The Ukrainians are a Slavic people of central-eastern Europe. They are the descendants of several peoples who inhabited the vast area extending from north of the Black Sea to the borders of Russia, Poland, Moldova, Belarus and Slovakia. Ukraine had a very turbulent history, a fact justified by its geographical position. It was the first Scandinavian colonists who founded the Kingdom of Kyiv (Kyivan Rus), long before Kyivan Rus leader Volodymyr accepted Christianity in 988.

The Ukrainian language is an East Slavic languages. In Imperial Russia the Ukrainian language was persecuted (see Russification); however, as most people were illiterate, persecutions had little effect. During the Soviet era, the Ukrainian language was at times encouraged and at others repressed. It has been partly supplanted, especially in urban centers, by Russian, the official language of the Soviet State. Nevertheless, the majority of Ukrainians still speak Ukrainian. Great efforts are made nowadays to re-establish the use of Ukrainian throughout the country, something which seems very difficult for the time being.

From an anthropological point of view, Ukrainians are a mixture of the Alpine, Dinaric, Baltic and Nordic races.  This seems very natural, if one considers the identity of peoples like Norsemen, Slavs, Celts, Goths and Scythians, who inhabited the area from time to time. Evidence of Asian (namely Mongoloid) traits are also found among Ukrainians, although this fact must be considered to be insignificant in comparison to the extended Turkic and Mongolian invasions in Ukraine.

Ukraine originally formed part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, later of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, finally gaining its independence in 1991.

See also

• Ruthenes
• Rusyns
• Ukrainian Canadian

External links

• Map of territories inhabited by Ukrainians before 1939 (http://harazd.net/~nadbuhom/mapy-historia/mapy_7.htm)

uk:Українці de:Ukrainer