This is the user sandbox of WildFields. A user sandbox is a subpage of the user's user page. It serves as a testing spot and page development space for the user and is not an encyclopedia article. Create or edit your own sandbox here.Other sandboxes: Main sandbox | Template sandbox Finished writing a draft article? Are you ready to request review of it by an experienced editor for possible inclusion in Wikipedia? Submit your draft for review!
Introduction and resources
This is an attempt to put the main outline of Ukraine history into a timeline form. Maps may be useful for explaining the various intersections of empires where Ukraine and its occupiers have inhabited parts of modern day Ukraine. Ultimately the goal is to assess what Wikipedia currently covers and identify additional content and resources that can go into "Main" Wikipedia.
Some of the other empires that border (or have bordered) the Black Sea aka Pontus Euxinus are relevant, for example the history of Byzantium / Constantinpole over the centuries has had a significant impact on the trade economy and culture of those that occupied the northern coast of the Black Sea.
Map of the distribution of Scythian cultures on the Eurasian Steppe.
Scytho-Siberian world flourished across the entire Eurasian Steppe during the Iron Age from approximately the 9th century BC to the 2nd century AD. The various people groups are sometimes collectively referred to as Scythians, Scytho-Siberians, Early Nomads, or Iron Age Nomads
The Cimmerians and the Agathyrsi inhabited the land which is today Ukraine.
When the Achamenid PErsians invaded Thrace, most eastern Thracian tribes submitted peacefully, except of the Getae, who were defeated. More expeditions under the generals Megabazus and Mardonius as well as king Xerxes I followed, even though they only managed to secure the Aegean coast.During the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) Sparta fought the Athenians with support of the Persians / Achaemenid Empire.
Early Slavs inhabit the land between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea.
200BC - 100AD -- Zarubintsy culture flourished in the area north of the Black Sea along the upper and middle Dnieper and Pripyat Rivers, stretching west towards the Southern Bug river.
during the Migration Period (loosely defined as between 300 to as late as 800), Germanic tribes and Slavs migrated into Europe and West of the Black Sea.
origin and dispersion of Slavs in the 5-10th centuries
In 376, unmanageable numbers of Goths and other non-Roman people, fleeing from the Huns, entered the Roman Empire.
493 - 553 Theodoric the Great (after being taken as a hostage to Constantinople in his youth) wages war against the Sarmatians and competes for influence among the Goths of the Roman Balkans. At the behest of Emperor Zeno of Constantinople, in 489 Theodoric attacked Odoacer, the king of Italy, emerging victorious in 493. Ostrogoths form the Ostrogothic Kingdom in Italy.
602 - Avar Khaganate (to include Bulgars and other Slavic peoples) occupy the Pontic Steppes and west to Bavaria.
c602. Avar Khaganate (to include Bulgars and other Slavic peoples) occupy the Pontic Steppes and west to Bavaria.The Pontic steppe, c. 650, showing the early territories of the Khazars, Bulgars, and Avars
Christianization of Bulgaria and other regional influence by Constantinople
East_Slavic_tribes_peoples_8th_9th_centuryThe Pontic steppes, c. 1015Khazar Khanate, 650–850
some time between 400 and 800, the Maygars (Hungarians) migrated across the pontic steppes.
some time between 400 and 800, the Maygars (Hungarians) migrated across the pontic steppes.
862 -- Varangians aka the Vikings -- According to the 12th-century Kievan Primary Chronicle, a group of Varangians known as the Rus' settled in Novgorod in 862 under the leadership of Rurik.
In the middle Danube region, Bulgaria has interest in emerging regional powers: kingdom of the East Franks, the principality of Great Moravia, and Croatia.
In 852, Bulgarians send ambassador to Mainz to tell Louis II the German king of Khan Boris's assumption of power in Pliska. Some time later, Khan Boris concluded an alliance with Rastislav of Moravia (846–870) instigated by the King of the West Franks, Charles the Bald (840–877). The German Kingdom responded by attacking and defeating Bulgaria, forcing Khan Boris to later re-establish an alliance with the German king directed against Great Moravia, a Byzantine ally.
between 855 and 856 -- War broke out with the Byzantine Empire over control of fortresses on the Diagonal Road (Via Diagonalis or Via Militaris) that went from Constantinople, through Philippopolis (Plovdiv), to Naissus (Niš) and Singidunum (Belgrade). The Byzantine Empire was victorious and reconquered a number of cities, with Philippopolis being among them.
