Unit 15 IMPORTANT HISTORICAL EVENTS OF UKRAINE

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 359.

Archaeology proves human presence on the territory of modern Ukraine separated by 800,000 years from nowadays. That was the Galician subculture. The other world-known civilization of that time found in the Cherkassy region was the Etruscan one.

In 1899 the world knew about the Trypillian culture which appeared in the 4^th – 3^d millenium B.C. World chronicles mention the country of Aratta in the Dnieper area, which demonstrated much in common to the culture of modern Ukrainians.

Over fifteen centuries ago the powerful Slavic unit of Hunnia was formed near the Dnieper under the ruling of Prince Attila. A century later another East-Slavic unit grew up near Kyiv. There are not many facts about Prince Kiy, but historians recognise him a great personality in the biography of the Ukrainian state. Other great personalities in the history of Kyivan Rus were princes of Askold and Deer. It was Askold who made the state known in the world through his military campaign to Constaninople and the first Christening of Kyivan Rus in 862.

In 882 Oleg Veshchiy came from Novgorod, defeated Askold and began governing the country. The other most famous Kyivan Rus governors were Igor, Sviatoslav, Princess Olga, whose reign was marked with many revolutionary reforms inside the country. Kyiv Prince Volodymyr the Great became famous with the ceremony of total Christening the country in 988 when the Eastern Orthodox faith was spread all over the country.

In the tenth century AD Kyivan Rus flourished and covered large territory from the Carpathian Mountains to the Volga River and from the Black Sea to the White Sea. Under Prince Volodymyr the Great and Prince Yaroslav the Wise (1019-1054) Kyivan Rus became a major factor in European politics. But in the 12^th century feudal struggle split Kyivan Rus into different principalities and lands.

In 1240 the Tatar-Mongolian invaders captured Kyiv and the country's progress was stopped. In the 14^th century the territory of the country was shared between Lithuania, Poland and Moscovia. Then there was a long struggle for the national revival. Only in 1919 the unified Independent Ukrainian state was formed. Then it was absorbed by the Soviet Union and just in 1991 Ukraine became an independent country.