• MyHeritage Wiki
  • Genealogy research by location
  • Ukraine
  • Ukraine

    • See all articles relating to: Ukraine

    Ukraine
    Ukraine

    Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe with a rich and complex history. The region has been inhabited since ancient times, and in the late 18th century, it became part of the Russian Empire. Ukraine experienced significant political upheaval and social change during its time under Russian control, including the devastating effects of collectivization and the famine of the early 1930s. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine became an independent nation, but it has faced significant challenges, including ongoing conflict with Russia over the annexation of Crimea and the ongoing war in eastern Ukraine. Despite these challenges, Ukraine is a country with a rich cultural heritage, including its traditional music, dance, and cuisine, as well as its many historic cities, monuments, and landmarks. Notable Ukrainians include Taras Shevchenko, a poet and artist who played a significant role in the Ukrainian national awakening, mathematician Georgiy Voronoy, writer and Nobel laureate Shmuel Yosef Agnon, and filmmaker Sergei Paradjanov. Ukraine has also produced several prominent politicians and leaders, such as Leonid Kravchuk, the first president of independent Ukraine, and Yulia Tymoshenko, the country's first female prime minister.

    Research your ancestors on MyHeritage

    The regions of Ukraine

    Ukraine is administratively divided into 27 regions, including 24 oblasts (regions or provinces), one autonomous republic (Crimea, though its status is currently disputed due to the ongoing conflict with Russia), and two cities with special status (Kyiv, the capital, and Sevastopol, also part of the disputed Crimea region):

    Ukrainian history

    The Scythian Empire in the Pontic Steppe, c. 500 BCE
    The Scythian Empire in the Pontic Steppe, c. 500 BCE

    Ukraine is the western-most part of the giant Pontic-Caspian Steppe which stretches from the edges of Central Europe all the way east towards the Asian Steppe north of the Himalayas. Consequently, Ukraine’s history has been shaped by the migrations which occurred over the course of several millennia of various Indo-European, Asiatic and Germanic peoples from Asia towards the milder climates and more prosperous lands of Europe and the Mediterranean. Three thousand years ago this involved people such as the Dorians and the Scythians. They in turn were replaced by peoples such as the Sarmatians, Goths and Huns who settled across the plains of Ukraine in Late Antiquity and pillaged the Roman Empire between the third and fifth centuries CE. Other people which continued to do this to the Byzantine Empire into the medieval period included the Pechenegs and Cumans.[1]

    The first semblance of what might be called a proto-Ukrainian state emerged in the late ninth century when the Rus’, a Norse people from Scandinavia who had settled parts of Eastern Europe, established Kyiv as a powerful city state under their first ruler, Oleg the Wise. Kievan Rus’ went on to exercise considerable hegemony over parts of modern-day Ukraine and western Russia. However, its power was destroyed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries by successive invasions by the Cumans and then the Mongols. When Mongol power in the shape of the Golden Horde and the Crimean Khanate in turn declined in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, much of what is now Ukraine was absorbed into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.[2]

    A nineteenth-century depiction of Oleg the Wise
    A nineteenth-century depiction of Oleg the Wise

    In early modern times Ukraine was controlled by various different powers. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Russian Empire expanded south towards the Black Sea and took control of what are now western Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula. Western Ukraine remained part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until the Partitions of Poland in the 1770s and 1790s saw the bulk of its territory become part of the Austrian Empire, though Russia also expanded its territorial control over western Ukraine as part of these partitions.[3]

    The drive for an independent Ukraine was largely a product of the nineteenth century as Ukrainian romantic nationalists began to emphasize Ukraine's unique culture, history and identity through groups like The Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius and the work of the Ukrainian poet, Taras Shevchenko.[4] However, at the end of the Russian Civil War more of Ukraine ended up under Russian control than ever before as the Austrian-held parts of the west of the country were seized. Nominally Ukraine acquired a level of independence through the creation of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1922, but in reality it was still controlled from Moscow and suffered brutally during the Holodomor, a man-made famine of the early 1930s which killed anywhere between three and six million people in Ukraine. Ten years later the country was at the coalface of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and at least six million people in Ukraine lost their lives, including hundreds of thousands of Jews who were mass murdered by the Nazi Einsatzgruppen death squads.[5]

    Ukraine remained an integral part of the Soviet Union through the Cold War, but acquired its independence in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed. Its modern history has been one of a clash of anti- and pro-Russian groups, with anti-Russian and pro-western parties winning out in the course of the early 2010s, a development which triggered the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and the subsequent Russian invasion of Ukraine expansion of the war in 2022.[6]  

    See:

