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 .