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REMAPPING UKRAINE 9Th to 21St Century AD

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REMAPPING UKRAINE 9Th to 21St Century AD REMAPPING UKRAINE 15th Century BCE to 21st Century CE Osher Lifelong Learning Institute Vanderbilt University Winter Term 2015 Mary Pat Silveira UKRAINIAN ETHNOGRAPHIC TERRITORY: 1922 THE INTERWAR YEARS • Bolshevik policy of “War Communism” • 1921: Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP: temporary return to market economy • USSR created as federation 1922; Union Treaty 1924 REPUBLICS OF THE SOVIET UNION • 1922: Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and “Transcaucasia” • 1924: Transcaucasia split into Armenia, Azerbaijan & Georgia; Turkmenistan & Uzbekistan added. • 1929: Tajikistan added. • 1936: Kazakhstan & Kyrgyzstan added. • 1940: Moldova, Estonia*, Latvia* & Lithuania* added (*disputed: “occupied) 1924 UNION TREATY • Exclusive Prerogative of Central Government: – Military – Foreign relations – Foreign trade – Transportation & communications • Republics: – Economic, social & cultural affairs INDIGENIZATION • 1923: Twelfth Party Congress adopt policy of indigenization – Promote diversity – Actively recruit Ukrainians to state & party – Foster development Ukrainian culture – Expand education and publishing in Ukrainian RISE OF STALIN • Lenin dies in 1924; Stalin consolidates power • First Five Year Plan (1928-32) – returns to socialism – Large-scale industrialization – Forced collectivization of agriculture – Suppression of “bourgeois” culture – Use of state coercion and control INDUSTRIALIZATION • Ukraine benefits from 27% of 1500 new Soviet industrial plants – Includes largest hydroelectric dam in Europe – Giant tractor factory and steel mill • Most investments in Eastern Ukraine only, in Donbas & Lower Dnipro area UKRAINE’S INDUSTRIAL AREA AGRICULTURE AND BLACK FAMINE • Enforced collectivization & grain requisitioning • Emphasis on grain exports for foreign capital • Crusade against kulaks • No food for consumption; Peasants resist • Demand rises; supply falls; drought intervenes • Black Famine of 1932 and 1933 – b/w 7 and 8 million dead; 15-20 % Ukrainian pop THE BLACK (GREAT) FAMINE: 1930s The Great Terror/The Great Purge • Stalin’s “Cultural Revolution – 1933 retreats from Lenin’s nationalities – 1934-38: purges intellectuals; hundreds of thousands killed & millions sent to Gulag • Poles and Germans deported to Soviet Asia • Jewish section of Communist Party dissolved – New Soviet elite – “the class of 38” UKRAINIANS IN POLAND • Repression of Ukrainians • 1925: Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance • Ukrainian support for Soviet Ukrainians increases: create Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists 1929 UKRAINIAN LANDS IN POLAND 1930 UKRAINIANS IN ROMANIA & CZECHOSLOVAKIA • Romania: Bessarabia and Bukovyna • Czechoslovakia: Transcarpathia – Given autonomy in 1938 – “Carpatho-Ukraine” UKRAINIAN LANDS IN ROMANIA & CZECHOSLOVAKIA RISING THREAT OF WAR • 1938: Appeasement at Munich: Germany invades Sudentenland • 3/ 1939: Germany invades all Czechoslovakia • 8/ 1939: German-Soviet nonaggression treaty (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) SECRET CODICIL • Secret codicil of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: Division of Eastern Europe • Sept 1, 1939: Germany invades Poland from west • Sept 17, 1939: Soviet troops invade Poland from east; annex • Galicia, west Volhynia & Polisia to Ukrainian SSR(1939) • northern Bukovyna and Bessarabia (1940); and • 3 Baltic States (1940) GERMANY ADVANCES • Germany is given lands in Poland west of San and Buh Rivers – 500,000 Ukrainians in this area • Germany sets up Generalgouvernement – Life at first appears better than in Soviet Ukraine – Many Ukrainian activists emigrate here & make center of Ukrainian life – Establish Ukrainian Central Committee in 1940 • 1941: Germany breaks Pact w/ USSR; invades and occupies Soviet Ukraine UKRAINE WW II RUSSIAN RETREAT • Many Ukrainians reluctant to help USSR following years of starvation & purge • Russians arrest nationalists, industrialists & civil servants; to avoid evacuating, kill most prisoners; deport others to Siberia, Arctic Circle & CA • Russians in retreat: dismantle industry, destroy infrastructure & pursue “scorched earth policy” REICHSKOMMISSARIAT • Brief period allowed of Ukrainian national life • Sense that Germans were “liberators” • Third Reich cracks down • Lebensraum & ethnic hatred apparent HOLOCAUST IN UKRAINE • Jews both shipped off in cattle cars to death camps or herded to outskirts of cities – e.g., Babyn Yar (34,000 Jews shot) • Nazis, with Ukrainian collaborators, responsible for killing In Ukraine: – Over 900,000 Jews; second only to Poland • Equaled approximately 20% of the Jewish population END OF WWII • Red Army expels Germans by fall 1944 • Altogether, Ukraine lost an estimated: – 4.1m civilians and 1.4m military – 3.9m evacuated eastward by Soviets; – 2.2m deported to Germany as forced laborers • Total loss (Est): 11.6 million • Population in 1939: 40 million YALTA 1945 • Major territorial change. Ukraine adds: – Eastern Galicia, Volhynia and Polissia – Northern Bukovina and lower Bessarabia – Transcarpathia • For first time in modern history, all Ukrainian ethnic lands united in a single state structure: the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic UKRAINE 1945 POST WWII SOVIET UKRAINE • Faced two challenges: integrate country & (re)build centralized command economy – 28,000 villages and 714 towns and cities in ruin – Center of Kyiv 85% demolished – Kharkiv, second largest city, 70% in ruins – More than 19 million homeless INDUSTRIAL BASE SHATTERED • Soviets had dismantled 544 industrial enterprises • Germans destroyed another 16,150 enterprises • 833 coal mines were blown up • Electric power stations, dams, RR lines, bridges & roads were destroyed • 872 state farms, 1300 machine tractor stations, and 27,910 collective farms destroyed MAJOR DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE • Ukraine lost most of its Jewish population • Poles in Western Ukraine either emigrate or are expelled • Large German settlements that had existed before the war gone • Tartars in Crimea sent to Central Asia FOURTH FIVE-YEAR PLAN: 1949-50 • Emphasis on industry • By end of plan: – Industrial production 2.2 x 1940 – Highest p/c production pig iron & sugar in Europe – Second highest in steel smelting & iron ore mining – Third highest in coal mining AGRICULTURE IN FOURTH PLAN • Agriculture remains collectivized – Collective farms increase from 28,000 to 33,000 – Heavy emphasis on industrial crops & low productivity • Drought again in 1946: Famine – Deaths estimated anywhere from 100,000 to 1 m • Total harvests far below prewar level • Problem recurs next five years as well NEW CAMPAIGNS BEGIN • 1951: Kremlin begins comprehensive campaign against “nationalist deviations” in West Ukraine – Russian language only in schools – Uniate and Catholic churches banned in West – Anti-Jews (“rootless cosmopolians” and “killer doctors”) • Relocate large number of Russians to Western areas HISTORICAL IDEOLOGY • All forced to accept Soviet version history, elaborated in 1954: 1. Russian, Ukrainian & Belarusian peoples trace origin to single root – the Russian people who had founded Kievan Rus’ 2. Throughout history, Ukrainian and Belarusian people had desired unification w/ Russian people HISTORICAL IDEOLOGY 3. Reunifcation is a progressive act 4. Throughout history, Russian people were the “senior brother” in family of East Slavic peoples 5. Russia’s main virtue constituted in its giving rise to a strong working class, which in turn produced its vanguard, the Communist Party NATIONAL EXPRESSION • Individual national expression only permitted if it recognized Marxist-Leninist theory, as interpreted by Stalin… and • Only if it took place within mind-set that accepted superiority of Russian culture & language as a model & means of expression STALIN TO KHRUSHCHEV • Death of Stalin 1953; Khrushchev begins new approach toward Ukraine • Celebrates 300th anniversary Agreement of Pereiaslav (“reunification Russia & Ukraine”) • Cedes Crimea to Ukraine in 1954 UKRAINE: 1922-1954 KHRUSCHEV • 20th Party Congress: The Personality Cult & its Consequences – blames Stalin for his crimes: – Execution, torture & imprisonment of loyal party members on false charges – Foreign policy errors – Failings of Soviet agriculture – Ordering mass terror – Mistakes that led to appalling loss of life in WWII and German occupation DE-STALINIZATION • De-Stalinization reawakes Ukrainian nationalism • Writers, directors, composers & artists: the “Sixties Group” – Reject socialist realism – Reaffirm that literature an individual expression – Renew traditional Ukrainian cultural values and language – Rehabilitate banned Ukrainian authors END OF KHRUSCHEV ERA • Economy begins to level off • Agriculture still in crisis • Khruschev removed Oct 1964; followed by Brezhnev & Kosygin BREZHNEV-KOSYGIN ERA • New restrictions on nationalist culture • Repression of writing; first wave of arrests of dissident intellectuals 1965-66; next wave, 1971- 72, broader • 1979 – all union conference calls for mandatory of teaching Russian in every kindergarten and pre-kindergarten BREZHNEV TO GORBACHEV • Brezhnev dies 1982 • Andropov dies after 15 months in office • Chernenko dies after only 13 months in office • Gorbachev becomes general secretary of Communist Party in 1985 .
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