Україна (Ukrayina)¹; and Крым (Krym or Crimea), now part of Россия (Rossija or Rossiya or Russia)

How is the land laid out?

Most of the Ukraine is plains, low hills and plateuas: part of the East European Plain. Along the northern border with Belarus is the Pryp'yat' Marsh² area, with a lot of water originally accumulated by Ice Age glacial melts and sustained by poor drainage. The northern border continues across the plain until it meets the Central Russian Elevation³--a low plateau--where it turns southeast. West of the plateau--within the Ukraine--are parts of the plains of the Dnipro,⁴ Europe's fourth longest river. It enters the Ukraine in the north center, flows south, then southeast through the Kremenchuts'ke Reservoir, then back southwest through the Kakhovs'ke Reservoir to exit into the Black Sea west of the Kryms'kyy Peninsula.⁵ The first bend steers the river away from the Volyns'kaya⁶-Podil's'ka⁷ Upland that fills most of the southwest Ukraine. Its second bend keeps it from the Pryazovs'ka⁸ Heights which bound the north of the Azov-Caspian Depression. Just northeast of these hills are the Donets'k⁹ Heights that extend eastward into Russia.¹⁰ The southern boundary borders the Black and Azov's seas which are separated by the Kryms'kyy Peninsula. That peninsula is barely attached at the top, contains the Crimean mountains along its south coast and almost connects to Russia's southern Federal District in its eastmost extension.¹¹ Finally in the very southwest corner of the Ukraine is a piece of the Karpats'kyy¹² Mountains traditionally called Ruthenia. South of the mountains--within the Ukraine--is the upper Tysa¹³ River. North of the mountains is the upper Dnister¹⁴ River, Europe's ninth longest. Most of its lower course is in Moldava¹⁵ but its mouth is back in the Ukraine. Another river mouth--the Dunay's¹⁶ forms the border with România.

Who lives there?

Almost three in four speak Ukrainian¹⁷ and almost one in four, Russian, mostly in the east and in cities. All but tiny minorities are Christian, mostly Ukrainian Orthodox, at least in background. Non-observance is common, and may indicate a degree of persistent aetheism, a relic of communism.

There are five metropolitan areas centered in the country with more than a million residents. See Table of Ukrayina cities.

Some of the more known tourist sites include the Crimean resorts such as Yalta, the Karpats'kyy Mountains, Sophievka Park not far from Cherkasy, the fortress at Khotyn and the cities of Kyyiv, L'viv, Odesa, Chernihiv and Poltava.

There are three World Heritage Sites entirely in Ukrayina: Saint-Sophia Cathedral and Related Monastic Buildings, and Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, both in Kyyiv; and the Ensemble of the Historic Center of L'viv. Besides these UNESCO honors the Primeval Beach Forests of the Carpathians, which extends into Slovakia; and the Struve Geodetic Arc, which crosses several nations.

The nation's most important airport is Boryspil International in Kyyiv.

There are natural gas fields called Efremovske, Shebeli and West-Khrestich.

Map

Who was there before?

Most scholars now agree that the speakers of Proto-Indo-European can be identified with the people who built kurgans--burial mounds--in the Eastern Ukraine. By 4000 B.C.E. they had spread westward and eastward beyond the Ukraine and dialect groups evolved into separate language groups. The Balto-Slavonic¹⁸ and Indo-Iranian groups started using 's' sounds instead of 'k' while they still all resided in the southern Ukraine. First the Hitites departed to Anatolia, then later the Indo-Iranians migrated southeastward, while the Baltic language speakers went north from the western Ukraine. Slavonic speakers¹⁹ expanded northwest before splitting into three groups. The Eastern Slavonic began as Old Russian,²⁰ the language of Rus, the kingdom that included Belarus and the oldest parts of Russia as well as the northern Ukraine. The Mongol invasions of the 13th century introduced division, political, and eventually, lingusitic. Ukrainian evolved separately from then until the 18th century by which time it was too different for the Russian Empire to successfully force its northern speech on the south.

But all this continuity masks a great diversity of cultures that have passed through the Ukraine, often becoming majorities in parts of it.

The Iranian language group did not stay put after its southeastward migration. Instead it expanded back across the Ukraine and beyond.²¹ From the seventh to the third centuries B.C.E. the Scythians, speaking an Iranian language,²² dominated the Ukrainian steppes and more.

Another Indo-European group also returned; the Greeks settled the southern Crimea and along the now Russian shores of the Sea of Azov, their Lake Maeotis.

The third Indo-European group to return were the Germans: the Ostrogoths and Herulians. They descended from the north about 200 C.E. but were driven southwest out of the Ukraine by the Huns.

The Huns are the first Turkic group to cross the Ukraine. They were followed by the Bulgars,²³ Khazars,²⁴ Pechenegs,²⁵ and Polovtsians.²⁶ Finally came the Tatars, working for the Mongol invaders, but outnumbering them. Other Turkic groups accompanied or merged into the Golden Horde. Chagatai, the Polovtsian language became the written language of the vast realm, and descendents of Kazakhs²⁷ settled along the Dnipro--the Cossacks.

