In the 14th century the territory Southern Rus' came under the control of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Poland and Hungary. Crimea, formerly under the influence of Byzantium and Rus', fell into the hands of the Tatars. In the 16th-17th centuries, a confrontation developed over Ukrainian lands between the Polish-Lithuanian state, the Grand Duchy of Moscow and Turkish-Tatar forces. The conquest by Moscow in 1500-1503 of the northern principalities belonging to Lithuania, centered in Chernigov, strengthened the attraction of part of the Orthodox Ukrainian population to Muscovy.

Since the time of the Union of Lublin (1569), Ukraine was almost entirely under the administrative subordination of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. At the same time, significant differences between Galicia, located in the west of Ukraine, which already belonged to Poland in the 14th century, and the regions in the east and south, which were part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but to a greater extent retained their originality, and above all their adherence to Orthodoxy. While the nobility gradually incorporated into the ranks of the gentry of the Kingdom of Poland and converted to Catholicism, the peasant population everywhere retained their Orthodox faith and language. Part of the peasantry was enslaved. Significant changes occurred among the urban population, which was partially displaced by Poles, Germans, Jews and Armenians. Left her mark on political history Ukraine and the European Reformation, which was defeated in the Polish-Lithuanian state. The Catholic elite tried to solve the problem of the Orthodox population with the help of the Union of Brest in 1596, which subjugated Orthodox Church Ukraine to the Pope. As a result, the Uniate Church arose, which also has a number of differences from Orthodoxy in ritual. Along with Uniatism and Catholicism, Orthodoxy is preserved. Kyiv College (highest spiritual educational institution) becomes the center of the revival of Ukrainian culture.

The increasing oppression of the gentry forced the Ukrainian peasant masses to flee to the south and southeast of the region. In the lower reaches of the Dnieper, beyond the Dnieper rapids, at the beginning of the 16th century, a Cossack community arose, which was relatively dependent on the Kingdom of Poland-Lithuania. In its socio-political organization, this community was similar to the formations of Russian Cossacks on the Don, Volga, Yaik and Terek; between military organization The Dnieper Cossacks - the Zaporozhye Sich (established in 1556) - and the Russian Cossack formations had relations of brotherhood in arms, and all of them, including the Zaporozhye Sich, were the most important political and military factor on the border with the Steppe. It was this Ukrainian Cossack society that played a decisive role in the political development of Ukraine in the mid-17th century. At the beginning of the 17th century, under the leadership of Hetman Sagaidachny (hetmanship with interruptions in 1605-1622), the Sich turned into a powerful military-political center, acting generally in line with Polish politics. The Sich was a republic headed by a hetman who relied on the Cossack elders (the tops opposing the “golytba”).

In the 16th-17th centuries, the desire of the Poles to establish more full control Over the Sich, the Cossacks responded with a series of powerful uprisings against the gentry and the Catholic clergy. In 1648, the uprising was led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky. As a result of several successful campaigns, B. Khmelnitsky’s army managed to spread the influence of the Zaporozhye Sich to most of Ukraine. However, the emerging Ukrainian public education was weak and could not stand up to Poland alone. B. Khmelnitsky and the officers of the highest Cossack circle faced the question of choosing allies. B. Khmelnitsky's initial bet on the Crimean Khanate (1648) did not materialize, since the Crimean Tatars were inclined to separate negotiations with the Poles.

The alliance with the Moscow state, after several years of hesitation by Tsar Alexei (reluctance to enter into a new conflict with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth), was concluded in 1654 in Pereyaslavl (Pereyaslavl Rada). The Cossack army, as the main military-political institution of Ukraine, was guaranteed its privileges, its own law and legal proceedings, self-government with free elections of the hetman, and limited foreign policy activities. Privileges and rights of self-government were guaranteed to the Ukrainian nobility, the metropolitan and the cities of Ukraine who swore allegiance to the Russian Tsar.

The war between Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian state that began in 1654 had a generally negative impact on the alliance of the Dnieper Cossacks with the Russian Tsar. In the conditions of the truce between Moscow and the Polish-Lithuanian state, B. Khmelnitsky moved towards rapprochement with Sweden, Brandenburg and Transylvania, which entered into an armed struggle against the Poles. At the same time, the role of B. Khmelnitsky’s Cossacks was very significant. So, at the beginning of 1657, the 30,000-strong army of the Kyiv foreman Zhdanovich, uniting with the army of the Transylvanian prince Gyorgy II Rakoczi, reached Warsaw. However, it was not possible to consolidate this success.