In 861 Khan Boris concluded an alliance with East Frankish King Louis the German, all while informing him that he would like to accept Christianity according to western rite. This renewed alliance threatened Great Moravia, which sought help from Byzantium (862–863). A Rome-dependent Bulgaria in the hinterland of Constantinople was a threat to the Byzantine Empire's immediate interests.
862 -- Cyril and his brother Methodius begin a Byzantine mission to Great Moravia. (intended to draw Great Moravia closer to Constantinople). As part of their Moravian mission, the brothers Cyril and Methodius implement their Slavonic alphabet that they had created to make translations.
In the last months of 863 the Byzantines attacked Bulgaria again, probably after having been informed by their Moravian allies that Boris told the German king he was willing to accept Christianity and Byzantium had to forestall him from taking up Christianity from Rome. Khan Boris seeks Bulgarian conversion to Christianity to implement the Slavonic alphabet as well as a means to stop the cultural influence of the Byzantine Empire.
In 885, Pope Stephen V issued a papal bull to restrict spreading and reading Christian services in languages other than Latin or Greek. Around the same time, Svatopluk I, following the interests of the Frankish Empire, prosecuted the students of Cyril and Methodius and expelled them from Great Moravia. In 886, Clement of Ohrid (also known as Kliment), Naum, Gorazd, Angelar and Sava arrived in the First Bulgarian Empire where they were warmly accepted by the Tsar Boris I of Bulgaria.
1054 -- First evidence of East–West Schism -- In 1053, the first action was taken that would lead to a formal schism: the Greek churches in southern Italy were required to conform to Latin practices under threat of closure. In retaliation, Patriarch Michael I Cerularius of Constantinople ordered the closure of all Latin churches in Constantinople. In addtion to mutual excommunications, the two church bodies, Roman Catholic church (based in Rome) and the Eastern Orthodox church (based in Constantinople) gradually drifted apart.
1010 - Yaroslav_the_Wise (having been sent north to Veliky Novgorod by his father Vladimir the Saint) founds the city of Yaroslavl.
1015 Vladimir the Saint dies. During the next four years Yaroslav waged a complicated and bloody war for Kiev against his half-brother Sviatopolk I of Kyiv, who was supported by his father-in-law, Duke Bolesław I the Brave (who would become the King of Poland from 1025). During the course of this struggle, several other older brothers (Boris, Gleb, and Svyatoslav) were brutally murdered.
Georgia in 1213 at the end of the reign of Tamar.the Kingdom of Georgia existed from 1008–1490 along the Black Sea, punctuated by Mongol invasions of Georgia between 1243 and 1320 during which time Georgia officially acknowledged the Great Khan as its overlord. In 1320 George V of Georgia drove out the Mongols. As a result of foreign and internal struggles unified Kingdom of Georgia stopped to exist after 1466 and was subdivided into several political units. By 1491, Georgia was shattered into a number of petty kingdoms and principalitiesfollowing the Mongolian invasian, the Golden Horde was overlord of Georgia in 1245.
1008–1490
1200s - 1400s: Tatar rules
At the beginning of the 13th century, the Crimea, the majority of the population of which was already composed of a Turkic people — Cumans, became a part of the Golden Horde.
1200s
in April 1204, Crusaders of the 4th Crusade sacked Constantinople, thus eakening the Byzantine empire and catastrophically wounding relations between the Catholic and Orthodox churches for many centuries afterwards. The Latin Empire, led by a Catholic emperor, held considerably less territory.
After the death of his elder brother Yury in 1325, Ivan Kalita inherited the Principality of Moscow. Ivan participated in the struggle to get the title of Grand Duke of Vladimir which could be obtained with the approval of a khan of the Golden Horde. The main rivals of the princes of Moscow in this struggle were the princes of Tver – Mikhail, Dmitry the Terrible Eyes, and Alexander II, all of whom obtained the title of Grand Duke of Vladimir and were deprived of it. All of them were murdered in the Golden Horde.