Other groups that traversed the Ukraine were the Avars (in the North East Caucasian language group) and the Magyars²⁸ (in the Uralic²⁹ language group).

The first Indo-European religion focused on a sky-god that doubled as a supreme father: Zeus-Papaios in Scythian is an example. This ascendency yielded to storm gods like Perun (Proto-Slavic) and fire gods like Ogni (Old Slavic). And sun gods like Solnce (Old Slavic) were part of the panthoen. In this period chanting and sacrifices were ritually important, but sacred buildings and writing were not. Religion had three focii: one, magical and legal--the concern of priests; two, war; and three, fertility and prosperity.

Of course borrowings were common: little seated goddesses from Anatolia were the first.

Later Slavic religion had nine gods. Besides Perun, they were Volos,³⁰ the god of bulls and rams; Khors, a sun god borrowed from Iran's Khursid; Dazhbog, another sun god whose name means giver of riches; Stribog, whose grandsons were the winds; Simarglu, borrowed from the Iranian Simarg, half eagle, half lion; Mokosh, a fertility and rain goddess; Rod, another fertility deity; and the Humid Earth Mother.³¹ Dashbog's father, Svarog, was sometimes considered supreme. He was a solar god and the father of fire. But the moon was at least as important as the sun. Other beliefs included some borrowed burial customs, fairies--rozhenitsa--and the Beast Master who assists hunters.

The early and some of the later invaders brought their indiginous religions but their influence was transient or subtle. This is not true of Christianity and Judaism.

The Khazar state made Judaism the state religion, while tolerating all others. This preference and all tolerance ended when Islamic and Christian states conquered the lands.

The Polish-Lithuanian state again tolerated Jews and it ruled much of today's Ukraine. The Orthodox Christian Zaporozhian³² Cossacks took out their rage against their Catholic rulers by murdering hundreds of thousands of Jews. This bigotry continued under Russian imperial and communist rule and many Jews have departed for the United Sates or Israel. But before they could leave millions were killed by invading Germans.

Chistianity arrived with the conversion of a rule of Kievan Rus who was allied with the Greek Eastern Roman Empire, then the center of Orthodox Christianity. When that empire fell the Ukrainian religion had no practical connection with its Patriarch. Poland-Lithuania promoted a syncretic Ukrainian Catholicsm with eastern rites, but Roman papal overlordship. Orthodoxy was restored in the eastern Ukraine by the Zaporozhian Cossack state--later subsumed into the Russian Empire. In the late 18th century the rest of the Ukraine was absorbed by the Empire, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church dwindled in importance and adherants. (Likewise the Tatars, a majority in Crimea before the Russian conquests, fled in such numbers that they were but one in three there on the eve of the revolution.)

Communism replaced Orthodoxy in imperial Russia for much of the 20th century but Christianity is again ascendent in independent Ukraine.

Around the area

northwest
north, from the east
east
south
west, from the south
west southwest of Ruthenia
west northwest of Ruthenia
west

Footnotes

1. Ukraine in English. The area also includes the Donetsk and Lugansk Republics, which, as of mid-2017, are not under the larger government's control. The degree to which they are informally controlled by Россия (Rossija or Rossiya or Russia) is uncertain.
2. Pripyat in English, Prypjac' in Belorussian, Pripet in Russian. Also called the Polesian or Pinsk Marshes.
3. Russkaja or Russkaya in Russian.
4. Dnieper in English, Dnjapro in Belorussian, Dnepr in Russian.
5. Crimean Peninsula in English.
6. Volyno in English.
7. Podolsk in English.
8. Pre-Azov in English.
9. Donets in English.
10. Rossija or Rossija in Russian.
11. Hence the sea of Azov was called a lake in classical times.
12. Carpathian in English, Karpaţi in Romanian, Kárpátok in Hungarian, Karpati in Serbian.
13. Tisza in Hungarian.
14. Dniester in English, Nistru in Romanian.
15. Moldovia in English; the independent part of Moldavia is traditionally called Bessarabia.
16. Danube in English, Dunărea in Romanian, Dunav in Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian, Duna in Hungarian, Dunaj in Czeck and Slovak, Donau in German. It is Europe's longest river.
17. There are three dialect groups: Eastern, Western and Transcarpathian Ruthenian.
18. Or Slavic.
19. The ethnic group existed by the sixth century. Old Slavonic from the ninth century was probably intelligible by all Slavs.
20. Called Old Ukrainian by local nationalists.
21. It also expanded northeastward.
22. Modern Ossetian and the language of the first century Alans are perhaps descendents.
23. Chuvash in their modern ethnonym. They are not related to the Slavic Bulgarians.
24. Khazar is a political term for a mostly Turkic group. At this time all Turkic dialects were mutually intelligible.
25. Probably Oghuz, the ancestors of the Turks.
26. Or Kipchaks or Cumans.
27. At least in part.
28. Also known as Hungarians.
29. Also known as Finno-Ugric languages.
30. Or Veles.
31. Mati syra zemlja.
32. From za porohamy, the former rapids of the Dnipro (Dneper ), near where they first settled.