In the middle of the 17th century, a fierce struggle for the territory of the Sich unfolded between Russia, Poland and the Ottoman Empire. In this struggle, the hetmans took different positions, sometimes acting independently. Hetman I. Vygovsky (1657-1659) entered into an alliance with Sweden, which dominated Poland at that time (anticipating Mazepa’s policy). Having won a victory over pro-Russian forces near Poltava in 1658, Vyhovsky concluded the Treaty of Godyach with Poland, which envisaged the return of Ukraine to the rule of the Polish king as the Grand Duchy of Russia. Near Konotop, Vygovsky’s troops in 1659 won a victory over the troops of the Muscovite kingdom and its allies. However, the next Rada supported the pro-Russian Yu. Khmelnitsky (1659-1663), who replaced Vygovsky and concluded a new Pereyaslav Treaty with Russia. Under this treaty, Ukraine became an autonomous part of the Muscovite kingdom.

However, after failures in the war with Poland in 1660, the Slobodishchensky Treaty of 1660 was concluded, which turned Ukraine into an autonomous part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Left-bank Ukraine did not recognize the agreement and swore allegiance to the tsar. Not wanting to continue the civil war, Yu. Khmelnytsky became a monk, and P. Teterya (1663-1665) was elected hetman of the Right Bank, and I. Bryukhovetsky (1663-1668), who was replaced by D. Mnogoreshny (1669-1672) of the Left Bank. years).

The uprising of 1648-1654 and the subsequent period of unrest (“Ruin”) is sometimes interpreted in historiography as an early bourgeois or national revolution (by analogy with other revolutions of the 16th-17th centuries).

The Andrusovo truce between Moscow and the Poles (1667) institutionalized the split in Ukraine: the regions on the left bank of the Dnieper went to the Moscow state, and the right banks again came under the political and administrative control of the Poles. This division, as well as the protectorate of both powers established over the Zaporozhye Sich under the Treaty of Andrusov, caused numerous uprisings of the Cossacks, who unsuccessfully tried to achieve the unification of both parts of Ukraine.

In the 1660-1670s there was a fierce war in Ukraine civil war, in which Poland, Russia, and then the Ottoman Empire took part, under whose patronage the Right Bank Hetman P. Doroshenko (1665-1676) came. This struggle devastated the Right Bank, caused great damage to the left bank and ended with the division of Ukraine according to the Bakhchisarai Treaty of 1681 between Russia and Turkey and Crimean Khanate And " Eternal peace» Russia and Poland in 1686. The territories of the three states converged in the Kyiv region, which remained with Russia and Hetman Ukraine, which was part of it (Hetman I. Samoilovich, 1672-1687).

Ukraine was divided into a number of territories:

1) the left bank Hetmanate, which retained significant autonomy within Russia;

2) Zaporozhye Sich, which retained autonomy in relation to the hetman;

3) the Right Bank Hetmanate, which retained autonomy within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (by the 1680s it was actually divided between Poland and Turkey);

4) Galicia, integrated into the Kingdom of Poland from the end of the 14th century;

5) Hungarian Carpathian Ukraine;

6) belonged to Ottoman Empire Bukovina and Podolia (until 1699);

7) areas of the Steppe and neutral territories cleared of the Ukrainian population, up to the Kiev region;

8) Sloboda Ukraine - the eastern regions of the left bank Hetmanate, whose regiments were directly subordinate to the Moscow governors in Belgorod.

The institutions of Moscow control over the left-bank Hetmanate and Sloboda Ukraine, which retained significant autonomy, were: the Little Russian Order established in 1663, small Russian garrisons in individual Ukrainian cities. There was a customs border between the Hetmanate and the Moscow State (in the pre-Petrine period).

A more rigid institutional consolidation of the Left Bank and Sloboda Ukraine, and then part of the Right Bank Ukraine, occurs during the reign of Peter I. In 1708, the Ukrainian hetman Ivan Mazepa entered into an alliance with Peter’s military-political opponent, King Charles XII of Sweden. In response, the Russian army burned the hetman's capital Baturyn. The victory of Peter I over the Swedes near Poltava (1709) meant a significant limitation of the broad political autonomy of Ukraine. Institutionally, this was expressed in the expansion of the administrative and legal competence of the Little Russian Collegium, which managed affairs in Ukraine, the liquidation customs border, the growth of economic withdrawals of surplus product from Ukrainian territories for the needs of the expanding Russian Empire.

