Perspective: The emergence of a sovereign Ukraine in 1991 was the culmination of a century-long struggle for independence. And it reminds us that Ukrainian national identity has been deeply felt for more than a century.
He was wrong. As the Baltic republics issued multiple declarations of independence in 1991, and the Soviet Union was in the throes of disintegration, the Ukrainian parliament — under pressure from Moscow to remain part of a post-Soviet union of states — held a vote on independence on Aug. 24, 1991. The results were staggering, with 346 MPs voting in favor, five abstaining and a mere two voting against.
The first Ukrainian declarations of independence took place during and immediately after World War I. The Central Rada — a coordinating body of Ukrainian political and cultural organizations in Kyiv — proclaimed independence for Ukraine on Jan. 22, 1918. The emotional tone of the proclamation, penned by the Rada’s head, historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky, was unmistakable.
Between March and November 1918, a sovereign, independent Ukraine with its capital in Kyiv functioned for the first time. But with the defeat of the Central Powers and the end of World War I on Nov. 11, 1918, the victorious allies declared the treaties of Brest-Litovsk invalid.
But as the Russian Civil War raged on — a conflict between the Bolshevik Red Army and the anti-Bolshevik White Army in which both opposed Ukrainian independence — hopes for Ukrainian sovereignty became increasingly dim. Ukrainian and Polish leaders came to a political and military agreement in April 1920 with the Treaty of Warsaw, in which Poland formally recognized the Ukrainian People’s Republic. Ukraine formally recognized Polish sovereignty over East Galicia and western Volynia.
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