In 1328 Ivan Kalita received the approval of khan Muhammad Ozbeg to become the Grand Duke of Vladimir with the right to collect taxes from all Russian lands. According to the Russian historian Kluchevsky, the rise of Moscow under Ivan I Kalita was determined by three factors:
The first one was that the Moscow principality was situated in the middle of other Russian principalities; thus, it was protected from any invasions from the East and from the West. Compared to its neighbors, Ryazan principality and Tver principality, Moscow was less often devastated.
The relative safety of the Moscow region resulted in the second factor of the rise of Moscow – an influx of working and tax-paying people who were tired of constant raids and who actively relocated to Moscow from other Russian regions.
The third factor was a trade route from Novgorod to the Volga river.
1359-89 Dmitry Donska / Dmitry Donskoy is the first prince of Moscow to openly challenge Mongol authority in Russia. Although the Battle of Kulikovo did not end Mongol domination over Rus, it is widely regarded by Russian historians as the turning point at which Mongol influence began to wane.
The fragmentation of the Mongol Empire loosened the political, cultural, and economic unity of the Silk Road. The demise of the Silk Road may have also been influenced by the declining influence of the Byzantine Empire, the devastation of the Black Death
Late 1300s to Early 1400s: Vasily I
1389 - 1425 Vasily I -- Vasily I Dmitriyevich (Russian: Василий I Дмитриевич, romanized: Vasiliy I Dmitriyevich; 30 December 1371 – 27 February 1425) was the Vasily was the oldest son of Dmitry Donskoy and Grand Princess Eudoxia, daughter of Grand Prince Dmitry Konstantinovich of Nizhny Novgorod.. He was the Grand Prince of Moscow (r. 1389–1425), heir of Dmitry Donskoy (r. 1359–1389). He ruled as a Golden Horde vassal between 1389 and 1395, and again in 1412–1425. The raid on the Volgan regions in 1395 by the Turco-MongolEmirTimur resulted in a state of anarchy for the Golden Horde and the independence of Moscow. In 1412, Vasily reinstated himself as a vassal of the Horde. He had entered an alliance with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1392 and married the only daughter of Vytautas the Great, Sophia, though the alliance turned out to be fragile, and they waged war against each other in 1406–1408.
Late 1400s: Russia as New Rome/Constantinope and the Tsars named Ivan
1462 - 1505 Ivan III (the great) ... beats the Tatars, fought Lithuania... creates "Third Rome" post Byzanitine Titles. At the Great Stand on the Ugra River Ivan III scared off the Great Horde forces of Ahmed Khan bin Küchük without a fight, and caused the Tatars to flee.
This 1552 map of Poland and Hungary (Polonia et Ungaria) shows the extent that these countries occupied the lands between the Baltic and the Black Sea.
1572 -- Registered Cossacks become part of the regular formations of the army of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
1582 Russian treaty with Poland
1585 Russian peace with Sweden
because of recent peace treaties, Baltic trade routes close.
1584 - 1589 Fyodor
Boris Gudenov
Rus-sia as distinguished from Moscovy in the late 1500s.
Late 1500s - Early 1600s: Decline of Moscow and Rurik Dynasty during the Time of Troubles
1598 - Feodor I of Russia dies ending the Rurik Dynasty. He is succeeded by Boris Godunov the non-Rurik regent who had already been acting in this role. Godunov continued hius rule from 1585 to 1605. At the end of his reign, Russia descended into the time of Troubles
1606 - 1610 Tsar Vasily Shvisky / Vasili IV of Russia ... deposed by Zemiskii Sobor
1600s: the Romanovs take charge, and The Deluge marks the decline of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
This portion of the 1613 Radziwiłł map shows Polesia, to include the Pinsk Marshes and the large forested area between modern day Ukraine and Belarus to the north.
1613 Mikhail Romanov is 16 years old... his father was a church patriarch.
1709 the decisive Battle of Poltava marked the beginning of Russian hegemony in Northern Europe.
Ivan Mazepa falls from Peter's favor as joins Charles XII's campaign against Russia. Mazepa feels Russia has abandoned its obligations to the Cossacks under the Pereiaslav Agreement.