    Ukrainian geography

    Ukraine is the largest country which lies entirely within Europe. Russia is larger, but is spread across two continents. The country consists of a vast plain which made the region an ideal homeland for successive nomadic people such as the Scythians, Goths, Huns, Pechenegs, Cumans and Mongols who settled here variously between the early first millennium BCE and the thirteenth century CE. This has also ensured that Ukraine is a valuable region for arable farming and has become a breadbasket country which in peacetime was capable of feeding upwards of 400 million people worldwide.[7] It is bounded by the Carpathian Mountains and the Black Sea in the south, though it has few natural boundaries to the north or west in particular. The climate is also very varied, with cold winters, but the Crimean Peninsula, which is currently under Russian occupation, has a continental-type climate which makes it one of the only regions in Eastern Europe which is highly suitable for wine production.[8]

    For its size Ukraine is relatively underpopulated, with just under 44 million people prior to the expansion of Russia’s invasion in 2022. Over three million people live in the Kyiv metropolitan area, with Kharkiv, Odessa and Lviv also being major cities. There are other major urban centers in the east such as Dnipro and Donetsk, but these have experienced extensive depopulation in recent times owing to the war with Russia.[9]

    See:

    Researching family history in Ukraine

    Studies of family history and genealogy in Ukraine are complicated by the fact that in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when European nations first began carrying out censuses and creating other demographic records, the country was ruled by different powers and control of different parts of Ukraine changed hands many times. Consequently, while there are partial census records for much of western Ukraine stretching back to 1818 and a full modern census was carried out by the Austrian government here in 1857, the first census for the eastern part of the country was only conducted until 1897 when the first full census of the Russian Empire was carried out.[10] This pattern continued to some extent into the twentieth century. For instance, a census of the city of Kyiv alone was undertaken in 1919, but the rest of Ukraine would have to wait until the first census of the Soviet Union in 1926.[11] Many demographic records for Ukraine today are housed in the State Archival Service of Ukraine, which has central offices in Kyiv, but also regional repositories.[12] These are in need of investment and in 2003 important records relating to the province of Podolia and stretching back to 1795 were destroyed in a fire.[13]

    See also:

    Ukraine ethnicity

    Ukraine is a diverse country with a population that includes various ethnic groups. The majority of the population identifies as Ukrainian, but there are also significant numbers of Russians, Belarusians, and Romanians. Other minority groups include Crimean Tatars, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Poles, Jews, and Roma. The ethnic composition of Ukraine has changed over time due to factors such as migration, political borders, and historical events. Today, ethnic tensions and political issues continue to shape Ukraine's demographic landscape, particularly in the Crimean peninsula and the eastern regions of the country. Despite these challenges, Ukraine remains a multiethnic society that values and celebrates its diverse cultural heritage.

    See also

    Ukrainian surnames

    Ukrainian folk music festival in Ukraine
    Ukrainian folk music festival in Ukraine

    Ukrainian surnames can be derived from a variety of sources, including patronymics, which are derived from the father's name, and toponyms, which are derived from the name of a place or region. Other surnames may be based on a person's profession, physical attributes, or nickname. Ukrainian surnames can be particularly useful in identifying ancestors and tracing family lines due to their unique features and distinct characteristics. While the use of surnames in Ukraine has not been consistent throughout history, knowledge of common Ukrainian surnames and their historical origins can be helpful in genealogical research.In Ukraine, surnames can provide vital clues for those researching family history, as they can be derived from a variety of sources, including patronymics, which are derived from the father's name, and toponyms, which are derived from the name of a place or region. Other surnames may be based on a person's profession, physical attributes, or nickname. Ukrainian surnames can be particularly useful in identifying ancestors and tracing family lines due to their unique features and distinct characteristics. For example, the surname "Kovalenko" means "son of a blacksmith," and the surname "Petrenko" means "son of Peter".

    Examples of different Ukrainian surnames:

    See also

    Explore more about Ukraine


    References

    1. ↑ https://www.worldhistory.org/Scythians/
    2. ↑ https://www.worldhistory.org/Kievan_Rus/
    3. ↑ https://www.thecollector.com/what-was-the-polish-lithuanian-commonwealth/
    4. ↑ https://books.openedition.org/ceup/1739?lang=en
    5. ↑ https://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/ukraine
    6. ↑ https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/a-historical-timeline-of-post-independence-ukraine
    7. ↑ https://www.politico.eu/article/food-world-hunger-russia-ukraine-war-grain-export-black-sea/
    8. ↑ https://www.countryreports.org/country/Ukraine/geography.htm
    9. ↑ https://www.statista.com/statistics/424989/largest-cities-in-ukraine/
    10. ↑ https://avotaynuonline.com/2008/10/the-1897-all-empire-russian-census-by-alexander-dunai/
    11. ↑ https://www.prlib.ru/en/node/357171
    12. ↑ https://archives.gov.ua/en/
    13. ↑ https://easterneuropeanmutt.com/tag/kamyanets-podilsky-archives/
    Retrieved from ""