A History of Ukrainian Nationalism

Ukrainian nationalism is a phenomenon that evolved over many centuries from a loose sense of local identity into one of the most coherent and resilient national movements in Europe. Its development has been shaped by geography, imperial domination, religious institutions, literary revival, democratic aspiration and repeated waves of violent suppression. Ukrainian nationalism today is the product of a long struggle for self determination, cultural continuity and political independence, and has been transformed by the experience of modern war.

Here we trace the principal phases of that evolution, from the mediaeval era to the present conflict.

Rus’ Identity and the Mediaeval Roots

The earliest foundations lie in the political and cultural world of Kyivan Rus’, the mediaeval polity that united the eastern Slavs from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries. Although modern Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian national narratives each claim descent from Rus’, the territory of modern Ukraine preserves the memory of Kyiv as the centre of political authority and Christianity. Rus’ identity during this period was not ethnic in the modern sense. It was built around princely rule, Orthodoxy and a shared literary culture.

The Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century shattered the old polity. Ukrainian lands fragmented between competing powers and, over time, came under the suzerainty of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth. Within these new polities the Ruthenian people retained their language and faith, but their political autonomy weakened. The Lithuanian and later Polish states, whilst tolerant in many respects, created a cultural environment in which Ukrainian identity developed chiefly in local institutions, village customs and Orthodox confraternities.

The Cossack Revolution and the Birth of a Political Nation

The seventeenth century Cossack uprising under Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky was the first great political expression of a distinct Ukrainian people. The Zaporozhian Cossacks, a semi autonomous frontier community, forged a new political project that combined Orthodox loyalty, military self rule and territorial identity. The Cossack Hetmanate created during the uprising represented the closest approximation to a Ukrainian state before the twentieth century.

Although the Hetmanate was eventually partitioned between the Polish and Russian spheres, it left a durable legacy. The Cossacks became a symbol of freedom, egalitarianism and defence of the homeland. Later generations of Ukrainian intellectuals would draw on Cossack imagery when constructing the modern national movement. The Hetmanate also nurtured a literate elite that preserved chronicles, legal traditions and vernacular language.

Enlightenment and Romantic National Awakening

The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries witnessed the rise of modern nationalism across Europe. For the lands of modern Ukraine the most important developments were the abolition of the Hetmanate by the Russian Empire, the partition of Poland, and the consolidation of Austrian rule in Galicia. These imperial contexts shaped the two principal spheres of Ukrainian national awakening.

In the Russian Empire, Ukrainian language and culture survived largely through folklore, village life and scattered literary circles. The most influential figure of this period was Taras Shevchenko, whose poetry in the Ukrainian vernacular became the cultural cornerstone of modern Ukrainian national consciousness. His work presented the Ukrainian people as an oppressed but proud nation with a right to freedom and dignity.

In Austrian Galicia, conditions were somewhat more favourable. The Habsburg authorities granted a measure of cultural autonomy that allowed the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and local intelligentsia to foster education, publishing and political organisation. The nineteenth century saw the growth of reading societies, cultural clubs and political parties that advanced the idea of a Ukrainian nation with a shared language and history.

Throughout this period the national question remained primarily cultural. It revolved around language, literature and historical memory rather than explicit calls for political independence. Yet the foundations of modern nationalism were firmly established.

Nationalism in the Age of Empires, 1860 to 1914

European modernisation heightened national consciousness. Industrialisation, urbanisation and mass literacy strengthened demands for representation. Ukrainian activists advanced the idea that Ukrainians were a distinct nation separate from Russians and Poles.

The Russian Empire responded with a policy of repression. The Valuev Circular of 1863 and the Ems Ukaz of 1876 restricted the publication and teaching of Ukrainian. The imperial ideology insisted that Ukrainians were part of a single Russian nation. This attempt to erase linguistic and cultural difference inadvertently strengthened the resolve of Ukrainian intellectuals, who became more convinced of the need for national self defence.

Austrian Galicia became the principal centre of political Ukrainianism. Rivalry with the Polish nobility encouraged the Habsburg authorities to support Ukrainian cultural and political development. Ukrainian parties contested elections, controlled local councils and developed modern political programmes. By the eve of the First World War the Ukrainian national movement was well organised, particularly in the west.

Revolution and the First Attempt at Statehood, 1917 to 1921

The collapse of the Russian and Austro Hungarian empires during the First World War created an unprecedented opening for national self determination. In Kyiv the Central Rada, a democratically elected assembly, proclaimed the Ukrainian People’s Republic in 1917. The Rada promoted land reform, democratic freedoms and cultural autonomy.