Russian army sacked and razed the Cossack Hetmanate capital of Baturyn, killing most of the defending garrison and many common people.
Division of Russia into eight governorates in 1708Great Northern War Part2
1696 Sea of Asov captured.. naval base at Taganog (Crimea?)...
1697.. Peter takes an incognito tour of western capitols and is influenced by their styles and architecture. Thereafter, he tried to implement more western styled things in his tsardom. He also taxed beards and peasants.
On 24 May 1829 Nicholas I of Russia formally crowned himself as King of Poland in Warsaw. Subsequently, the November Uprising aka Polish–Russian War occurred 1830–31
1838 - in response to unrest in Egypt and fears of Russian invasion of Ottoman lands, the Ottoman Empire enlists England's assistance in self-defense, leading to the Treaty of Balta Liman. This treaty allows England complete access to Ottoman trade markets. This begins the Ottoman period of Tanzimat, or modernization. that would last until the [[First Constitutional Era] of 1876.
Owing to the Treaty of Paris, Russia loses protectorate of Christians in Ottoman lands (the treaty made the Black Sea neutral territory, closing it to all warships and prohibiting fortifications and the presence of armaments on its shores.). Additionally, Moldavia and Wallachia were recognized as quasi-independent states under Ottoman suzerainty. They gained the left bank of the mouth of the Danube and part of Bessarabia from Russia as a result of the treaty.
1840s - 1850s rail lines connect St. Petersburg and Moscow.
In 1857, Volodymyr Antonovych co-founded[2] the Związek Trojnicki ("Triple Society"), named after the three Polish territories acquired by Russia in the 18th century: Volhynia, Podolia and the Kiev area. The society's goal was promoting the abolition of serfdom and persuading the peasants to support Polish independence, while preparing the members for their role in the planned all-national uprising.[3] Due to his involvement, Antonowicz became one of the prominent examples of the "peasant-lovers" (or "Reds"), a loose group of young artists and liberal thinkers fascinated with the peasantry as the "core of the nation".
1863 -- Valuev Circular forbids publications in the Ukrainian language, except for belles-lettres works.
1876 Alexander II issues a secret decree (ukaz) known as the Ems Ukaz, that bans the use of the Ukrainian language in print except for reprinting old documents.
1875 Great Eastern Crisis begins as decision to increase taxes for paying the Ottoman Empire's debts to foreign creditors resulted in outrage in the Balkan provinces, particularly Rumelia
1876 - 1877 .. From 23 December 1876 until 20 January 1877 world leaders at the Constantinople Conference gathered in Constantinople to discuss political reforms in Bosnia and in the Ottoman territories with a majority-Bulgarian population.
March 1878 -- Treaty of San Stefano ends hostilities between Russia and the Ottoman Empire.
July 1878 The Treaty of Berlin (formally the Treaty between Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Great Britain and Ireland, Italy, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire for the Settlement of Affairs in the East) was signed on 13 July 1878. The treay formally recognized the independence of the de facto sovereign principalities of Romania, Serbia and Montenegro and the autonomy of Bulgaria although the latter de facto functioned independently and was divided into three parts: the Principality of Bulgaria, the autonomous province of Eastern Rumelia, and Macedonia, which was given back to the Ottomans,[4] thus undoing Russian plans for an independent and Russophile "Greater Bulgaria". The Treaty of San Stefano had created a Bulgarian state, which was just what Britain and Austria-Hungary feared the most.[5] The Treaty of Berlin also returned Southern Bessarabia to Russia.
Welsh businessman John Hughes arrives near the Kalmius river (modern day Donetsk) and founds industrial iron forge in the area, which is soon named after him as "Yuzovo"
Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party forms from the remains of the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party and adopts the Erfurt Program that declared the imminent death of capitalism and the necessity of socialist ownership of the means of production.
1909-1911 -- Teacher's House building built for the Kyiv Pedagogical Museum that had been founded in 1901. This building served as a meeting place for Ukranian nationlists such as the the Ukranian Club and the Rodyna society.
