European Kingdoms

Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR)
AD 1922 - 1991

Eastern Europe All Modern States Caucuses Tribes Slavic Tribes The Rus / Old Russia

The grand principality of Kyiv (Kiev is an older and now-invalid translation of the Slavic name), became a major Rus power in the ninth century, lasting until 1169, when Vladimir gained ascendancy. A century later the arrival of the Mongols changed things, with western Rus lands (mainly within the territory of ancient Ukraine), including Kyiv, largely falling to Lithuania (around 1321).

The principality was downgraded in 1470 to the voivodeship of Kyiv as Lithuania itself became increasingly dominated by Poland. The Union of Lublin in 1569 was a formal joining together of Poland, Lithuania, and Ruthenia (including the now Polish-Lithuanian voivodeship of Kyiv).

The fall of Poland-Lithuania at the end of the eighteenth century saw Romanov Russia gain control of the majority of today's Ukraine, but the October Revolution of 1917 created a communist state. However, Bolshevik changes were too heavy-handed and sudden. The new government, far from stable itself, also badly handled what remained of Russia's First World War effort. As a result it began losing control over many of its outlying states and provinces. It took the collapse of imperial Germany and three long years of civil war before the Russian empire could be reborn under Soviet control.

Socialist control of Ukraine had been instigated in March 1917, immediately after Russia's February Revolution. In reaction to the October Revolution, the 'Ukrainian People's Republic' was declared on 20 November 1917. A rival communist 'Ukrainian People's Republic of Soviets' was established in Kharkiv in the east, but this was quickly expelled from the country.

The situation escalated when Kyiv declared Ukrainian independence from Moscow on 22 January 1918. The civil war lasted until 1920 from Ukraine's standpoint, by which time all but the westernmost portions of the country were under confirmed Russian control.

Soviet Ukraine was organised into the 'Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic'. In this form it was one of the founder members of the Soviet Union, albeit as a puppet state. The capital initially was Kharkiv, but in 1934 this was changed to Kyiv. Ruling leaders of the Soviet Union are shown in light grey.

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information by Keith Matthews, from Gesta Danorum, Saxo Grammaticus, from Viking-Rus Mercenaries in the Byzantine-Arab Wars of the 950s-960s: the Numismatic Evidence, Roman K Kovalev, from The Russian Primary Chronicle (Laurentian Text), Samuel Hazzard Cross & Olgerd P Sherbowitz-Wetzor (Eds and translators, Mediaeval Academy of America), from Encyclopedia Lituanica, Sužiedėlis Simas (Ed, Boston, 1970-1978), from The First World War, John Keegan (Vintage Books, 2000), and from External Links: Worldstatesman, and Rurik of Novgorod and the Varangian DNA, and And it was given the name of Kyiv, Oleg Yastrubov, and The Fragmentation & Decline of Kievan Rus, and Encyclopaedia.com, and The Map Archive, and How DO you pronounce Kyiv, anyway? (University of Kansas News Service on YouTube).)

1918 - 1924

Bolshevik & Soviet leader. Confirmed 1922. Died.

1922

The victorious Bolsheviks form the Soviet Union with the unification of the former empire's various new republics with the Russian republic, including the former 'Ukrainian People's Republic'. The other three signatories are the 'Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic', the 'Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic', and the 'Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic'.

Vladimir Lenin was the figurehead of the October Revolution and also its key instigator and controller, but the revolution plunged Russia into three years of bitter civil war

1924 - 1953

Soviet leader (in the role of general secretary). Died.

1927

With western Byelorussia and Ukraine still within the 'Second Polish Republic', an early phase of liberalisation is turning towards repression and Polish nationalism, while the very same process is also taking place in Germany, albeit with more dramatic results.

Belarussians and Ukrainians have generally been refused the right of undertaking any free national development. A Belarusian organisation by the name of the 'Belarusian Peasants and Workers Union' is now banned, and opposition to the Polish government is met by state repression, more so in Ukraine which is much more politically active than Byelorussia.

In Soviet Ukraine, a process of Ukrainisation is underway, with ethnic Ukrainians being placed in leading positions and the Ukrainian language being pushed to the fore. This progression lasts until 1932 and the great famine of Joseph Stalin's dictatorship.

Joseph Stalin, who was born in Georgia, led the Soviet Union away from its initial idealistic concept of equal citizenship for all and instead instituted a brutal regime of fear

1932 - 1933

Less than a decade of Stalin's economic changes, plus the imprisonment of millions of people in correctional labour camps and a brutal reorganisation of agricultural practices, results in a catastrophic famine throughout the Soviet empire.