However Ukraine became a battleground of competing armies. Bolsheviks, White Russian forces, anarchist movements, Polish troops and various independent armies all sought control. The short lived Ukrainian state was undermined by war, foreign intervention and internal division. By 1921 most of Ukrainian territory fell under Soviet control, with western Galicia incorporated into Poland.

Despite defeat, this period left a lasting imprint. It established the memory of modern statehood and created political institutions, symbols and national guard formations that would influence later independence movements.

Ukrainian Nationalism under Soviet Rule, 1921 to 1991

Soviet power brought a contradictory legacy. The policy of korenizatsiya during the 1920s initially promoted Ukrainian language and culture. Kyiv became a centre of literary and artistic innovation. However, Stalin reversed these liberties, crushed the intelligentsia and imposed central control.

The Holodomor of 1932 to 1933 was the most devastating tragedy in Ukrainian history. The man made famine, caused by forced collectivisation and punitive grain requisitions, killed millions. It destroyed the countryside as a political force and traumatised the national consciousness. The famine was followed by mass arrests, purges and cultural repression.

In western Ukraine, under Polish rule, nationalism developed along different lines. Economic discrimination and political repression encouraged radicalisation. The Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), founded in 1929, sought complete independence. During the Second World War the OUN and its armed wing, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), waged a multi sided struggle against Nazi occupation, Soviet forces and Polish partisans. Their legacy remains contentious because of episodes of ethnic violence, yet they became symbols of resistance for later anti Soviet dissidents.

After 1945 Soviet Ukraine was formally recognised as a republic of the USSR with limited international representation. Industrialisation and urban growth continued, but cultural policy remained tightly controlled. Dissident groups in the 1960s and 1970s, including writers such as Vasyl Stus, who spent 13 years in the Gulag where he died for political dissidence, preserved the idea of national autonomy at great personal cost.

The Road to Independence, 1985 to 1991

The reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev allowed suppressed national sentiments to surface. Environmental protests, language campaigns and historical commemorations mobilised broad support. The memory of the Holodomor, previously forbidden, became a rallying point.

The Rukh movement, founded in 1989, united cultural activists, intellectuals and democrats. It demanded sovereignty within a reformed union. By 1991 support for full independence surged following the failed Moscow coup. In the referendum of December 1991 more than 90 per cent of voters endorsed independence. Ukraine re emerged as a sovereign state for the first time since 1921.

Nation Building after 1991

Post independence nationalism was initially moderate. Ukraine pursued a civic model of nationhood based on citizenship rather than ethnicity. The state recognised both Ukrainian and Russian speakers as citizens with equal rights. Yet regional divisions and economic hardship complicated the consolidation of identity.

Political struggles between pro-European and pro-Russian factions shaped the early decades. The Orange Revolution of 2004 and the Revolution of Dignity in 2014 were mass democratic uprisings that reaffirmed popular commitment to sovereignty, human rights and the European orientation of the state. These revolutions helped define a patriotism centred on civic values, individual freedoms and rejection of authoritarianism.

The annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the war in Donbas accelerated the national consolidation. Millions of Russian speaking Ukrainians embraced Ukrainian identity as a political choice grounded in resistance to aggression and defence of democratic values.

Ukrainian Nationalism during the Full Scale War, 2022 to the Present

The full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022 marked the most profound transformation of Ukrainian nationalism since the nineteenth century. The war united the country across linguistic, regional and cultural lines. The population mobilised for defence on a scale unseen in modern Europe. National identity became inseparable from the values of freedom, international law, democratic governance and European integration.

The experience of invasion destroyed the old political division between Ukrainian and Russian cultural spheres. Even citizens whose mother tongue was Russian overwhelmingly identified with the Ukrainian state. The war also revived older themes of historical continuity stretching back to Kyivan Rus’, the Cossack era and the early twentieth century independence struggle.

Ukrainian nationalism in this period is civic, pluralistic and forward looking. It combines pride in cultural heritage with support for modern institutions, technological innovation and alignment with Western systems. It is defined less by exclusion of others and more by defence of sovereignty, dignity and democratic rights.

The history of Ukrainian nationalism is a long narrative of survival and renewal. Born in mediaeval statehood, shaped by Cossack republicanism, forged in nineteenth century cultural revival and tested by totalitarian violence, it has emerged in the twenty first century as one of the clearest examples of civic national identity in Europe.

Ukraine has endured partition, famine, war and repeated attempts at cultural erasure. Yet she remains anchored in a deep sense of historical continuity and a unifying commitment to freedom. The contemporary Ukrainian nation is not the product of a single moment but the culmination of centuries of struggle for autonomy, recognition and self determination.