Russian Civil War and Lenin Stalin Era
Dismembered Russia — Some Fragments (NYT article, Feb. 17, 1918)
July 1917 -- Leader Alexander Kerensky, Minister of War in the Russian provisional government, decides to launch the last Russian offensive of the Imperial Russian Army in World War I. Led by General Aleksei Brusilov, the Kerensky offensive was disastrous, and demonstrated complete disintegration of the Russian Army. Kerensky expected Kornilov to restore discipline, and the death penalty for desertion was re-imposed by Kornilov and the Russian Provisional Government as a consequence. This led to a period of unrest in Petrograd known as the July Days.
1917 -- Sovnarkom is formed with with Lenin as Chairman. They implement War communism and Prodrazvyorstka (confiscation of grain) which would be implemented in Ukraine in 1919.
November 1917 -- On 20 November [O.S. 7 November] 1917 in November in Kyiv the Central Council of Ukraine (the Central Rada) issues the Third Universal declaring proclaiming the formation of the Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR).
7 November 1917 -- October Revolution -- After the July Days, in which the Government killed hundreds of protesters, Alexander Kerensky became head of Government. He was unable to fix Russia's immediate problems, including food shortages and mass unemployment, as he attempted to keep Russia involved in the ever more unpopular war. The failures of the Provisional Government led to the October Revolution by the Communist Bolsheviks.
December 1917 -- The Sovnarkom establishes the Cheka (All-Russian Extraordinary Commission), predecessor to the KGB) on December 5 (Old Style) 1917
24-25 December 1917 -- Bolsheviks assemble in Kharkiv as the First All-Ukrainian Congress of Councils (radas, soviets) approve the formation of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic (a rival to the Kiev-based UPR government).
1918-1919: War between the Soviets and the Directorate Armies
3 March 1918 -- Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (between Russia and the Central Powers, but annulled by the Armistice of 11 November 1918, when Germany surrendered to the western Allied Powers.)
August 1918 -- Following several Bolshevik assassination attempts against Lenin including one on 17 August 1918, the Soviet leaders re-institute the death penalty and begin a campaign of Red Terror against their political enemies.
Polish–Ukrainian War from November 1918 to July 1919. In 1919, while the Soviet Red Army was still preoccupied with the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922, the Polish Army took most of Lithuania and Belarus. By July 1919, Polish forces had taken control of much of Western Ukraine and had emerged victorious from the Polish–Ukrainian War of November 1918 to July 1919.
Late 1919: Rise of the Kolchak's White Russian (Imperial Restoration) Army against the Reds (Bolsheviks)
Russian Army (1919)Consolidation of the Russian Army -- at the turn of May – June 1919, generals Anton Denikin, Evgeny Miller, Nikolay Yudenich voluntarily submitted to Alexander Kolchak and officially recognized his Supreme High Command over all armies in Russia.
By October 1919, about 70% of the Directorate's troops and more than 90% of the allied Ukrainian Galician Army fell to typhus.[8]
2 January 1919 -- a major invasion by the Red Army into Ukraine leads the Directorate to declare war once again against Russia on January 16.
Voronezh–Povorino Operation -- a battle in January 1919 between the White and Red Armies during the Russian Civil War around the city of Voronezh and the railway station of Povorino. The Red Army defeated the Don Army under Pyotr Krasnov
On January 6, 1919 the government of Bolshevik Georgy_Pyatakov officially declared the creation of the Ukrainian_Soviet_Socialist_Republic. Yet his government continued to stay in Kursk until January 24.
March 1919 -- Vyoshenskaya Uprising -- an uprising of the Don Cossacks during the Russian Civil War led by Pavel Kudinov against the Bolsheviks, which had occupied the Upper Don district in January–March 1919.
28 June 1919 the Treaty of Versailles is signed. Among its many provisions was the forcing of Germany to recognize the independence of Poland and renounce "all rights and title over the territory" including that which was obtained through the Greater Poland uprising.
August 1920 -- Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO) formed as a Ukrainian paramilitary body, engaged in terrorism (especially in Poland) during the interwar period. Initially headed by Yevhen Konovalets, the organization promoted the idea of armed struggle for the independence of Ukraine. The headquarters of the organization was located in Lwów (present-day Lviv in Ukraine) in the Second Polish Republic.