The stabilization of the institution of hetmanship under Empress Elizabeth Petrovna gave way to a sharp policy of centralization during the reign of Catherine I. In 1765, Sloboda Ukraine became an ordinary province of the Russian Empire. In 1764, the institution of hetmanship was liquidated, and in the early 1780s the Russian system of administration and tax collection was introduced. In 1775, Russian troops destroyed the Zaporozhye Sich, part of the Zaporozhye Cossacks moved to the Kuban, and part of the Cossacks in the more northern regions became state peasants. Simultaneously with the distribution of lands to Russian landowners, part of the Cossack elite was included in the Russian nobility. The territory of Ukraine began to be called Little Russia. In 1783, the Crimean Khanate was annexed to Russia.

As a result three sections The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1772, 1793 and 1795) almost the entire territory of Ukraine became part of the Russian Empire. Galicia, Transcarpathia and Bukovina became parts of the Austrian Empire.

The medieval culture of Ukraine was quite specific. In many ways we can say that medieval Ukrainian culture is shining example“border” culture: West and East, civilization and savagery, striving forward and obscurantist inertia of views, rabid religiosity and secular aspiration of ideas are intricately mixed here. This motley combination that characterized the culture of Ukraine in the 17th century arose due to a number of circumstances.

• By the 14th century, Ukrainian lands were finally freed from Tatar-Mongol yoke, that is, much earlier than the “Great Russian” territories. True, it was not appropriate for the indigenous inhabitants of the former Kievan Rus to rejoice greatly: the country was plundered, the productive forces, namely the rich and educated princes and boyars, were largely destroyed. In addition, a holy place is never empty, and the vacated territory was occupied by representatives of more developed neighboring countries - Poland, Lithuania, Hungary. The leading role, apparently, was played by the Lithuanians, who in the ethnographic and cultural sense were a people “younger” than the Eastern Slavs (who even in the lands of Ukraine preferred to call themselves Russians); therefore, the Lithuanians preferred “not to introduce new things, not to destroy the old,” that is, they did not abolish the habitual Russian way of life and ancient Russian legislation, but, on the contrary, actively accepted the foundations of Slavic culture and even accepted Orthodoxy. But under the influence of their western neighbors, Lithuanians accepted European enlightenment, and gradually the economic, political and cultural life of Ukraine was largely reorganized in a European way.
• The development of the people's liberation movement, which is predominantly peasant-Cossack in nature. The Ukrainian lower strata of the population, who belonged to the East Slavic people, felt conquered. Lithuanians and Poles, as well as the polarized “Russian” elite, in the opinion of the peasants, have appropriated funds belonging to the Orthodox people and are using them unjustly, at least not in the interests of the “autochthonous” population. Peasants and Cossacks for the most part were illiterate, ignorant and superstitious people, which left an imprint on the cultural life of Ukraine.
• Some isolation of Ukrainian lands from the centers of European cultural life. The creative, philosophical and technological achievements of European civilization came to Ukraine with a certain delay. In general for this entire region Eastern Europe There is a strict gradation according to the level of civilization. In the Belarusian lands in the 16th century, the European Renaissance dominated with might and main; at the same time, Ukraine was mastering, for the most part, culture late Middle Ages, and in Russia the gloomy and hopeless early Middle Ages reigned, and in some areas there was almost a primitive communal system. Because of this, a kind of cultural filtration took place: European culture penetrated into Ukraine and Belarus in a “Polished” form, and then, in the 17th century, it penetrated into Moscow state already in a Ukrainized form: Simeon of Polotsk, Pamvo Berynda and many other Moscow “learned people” came to Moscow from Ukraine.

Polemical culture of Ukraine XIV – XVII centuries

Due to the prevailing circumstances, the medieval culture of Ukraine was highly controversial. Outstanding monuments of Ukrainian literature are represented mostly by polemical works in which the advantage of Orthodox faith over the Catholic (or vice versa), the Uniates who concluded the so-called Brest Union were cursed or, conversely, supported.

