History of Ukraine: a timeline

35 moments in the history of Ukraine, in order, each with what happened and why it matters.

Eras

  1. Kyivan Rus' (880–1240)
  2. The kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia (1240–1349)
  3. Under Lithuania and Poland (1349–1648)
  4. The Cossacks and the Hetmanate (1648–1775)
  5. Between two empires (1775–1917)
  6. The Ukrainian Revolution (1917–1921)
  7. Soviet Ukraine (1921–1991)
  8. Independent Ukraine (1991–)

Kyivan Rus' (880–1240)

  1. 945: Olha rules Kyiv — According to the Primary Chronicle, Prince Ihor of Kyiv was killed in 945 by the Drevlians, a tribe he had tried to tax twice.
  2. 988: Volodymyr baptises Rus' — Prince Volodymyr, Olha's grandson, ruled Kyiv from about 980.
  3. 1019–1054: Yaroslav the Wise — After a war between Volodymyr's sons, Yaroslav became prince of Kyiv in 1019 and ruled until his death in 1054.
  4. 1051: The Caves Monastery is founded — The chronicles date the beginning of the Kyiv Caves Monastery to 1051, when the monk Anthony settled in a cave on the hills above the Dnipro.
  5. December 1240: Batu's army takes Kyiv — In 1237 the Mongol army of Khan Batu, a grandson of Genghis Khan, moved west across the steppe.

The kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia (1240–1349)

  1. 1253: Danylo is crowned king — In the west of Rus', Prince Danylo united Galicia and Volhynia into one strong state.

Under Lithuania and Poland (1349–1648)

  1. 1356: Lviv receives Magdeburg law — After the Galician–Volhynian line died out, its lands were divided between Poland and Lithuania; most of today's Ukraine came under the Grand Duchy of…
  2. c. 1555: The Cossacks on Khortytsia — From the fifteenth century free men who had fled serfdom or sought adventure settled on the steppe along the lower Dnipro: the Cossacks.
  3. 1581: The Ostroh Bible is printed — Prince Kostiantyn Ostrozkyi, one of the richest magnates of the Commonwealth, gathered scholars at his town of Ostroh in Volhynia.
  4. 1621: The Battle of Khotyn — In September 1621 a large Ottoman army under Sultan Osman II reached the fortress of Khotyn on the Dniester.
  5. 1632: The Kyiv-Mohyla Collegium — In 1615 the people of Kyiv founded a brotherhood school on Podil.

The Cossacks and the Hetmanate (1648–1775)

  1. 1648: The Khmelnytsky Uprising — In 1648 Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky raised the Cossacks against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
  2. 8 July 1709: Mazepa and the Battle of Poltava — Ivan Mazepa, hetman from 1687, paid for churches and schools and served Tsar Peter I for twenty years.
  3. 1710: Pylyp Orlyk's Constitution — After Mazepa's death, the Cossack officers in exile at Bender elected Pylyp Orlyk hetman in April 1710.
  4. 1775: The end of the Zaporizhian Sich — In the eighteenth century the Russian Empire took away the Hetmanate's self-government step by step.

Between two empires (1775–1917)

  1. 1794: Odesa is founded — In 1794 the Russian Empire founded a new port on the Black Sea, on the site of the Ottoman fortress of Khadzhibei: Odesa.
  2. 1798: Kotliarevsky's Eneida — In 1798 the first three parts of the Eneida by Ivan Kotliarevsky, from Poltava, came out in St Petersburg.
  3. 1805: Kharkiv University opens — Vasyl Karazin, a scholar and inventor from the Kharkiv region, persuaded the emperor to allow a university in Kharkiv and collected money for it from the…
  4. 1840: Shevchenko's Kobzar — Taras Shevchenko was born a serf in 1814.
  5. 1863–1876: The Valuev circular and the Ems decree — In 1863 the Russian interior minister Petr Valuev sent a secret circular that stopped the printing of Ukrainian school and religious books.
  6. 1891: The first Ukrainians in Canada — In 1891 two men from the village of Nebyliv in Galicia, then part of Austria-Hungary, Ivan Pylypiw and Vasyl Eleniak, travelled to Canada.

The Ukrainian Revolution (1917–1921)

  1. 1917: The Central Rada — When the monarchy fell in the Russian Empire in the spring of 1917, Ukrainian parties and societies formed the Central Rada in Kyiv.
  2. 22 January 1918: Ukraine declares independence — The Central Rada's Fourth Universal, dated 22 January 1918, declared the Ukrainian People's Republic an independent, free and sovereign state.
  3. 22 January 1919: The Act of Unity — In November 1918, as Austria-Hungary fell apart, the West Ukrainian People's Republic was proclaimed in Lviv.

Soviet Ukraine (1921–1991)

  1. 5 October 1922: Shchedryk at Carnegie Hall — Shchedryk is an old New Year song in which a swallow promises a family a good year.
  2. 1928: Derzhprom is completed in Kharkiv — From 1919 to 1934 Kharkiv was the capital of Soviet Ukraine.
  3. 1932–1933: The Holodomor — In 1932 and 1933 a man-made famine, the Holodomor, killed millions of people in Soviet Ukraine.
  4. 22 June 1941–1944: The Second World War in Ukraine — On 22 June 1941 Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and by the end of the year German forces held most of Ukraine; Kyiv fell in September 1941.
  5. 6 November 1960: The Kyiv metro opens — On 6 November 1960 the first line of the Kyiv metro opened, with five stations: the first metro in Ukraine.
  6. 26 April 1986: The Chornobyl disaster — In the night of 26 April 1986 reactor number four of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant exploded during a test, and a cloud of radioactive material spread over…

Independent Ukraine (1991–)

  1. 24 August 1991: Independence — After a failed coup attempt in Moscow in August 1991, the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, passed the Act of Declaration of Independence on 24 August 1991.
  2. 28 June 1996: A constitution and a currency — On 28 June 1996, after a night-long session, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the Constitution of Ukraine, and 28 June became Constitution Day.
  3. 8 June – 1 July 2012: Euro 2012 — In the summer of 2012 Ukraine and Poland jointly hosted the European football championship, the first held in either country.
  4. 2014: The Maidan, Crimea and the Donbas — In November 2013 protests began on Kyiv's Maidan after the government suspended the signing of an association agreement with the European Union.
  5. 24 February 2022: The full-scale invasion — On 24 February 2022 Russia began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.