March 1921 -- Peace of Riga treaty was signed in Riga on 18 March 1921, among Poland, Soviet Russia (acting also on behalf of Soviet Belarus) and Soviet Ukraine. The treaty ended the Polish–Soviet War.
August 1921 -- After having fought nearly every army in Ukraine and Russia, Anarchist Nestor Makhno and his Makhnovshchina followers are persecuted by the Bolsheviks. The Makhnovshchina was disestablished on 28 August 1921 and Makhno moves with his family to Paris.
More things
1920s policy of Korenizatsiya temporarily reverses the Russification policies banning Ukranian language and literature in an attempt by Stalin and Lenin to incorporate all the sub-nationalities into the Soviet project.
1921 - Lenin proposes the New Economic Policy that would open Russia to a market economy. In addition, the NEP abolished prodrazvyorstka (forced grain-requisition)[10] and introduced prodnalog: a tax on farmers, payable in the form of raw agricultural product.[11]
1921 - Following the dissolution of the Russian Empire, an All-Ukrainian Sobor (Synod) was called in Kyiv, the capital of the newly independent Ukraine, and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church was declared independent from the Moscow Patriarchate (MP). The Sobor delegates chose Metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivsky as head of the church. The 1921 Sobor has become known as the "first resurrection" of the UAOC.
1926 - 1928 Bolshevik and Left Opposition leader Leon Trotsky forms the Anti-Stalinist and anti-NEP United Opposition. Trotsky would be expelled from the Soviet union in February 1929.
The USSR anti-religious campaign (1928–1941) ramps up that which had been accomplished in the 1920s. In the period between 1927 and 1940, the number of Orthodox Churches in the Russian Republic fell from 29,584 to less than 500. The League of Militant Atheists (formed in 1925) had its first affiliates at factories, plants, collective farms (kolkhozy), and educational institutions, and collaborated with the Komsomol (All-Union Leninist Young Communist League) to influence irreligion.
1929 - In 1929, Stalin edited the plan to include the creation of "kolkhoz" collective farming systems that stretched over thousands of acres of land and had hundreds of thousands of peasants working on them. The creation of collective farms essentially destroyed the kulaks as a class (dekulakization). Another consequence of this is that peasants resisted by killing their farm animals rather than turning them over to the State when their farms were collectivized.[12]
Joseph Stalin turns 50, leading to cultural celebrations and the promotion of a Stalinist cult of personality in the Soviet Union.
1932-33 Using confiscation, punishments, and class warfare, the Russian Stalinist government imposes harsh demands for Ukraine to produce grain, leading to widespread famine and starvation in Ukraine which would be eventually known as The Holodomor. Estimates of 5.7 to 8.7 million people died of famine across the Soviet Union, with at least half of that being borne in Ukraine.
August 1936 to March 1938. -- During the Great Purge, also known as the Great Terror, the Year of '37 (37-й год, Tridtsat sedmoi god) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov') -- Soviet General SecretaryJoseph Stalin's campaign to solidify his power over the party and the state; the purges were also designed to remove the remaining influence of Leon Trotsky as well as other prominent political rivals within the party.
1938 -- Polish-American covert missionary Walter Ciszek (under the assumed identity of Władymyr Łypynski) stops in Kiev to meet with Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky before heading to the Ural mountains. (as documented in his memoir With God in Russia.
1939 -- on the eve of the Soviet Invasion of Poland, Ukrainian nationalist writer, publisher, journalist and political thinker Dmytro Dontsov left Poland, living in Bucharest, Prague, Germany, Paris and the United States. His writings inspired the OUN and other Ukranian Nationalists.
23 August 1939 -- Nazi Germans and Soviet Union sign the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact carving up Poland as part of a Treaty of Non-Aggression
22 June 1941 – 7 January 1942 Hitler launches his Operation Barbarossa invasion of western Soviet Union with the intent to repopulate it with Germans (Lebensraum). His Hunger Plan was to seize food from the Soviet Union (with Ukraine in particular being the bread basket of the Soviet Union) and give the food to German soldiers and civilians. The plan entailed the genocide by starvation of millions of Soviet citizens.