The controversy, however, did not develop into a general cultural confrontation: thus, one of the most educated Ukrainians, Prince Ostrozhsky, patronized the activities of Orthodox writers and artisans, including the printer and gunsmith Ivan Fedorov, who escaped from wild Tatar Moscow. Orthodox artists tried to combine Byzantine icon painting canons with the achievements of European fine arts, and also mastered civil painting itself.

Old Ukrainian churches Old Russian model and newly built churches in the Renaissance and Baroque styles passed to the Orthodox, then to the Catholics, then to the Uniates. Behind this polemical culture of Ukraine there was hidden an acute political struggle between the indigenous Ukrainian population and the Europeans, who were perceived as invaders.

Scholasticism marched in the same ranks with polemics. The “fraternal schools” founded by Peter Mogila, one of which by the second half of the 17th century grew into the Kiev-Mohyla Academy, concentrated their activities in scholastic disputes, in which they became largely bogged down.

The real goal of scholastic disputes is the desire to prevent “spiritual sabotage”: by scrupulously examining religious doctrine, human rights in accordance with “ holy scripture", educated Orthodox priests they tried, overcoming primitive savagery, to determine for believers the maximum “civilization dose” that would allow the person who took it to still be called Orthodox.

Culture of Ukraine XVII – XVIII centuries

Ukrainian culture in these centuries was subject to mutual influence with Moscow culture. On the one hand, scientists, writers, architects and artists willingly came to the Moscow state and were even specially invited by Alexei Mikhailovich, again with the same goal: to perceive European civilization as if “bypassing” Catholic and Protestant missionaries.

On the other hand, having become part of the Russian state, Ukraine also adopted the subsequent Russian culture, reshaped by Peter in a Western way. And the so-called “Ukrainian Baroque,” ​​which culturally represented nothing more than the early Renaissance, sharply turned into the present Baroque in the 18th century. This was apparently started by Mazepa, who in his letter to Peter asked to send him the architect Osip Startsev from Moscow.

Video: History of Ukrainian culture

The usual cliches, which few people think about, are used by everyone, including historians. For example, "Liszt by Bogdan Khmelnitsky,
sent from Cherkassy to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, with a message about victories over the Polish army and the desire of the Ukrainian people to unite with Russia" from June 8, 1648 .
Excuse me, but where is it said about the Ukrainian people? I was not able to see a single document that talked about the Ukrainian people. Until the second half of the 19th century, the concepts of “Ukrainian people”, “Ukrainian nation”, etc. did not exist in nature.
The name of the territory “Ukraine” appears periodically. But it has nothing to do with the name of the people living on this land, which has long been known to everyone. Suffice it to recall Siberian Ukraine. For example, the siege of the Kumarsky fort was reflected in Russian folklore. In the middle of the 18th century. In Siberia, Kirsha Danilov recorded the song “In the Siberian in Ukraine, in the Daurian side” with a poetic description of the battle.

Returning to the “Ukrainian people” and the title of Khmelnytsky’s letter, it is easy to see that Bogdan is not writing about any people inhabiting Ukraine. All surviving written sources refer to the Zaporozhye army, of which he is the head (photocopy and text below).

The situation is similar with absolutely all documents that have reached us. Interestingly, even in documents written by ardent enemies of Russia. The same heir to Mazepa, Philip Orlik, wrote in Russian about the Russians inhabiting the banks of the Dnieper. In the famous pseudo-constitution, preserved both in Latin (for Charles) and in Russian (for his own), the enemy of Peter the Great and Russia does not call the inhabitants of Ukraine Ukrainians. However, his Ukraine is not Ukraine, but “Our Motherland is Little Russia.” And Orlik writes about the Cossacks of the Zaporozhye army and about the Russians. But he, just like Khmelnitsky, Vygovsky, Vyshnevetsky and other hetmans, had no need to avoid mentioning the Ukrainian people. On the contrary, speaking against Russia it would be logical to emphasize in documents addressed to the same Poles, Tatars, etc. their difference from Russians and call themselves Ukrainians.

You can often hear the explanation that Ukrainians are actually Russians, and Russians in Russia are not really Russians. That’s why, they say, all the hetmans write about themselves as Russians.

