Like many of you I know a lot more about Ukraine today than I tend a few months ago. To follow up on my round-up of articles on current events I thought I’d add a few factoids I’ve learned about the history of the region which feel tangentially relevant.
1. There have been two previous referendums* in the Crimea. One in 1991 and one in 1994, both of which were overwhelming in favour of closer ties with Russia and greater autonomy for Crimea.
2. Ivan Katchanovski has a really interesting paper on the politics of the Second World War in contemporary Ukraine, written last year. Here he explores the close relationship between attitudes towards the heroes and villains of WWII with how Ukrainians see modern politics.
3. @SplinterSunrise tweets that “The industrial city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine is in the news. Originally known as Hughesovka due to Welsh industrial expertise.”
4. Ukrainians fought on both sides in the First World War (although most fought for Tsarist Russia) leading to mass shootings of civilians as ‘collaborators’ by fellow Ukrainians.
5. In total more than 1.5 million people died in the Ukraine in the period from 1914- 1921 which includes both the First World War and the ‘War of Independence’ which led to Ukraine becoming a founder member of the USSR in 1922.
6. Something like 10 million people died of starvation in 1932 – 33. This is known as the Holodomor. Thanks Comrade Stalin.
7. There were over 1.6 million Ukrainian military casualties during the Second World, and 5.2 civilian deaths (from all factors, including the Holocaust). This means over 16% of the population died during the conflict, of the USSR regions only Belarus suffered greater tragedy.
8. That’s when the bad stuff stopped, yeah? No. In 1953 almost one million people were forcibly deported from the Ukraine for either being ethnically German or Crimean Tartars. Today we call this ethnic cleansing.
9. Viktor Yushenko (pictured right, before and after the assassination attempt), who was President of the country from 2005 – 2010 had to content with electoral fraud, poisoning, and street violence during the 2004 election, which kind of indicates corruption and violence aren’t new. Shame he was such a crap President. It’s interesting that there’s so little discussion of or comparisons with the Orange Revolution these days.
10. The word ‘Ukraine’ translates as ‘borderland’.
11. Ukraine has not had nuclear weapons for over twenty years.
A few links from the press to compare positions;
- The Morning Star on the origins of the crisis.
- The US Socialist Worker on Ukraine and the national question.
- The UK Socialist Worker on imperial shifts over Ukraine.
- The Socialist lays out a very similar position on the crisis.
- Jonathon Freedland is as even handed as the Guardian can get.
* apparently referendums is the correct pluralisation.