7 July to 26 September 1941 -- Battle of Kiev (1941) -- in an an unprecedented defeat for the Red Army, the Nazis encircle Russia's Southwestern Front, trapping 452,700 soldiers, 2,642 guns and mortars, and 64 tanks, of which scarcely 15,000 had escaped from the encirclement by 2 October. The Southwestern Front suffered 700,544 casualties, including 616,304 killed, captured, or missing during the battle. The 5th, 37th, 26th, 21st, and 38th armies, consisting of 43 divisions, were almost annihilated and the 40th Army suffered many losses. Like the Western Front before it, the Southwestern Front had to be recreated almost from scratch.
5 July 1943 – 23 August 1943 -- Battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in history, during which Germany's extensive losses of men and tanks ensured that the victorious Soviet Red Army enjoyed the strategic initiative for the remainder of the war. Hitler canceled the offensive at Kursk after only a week, in part to divert forces to Italy.
12 July – 18 August 1943 -- Operation Kutuzov -- the first of the two counteroffensives launched by the Red Army as part of the Kursk Strategic Offensive Operation utilizing their Deep Operation strategy to wear down the advancing Germans.
The Red Army Liberated Kiev on September 29, 1943, and members of the Syrets concentration camp revolted against their guards. On December 6, 1943, Soviet authorities took a number of Western journalists to the site of the Babi Yar massacres, including Bill Downs and Bill Lawrence
4 March – 17 April 1944 Battle of the Kamenets–Podolsky pocke (or Hube Pocket) -- The Red Army successfully created a pocket, trapping some 220,000 German soldiers inside. With the Soviet 1st Tank Army crossing the Dniester river and reaching Chernivtsi near the Carpathian Mountains, the 1st Panzer Army's links with the 8th Army in the south had been cut off. As a result, Army Group South was effectively split into two – north and south of Carpathians. The northern portion was renamed to Army Group North Ukraine, while the southern portion to Army Group South Ukraine, which was effective from 5 April 1944, although very little of Ukraine remained in German hands. As a result of this split, the Soviets had cut the main supply lifeline of Army Group South, the Lviv–Odessa railway. Now, the southern group of German forces would have to use the long roundabout route through the Balkans, with all of the supplies being rerouted over the Romanian railroads, which were in poor condition.
22 June – 19 August 1944 Operation Bagration aka the the 1944 Soviet Byelorussian strategic offensive operation
18 to 20 May 1944 -- Soviet deportation of the Crimean Tatars and subsequent De-Tatarization of Crimea. Lavrentiy Beria, head of the Soviet state security and secret police ordered the forced deportation of the Crimean Tatars from the Crimean peninsula on behalf of Joseph Stalin, resulting in the ethnic cleansing of the region. As a result, this region was now predominantly ethnically Russian.
May 1945 -- End of WWII as Germany surrenders and fighting stops in Eastern Europe.
17 July – 2 August 1945 Potsdam Conference held in Potsdam, Germany to allow the three leading Allies to plan the postwar peace. Potsdam Agreement signed 1 August 1945.
Post-War 1940s
1945 to 1947 -- Forced repatriation of citizens of the Soviet Union via Operation Keelhaul. This was done despite the official statement of the British Foreign Office policy after the Yalta Conference, that only Soviet citizens who had been such after 1 September 1939, were to be compelled to return to the Soviet Union or handed over to Soviet officials in other locations (see Repatriation of Cossacks after World War II). Many were sent to the Gulags.
March 1946 all People's Commissariats were renamed to Ministries. The NKVD became the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD). the NKVD / MVD continued to administer / house prisoners in special camps in Germany until 1950 (at which point they were turned over to the East Germans). A total of ten camps existed, set up in former Nazi concentration camps, former stalags, barracks, or prisons.
NKVD special camp Nr. 1 in the former Stalag IV-B near Mühlberg[
NKVD special camp Nr. 2 in Buchenwald
NKVD special camp Nr. 3 in Hohenschönhausen[1] (later Stasi-Arbeitslager X)
NKVD special camp Nr. 4 in Bautzen (since 1948 Nr. 3)
NKVD special camp Nr. 5 in Ketschendorf / Fürstenwalde
NKVD special camp Nr. 6 in Jamlitz near Lieberose
NKVD special camp Nr. 7 in Weesow near Werneuchen (until August 1945) and Sachsenhausen (since August 1945)
NKVD special camp Nr. 8 in Torgau[1] (Fort Zinna)
NKVD special camp Nr. 9 in Fünfeichen, Neubrandenburg
NKVD special camp Nr. 10 in Torgau[1] (Seydlitz-Kaserne)
February 21, 1948 MVD establishes special camps for political prisoners as part of the Gulag system. Many would last until the death of Stalin in the early 1950s.