There is homespun truth in the fact that Little Russia, as even Taras Shevchenko called it, was inhabited by Russians, the heirs and descendants of the inhabitants of Kievan Rus. They did not consider themselves Ukrainians, so they were not called by someone else’s name. But they did not consider the inhabitants of Russia to be impostors either. If they did, then the above-mentioned hetmans would inevitably write about it, especially in correspondence with the enemies of Russia. The same Vygovsky, after the Battle of Konotop, should have written about the victory over impostors, and not the Russians. And they would not call themselves hetmans of the Zaporozhye army, but kings, rulers, sovereigns ... of all Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. But it never occurred to them.

Didn't think of it?

Most illustrious, noble and glorious to the Tsar of Moscow, and to us 33 great lord of mercy and goodness.
It’s like God’s contempt for something that happened, which we ourselves have been thinking about and trying to achieve, and in the current hour we could through
Show your envoys good health to your royal authority and give your lowest obeisance. God Almighty
having greeted us from your royal majesty with a messenger, although not to us, to Pan Kisel, sent for his needs, whom his comrades
Our Cossacks, having forced themselves into dorosi, turned away from us and the troops. Through whom your royal power has joyfully come to us, we see
institute the revival of our ancient Greek life, for which from ancient times and for our troubles we have received crooked merit from the kings
We will reconcile the old instructions and until this quiet hour we will not have peace from the godless Aryans.
Our savior Jesus Christ, who repented of the lies of poor people and the crooked tears of poor orphans, with kindness and mercy
looking back at us to his saints, likewise, sending his holy word, he encouraged us to fight. Which pit was beaten under us by vikopali,
They themselves collapsed into nothing, but the Lord God helped us to stop two armies with their great camps and take three hetmans alive from the others
their sanatoriums: the first on the Zsolta Voda, in the field in the middle of the Zaporozkoi road, the commissar Šemberk and the syndicate of the Krakow master
the soul didn’t flow in. Then the Hetman himself, the great Pan of Krakow, from the innocent and kind man Pan Martin Kalinovsky, Hetman
full of crowns, near the city of Korsun, both of them were taken into captivity, and the entire army of their quarters was beaten to the bone; we didn't take them, 34
The old people took them, who served us [in that world] from the king of Crimea. We have asked about this and your [royal] Majesty
Let us know that the singing message came to us from Prince Dominic of Zaslavsky, who before us sent requests for the world, and from Mr.
Kisel, the governor of Braslav, and the song of the king, our master, died, so by reason, but from the cause of these same ungodly
These are also our enemies, of whom there are many kings in our land, for which the land is now completely empty. Zichili bihmo sobi
autocrat and ruler in his land, like your royal lordship, Orthodox Christian king, azali bi primary
The prophecy from Christ our God has been fulfilled, that everything is in the hands of His holy mercy. In what do we praise your royal majesty, if
It was the will of God, but your royal haste, without hesitation, attack that panorama, and with the whole Army
The Zaporozki are ready to serve your royal royalty, to the extent that we can with our lowest services, as if we were unable to give up.
And it will be too much for your Tsar's Majesty to exchange, if the Poles want to attack us, hurry up at that very hour
and from our side we will attack them, and we will take them away for God’s help. And may God correct what was wronged in ancient times
the prophecy, which we have taught ourselves, to the merciful needs of your royal majesty, as if it were the most humiliating, we humbly surrender.
Date from Cherkassy, ​​June 8, 1648.

Your royal majesty's lowest servants. Bohdan Khmelnytsky, hetman of the Army of his Royal Grace Zaporozky.

Below is a photocopy of Orlik's pseudo-constitution, written in Russian. It is easy to read “to the great remembrance of the Zaporozhye troops and all the Little Russian people” (at the very end). It is difficult to imagine that the document written for the enemy of Russia, the Swedish King Charles, used false names of local residents.

But this is what the pseudo-constitution was actually called. Please note the date - April. Obviously not Ukrainian.
In general, the situation is absurd. Living side by side are people who are not genetically different from each other, who had a common state on these lands more than a thousand years ago, when most of the current nations of Europe simply did not exist (just look at France in the 10th century). In the written documents that have reached us, they use the same language and call themselves the same. Published in one language and church books, even in Lvov, even in Kyiv or other Russian cities.

And these are different peoples?

