community outside of Russia in the world. In the 2001 Ukrainian census, 8,334,100 identified as ethnic Russians ; this is the combined figure for persons originating from outside of Ukraine and the Ukrainian-born population declaring Russian ethnicity.

Source: "Historical background of the 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, February 27th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_background_of_the_2014_pro-Russian_unrest_in_Ukraine.

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Further Reading

Demographics of Ukraine

Tatars

Crimea

Simferopol

Donbas

Crimean Tatars

Taurida Governorate

Transfer of Crimea in the Soviet Union

History of Crimea

Russian language in Ukraine

Eastern Ukraine

Languages of Ukraine

Administrative divisions of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic

1991 Crimean sovereignty referendum

Autonomous Republic of Crimea

Republic of Crimea

Novorossiya
See also
References
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