1950s
1953 -- Joseph Stalin dies, leading to De-Stalinization. Monuments to Stalin were removed or toppled, his name was removed from places, buildings, and the state anthem, and his body was removed from the Lenin Mausoleum (from 1953 to 1961 known as Lenin and Stalin Mausoleum) and buried. Many political prisoners were released or "rehabilitated" rather than be held in gulag labor camps.
1961 -- as a part of the rebuilding of Kiev, a Hotel Moscow (present day Hotel Ukraine) opens, built as a replacement of the Ginzburg house that had been destroyed during WWII.
13 March 1961 -- A dam near the Babi Yar ravine (outside of Kiev) collapses, causing the Kurenivka mudslide
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's book "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich", about a typical day in the life of a Gulag inmate, was originally published in the most prestigious Soviet monthly, Novy Mir (New World), in November 1962, but was soon banned and withdrawn from all libraries.
1968 -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn finishes The Gulag Archipelago manuscript and despite Soviet repression, he is able to have it smuggled out of country for publication by 1973.
1970s
1972 Construction begins on the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (completed in 1977). The nearby Polissya hotel is built in [[Pripyat] to house delegations and guests visiting the plant.
Despite fallout travelling through the air to Kyiv, the Moscow leadership declared that there was no reason to postpone the 1 May International Workers' Day celebrations in Kyiv (including the annual parade).
May 1 1986 -- the Pripyat amusement park was scheduled to have opened on this date, but officially never did.
On 2 May 1986 the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone was established as an area of a 30-kilometre (19 mi) radius from Reactor 4.
this incident did much to delegitimize the power of both the Communist Party and Volodymyr Shcherbytsky locally, after he ordered the children of the central committee and the Communist Party away from Kyiv to the Caucausus, while the city celebrated May Day. It also put Ukraine back on the world map, as the disaster was seen as an ecologically problem not only locally, but potentially globally as well. The tragedy also started mobilizing the diaspora.[17]
July 16, 1990 -- The newly elected parliament adopted a Ukraine's Declaration of Sovereignty, declaring that Ukrainian SSR laws took precedence over the laws of the USSR, that the Ukrainian SSR would maintain its own army and its own national bank with the power to introduce its own currency, and that it had the "intention of becoming a permanently neutral state that does not participate in military blocs and adheres to three nuclear free principles"
1991 -- Ukranian Independence
On March 11, 1990, Lithuania declared its independence from the USSR, and Latvia and Estonia were actively preparing for the restoration of independence. On the streets of Ukrainian cities, the Ukrainian Interparty Assembly had already registered citizens of the Ukrainian People's Republic
On 1 December 1991, A 1991 independence referendum was held, with the results proving to be a surprise: An overwhelming majority, 92.3%, voted for independence.
May 28, 1997 -- Partition Treaty on the Status and Conditions of the Black Sea Fleet -- consists of three bilateral agreements[2] between Russia and Ukraine signed on 28 May 1997 whereby the two countries established two independent national fleets, divided armaments and bases between them,[3][4] and set forth conditions for basing of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Crimea. The treaty was supplemented by provisions in the Russian–Ukrainian Friendship Treaty, which was signed three days later Kyiv on 31 May 1997 by the President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma and Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
May 22, 2006 -- Mystetskyi Arsenal National Art and Culture Museum Complex opens on the grounds of a former ammunition arsenal. Its stated mission is to modernize Ukrainian society through raising awareness of social issues, fostering communication with the international community, and introducing outstanding local and international artists to the world.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or ((efn)) templates on this page, but the references will not show without a ((reflist|group=lower-alpha)) template or ((notelist)) template (see the help page).
.svg)
.jpg)
.svg)
.png)