P.S. The Germans today live peacefully, both in Germany and in Austria. But in the years when the above documents were written, no Germans as they understand themselves today did not exist. In 1701, the Kingdom of Prussia had just emerged. And the difference in languages ​​was such that even today southerners have difficulty understanding northern Germans. Although no one talks about different languages- only about German dialects.

So who is sowing discord in the current state of Ukraine?

Housing - among feudal lords - stone and brick buildings in the form of castles with fables, fortifications, narrow windows; peasants have two types of wooden dwellings: log house (a quadrangular frame consisted of logs laid horizontally on top of each other, then the roof, doors, and windows were completed; common in most of Ukraine) and frame (pegs were driven between the pillars on the inside and outside, rods were braided , covered with clay and straw; the dried wall was whitewashed; found in the south of Volyn). At the entrance to the house there was a stove - the opposite but diagonal corner was “red”, for guests. There were few rooms and they were made large. They lived in large families of several generations (usually 2 - 3 families in a room). In the yard- outbuildings(barns, barns, 1 cattle shed), next to it is a vegetable garden. The size of the buildings depended on the wealth of the owner.

Clothes are made of linen or hemp; usually at home they sewed shirts with embroidery for men (among the lords - silk embroidery,
ribs, gold) without collars, wide trousers, wide (about 15 cm)
belt made of linen fabric, usually red. .V women - with
rochka, long wide skirt, apron, sundress, beads (made of stone, glass,
coins, beads), earrings or bells in the ears. In winter - long
sheepskin casings or burkas to the toes. Feudal lords made fur coats from expensive furs.

Food - rye bread(poor people added barley admixtures to flour
or oats; white bread was on holidays), cereal soup, kulesh, dumplings,
dumplings, fish, berries, fruits, beer, etc.

Customs are folk (often pagan) and church holidays- Christmas (they went caroling on the night of it). Easter, the feast of Yanka Kupala (June 23 before the harvest), the feast of the Intercession of the Virgin Mary (October 4, the end of agricultural work), etc.

School theater - at the Ostroh school, Lviv fraternal
school - students on Christmas, Easter and other holidays and
At meetings of distinguished guests, they read poems of their own composition and greetings, played small plays in the form of dialogue on educational and religious topics, etc.

People's Square Theater - at fairs, holidays, etc.
in large crowds of people comedies and sometimes dramas were played for entertainment.
audience attraction.

After the adoption of the Union of Brest in 1596, the Orthodox Church in Ukraine was banned and most of the churches and monasteries became Uniate. 1) 1620, with the help of the Zaporozhye hetman Peter Sagaidachny, Patriarch Feofan of Jerusalem comes to Ukraine and restores the Kiev Metropolis and the entire Orthodox hierarchy in Ukraine (promotes 5 Ukrainian and Belarusian bishops to the rank of Metropolitan of Kiev). As a result, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth only at the beginning of the 30s of the 17th century, under pressure from large peasant uprisings (S. Nalivaiko and others) and the demands of Ukrainian brotherhoods, officially allowed the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, although it still continued to persecute it.

And the end of the sixteenth century. under the leadership of Patriarch Alexandria M. Nigas, a reform of church singing was carried out, which contrasted polyphonic singing from notes to Catholic worship with organ music and polyphonic singing. In the 17th century, a unique school of such singing had already developed in Ukraine, and Kyiv became the center where it reached its apogee, and was later transferred to Russia, replacing monotonous singing there.

In portraiture, the clergy moved away from the old Byzantine canons, adopting the achievements of Renaissance art and even trying to surpass it with the power of emotional influence.

The center of political and cultural life has shifted
to Kyiv, because: Kyiv was the capital of Kievan Rus; and at the beginning of the 17th century. - the largest city in the Dnieper region (15 thousand inhabitants), an important craft, trade and cultural center was located in the south-eastern “Krappe of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which made it difficult for the latter to interfere in its affairs, and on the other hand, it was based only a few hundred miles from Kiev Zaporozhye Cossacks; since 1620 Kyiv is again the religious center of Orthodoxy in Ukraine.

Ukrainians, just like Russians and Belarusians, belong to Eastern Slavs. Ukrainians include Carpathian (Boikos, Hutsuls, Lemkos) and Polesie (Litvins, Polishchuks) ethnographic groups. The formation of the Ukrainian people took place in the XII-XV centuries on the basis of part of the population that was previously part of Kievan Rus.