The 'breadbasket of Europe', Ukraine, is especially badly hit, with the famine being known as the Holodomor, 'extermination by hunger'. Other Soviet states also suffer, such as Armenia, but perhaps not quite as badly.

1939 - 1940

The Nazi German invasion of Poland on 1 September is the trigger for the Second World War. With both France and Britain pledged to support Poland, both countries have no option but to declare war on 3 September, although nothing can be done to alleviate Poland's suffering at the hands of the invaders.

Nazi-led German troops are shown here progressing in good order through a Polish town on the first day of the invasion, 1 September 1939

As part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviets invade Poland from the east on 17 September, and they annexe western Ukraine and west Byelorussia on 28 September.

On 6 October the last Polish troops surrender, but thousands of Poles, both military and civilian, escape the country to form Polish units with the allied powers, including Polish naval vessels which serve in the Atlantic and fighter pilots who help defend Britain during the Battle of Britain.

The German-occupied zone of Poland, which includes Danzig, Pozen, Silesia, and West Prussia, is partially annexed to Germany. Six days later, the remaining sections of Poland are formed into the 'General Government for the Occupied Polish Territories' which, on 31 July 1940, is re-titled the 'General Government'.

Photographed here in summer 1941 is a street armband seller and a group of Jewish locals, on 18 Zamenhofa Street, which is probably in Warsaw's ghetto

1940

Russia seizes Bessarabia, between the rivers Dniester and Prut, before Rumania can become an active ally of Nazi Germany. The seizure is made under the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The industrialised territory to the east of the Dniester, generally known as Trans-Dniester or the Dniester region, is taken from Ukraine and combined with Bessarabia to form the 'Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic'.

1941

Germany takes over the Soviet-occupied areas on 21 June 1941. These are divided between the General Government and the Reichskommissariat Ostland and Ukraine. On 1 August, Eastern Galicia is added to the General Government.

1945

With the troops of Soviet Russia now thick on the ground in Eastern Europe, Stalin organises the formation of pro-communist governments in many of the region's states. Czechoslovakia's brief 'Third Republic' is quickly snuffed out and a communist republic replaces it. The former Czechoslovakian region of Sub-Carpathian Rus joins the Ukrainian SSR and never returns to Czechoslovakian rule.

Poet Yevgeny Dolmatovski recites his works on Berlin's Pariser Platz just a few days after the German surrender - a remarkable poetry recital with the bullet-riddled Brandenburg Gate flanked by ruins and two tank barrels hovering above the heads of soldiers

1953 - 1964

Soviet leader (as first secretary & premier). Died 1971.

1954

Crimea, until now an autonomous republic, is attached to Ukraine, a gift by the new post-Stalin controllers of the Soviet empire. The peninsula had largely been independent territory under the Crimean khanate while technically being subject to Ottoman control.

Under Russian and Soviet control between 1783 and 1954 it had been shuttled between no less than fourteen administrative bodies, including the 'Ukrainian People's Republic'.

1964 - 1982

Soviet leader (as general secretary). Died in office.

1982 - 1984

Soviet leader (as general secretary). Died in office.

1984 - 1985

Soviet leader (as general secretary). Died in office.

1985 - 1991

Soviet leader (as general secretary and president).

1986

On 26 April 1986 the Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine suffers a catastrophic meltdown. The disaster immediately rings alarm bells around the world but the Soviet government attempts to invoke a cover-up.

The greatest nuclear-related disaster of the twentieth century aside from the twin detonations at Nagasaki and Hiroshima was the meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine which sent out a great cloud of radiation across areas of central and Eastern Europe

About eight per cent of Ukraine's territory is contaminated by the resultant radiation cloud, while the majority of the fallout takes place over neighbouring Byelorussia. Millions suffer as a result, not least those closest to the explosion who are quickly and painfully killed by radiation-induced illnesses.

1991

On Christmas Day the USSR's President Gorbachev announces the termination of the Soviet communist state. The Soviet republics become independent sovereign states (if they had not already become so since 1989).

Many of these states which are located farther east (largely outside of Europe) elect to join the new 'Confederation of Independent States' - still strongly controlled from Moscow. Cuba suffers badly from the fall of its only supplier of oil and many major foodstuffs.

The Chernobyl disaster and the subsequent attempted cover-up by the Soviet authorities was the spark which brought down the already-fragile USSR, allowing Belarus amongst many other subject territories to gain its independence

Major European states include Belarus, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, North Ossetia, Poland, Romania, Transnistria, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The one other state in this list is Ukraine, now reborn as an independent democratic republic.