During the period of political fragmentation, due to the existing local characteristics of language, culture and way of life, conditions were created for the formation of three East Slavic peoples (Ukrainians and Russians). The main historical centers of the formation of the Ukrainian nationality were the Kiev region, Pereyaslav region, and Chernigov region. In addition to the constant raids of the Mongol-Tatars, which lasted until the 15th century, from the 13th century the Ukrainians were subjected to Hungarian, Polish and Moldavian invasions. However, constant resistance to the conquerors contributed to the unification of Ukrainians. Not the least role in the formation of the Ukrainian state belonged to the Cossacks who formed the Zaporozhye Sich, which became a political stronghold of Ukrainians.

In the 16th century, the ancient Ukrainian language emerged. Modern Ukrainian literary language formed at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries.

In the 17th century, as a result of the liberation war under the leadership of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the Hetmanate was formed, which in 1654 became part of Russia as an autonomous state. Historians consider this event a prerequisite for the unification of Ukrainian lands.

Although the word “Ukraine” was known back in the 12th century, it was then used only to designate the “extreme” southern and southwestern parts of ancient Russian lands. Until the end of the century before last, the inhabitants of modern Ukraine were called Little Russians and were considered one of the ethnographic groups of Russians.

The traditional occupation of Ukrainians, which determined their place of residence (fertile southern lands), was agriculture. They grew rye, wheat, barley, millet, buckwheat, oats, hemp, flax, corn, tobacco, sunflowers, potatoes, cucumbers, beets, turnips, onions and other crops.

Agriculture, as usual, was accompanied by cattle breeding (large cattle, sheep, horses, pigs, poultry). Beekeeping and fishing were less developed. Along with this, various trades and crafts were widespread - weaving, glass production, pottery, woodworking, leatherworking and others.

The national housing of the Ukrainians: huts (huts), made of adobe or logs, whitewashed inside and out, were quite close to the Russians. The roof was usually made of hipped thatch, or of reeds or shingles. In a number of areas, until the beginning of the last century, the dwelling remained chicken or semi-kurny. The interior, even in different areas, was the same: at the entrance on the right or left in the corner there was a stove, with its mouth facing the long side of the house. Diagonally from her in another corner (front) painted with embroidered towels, flowers, icons hung, stood dining table. There were benches for seating along the walls. There was a sleeping area adjacent to the stove. Depending on the wealth of the owner, the peasant house consisted of one or several outbuildings. Wealthy Ukrainians lived in brick or stone houses, with several rooms with a porch or veranda.

The culture of Russians and Ukrainians has a lot in common. Often foreigners cannot distinguish them from each other. If we remember that for many centuries these two peoples were actually one whole, this is not surprising.

Women's traditional clothing of Ukrainians consists of an embroidered shirt and unstitched clothes: dergi, spare tire, plakhta. Girls usually let go long hair, which were braided into braids, placing them around the head and decorating them with ribbons and flowers. Women wore various caps, and later - scarves. A men's suit consisted of a shirt tucked into wide trousers (harem pants), a sleeveless vest and a belt. The headdress in summer was straw hats, in winter - caps. The most common footwear was stols made of rawhide, and in Polesie - lychak (bast shoes), among the wealthy - boots. In the autumn-winter period, both men and women wore retinue and opancha - a type of caftan.

Due to their occupation, the basis of nutrition for Ukrainians was plant and flour foods. National Ukrainian dishes: borscht, soup with dumplings, dumplings with cherries, cottage cheese and potatoes, porridge (especially millet and buckwheat), dumplings with garlic. Meat food was available to the peasantry only on holidays, but lard was often consumed. Traditional drinks: Varenukha, Sirivets, various liqueurs and vodka with pepper (gorilka).

Diverse songs have always been and remain the most striking feature of the national folk art Ukrainians. Ancient traditions and rituals are still well preserved there (especially in rural areas). Just like in Russia, in some places they continue to celebrate semi-pagan holidays: Maslenitsa, Ivan Kupala and others.

They speak the Ukrainian language of the Slavic group, in which several dialects are distinguished: northern, southwestern and southeastern. Writing based on the Cyrillic alphabet.

Ukrainian believers are mostly Orthodox. There are also Catholics in Western Ukraine. Protestantism can be found in the form of Pentecostalism, Baptistism, and Adventism.